Tech Meltdown: 2005 Summer Edition
August 20th, 2005This summer will go down as one of the worst for the Armstrong family in terms of technical problems. Not only has 3hive been plagued with technical difficulties, we lost the first iBook, our dryer has been threatening to boycott drying of clothes for a few months but finally succeeded in it’s goals on Thursday of this week, the Nikon D70’s weird shutter problem got to a point where half of the photos we wanted to take weren’t being taken, our front hose faucet decided to not turn off, one of the front sprinklers decided that it would be a good time to launch it’s popup piece into the driveway (where Leta discovered it and started making noises like she was asking it questions about why it was in the driveway) and the main computer in the house decided that the “Security” update I downloaded and installed should completely dork the computer into a funk so severe that several lawyers were called and consulted about punitive and/or emotional damages. The main computer of the house holds around 40 gigabytes of photos, going back several years.
Here is a rough timeline of the day.
6:45am: Leta makes her first of many awakening noises. We have learned to wait for her to be pleasant before going in to get her, otherwise her behavior is erratic and can lead to a Bad Day. She was fairly sweet this morning.
7:00am: Administer the morning bottle (yes she’s still on the bottle, she won’t take a sippy cup just yet, and we’re tired of the screaming about it).
8:00am: Sit down to watch kids shows and play with Leta. We decide that we’re going to Sears to look at dryers. With a kid, laundry becomes a way of life.
9:10am: Purchase dryer at Sears. It is a badass. 12 months, no interest. Only real way to afford the badass dryer. Plus, rebate and free delivery/install with fresh duct work. Mmmm fresh duct work. Linty fresh.
9:40am: Arrive home from Sears. Decide that it’s so pleasant out, we’ll do some gardening. Leta refuses to put feet on grass. Must tell her to quit being such a baby about it.
10:15am: Discover front faucet is not going to shut off after Heather asks why the hose is still running. Have to run downstairs and find shut off valve and grab wrenches to dismantle faucet.
10:38am: Faucet reassembled with washer from ancient toolbox. Probably purchased 10 years ago, but still rubbery fresh. Seems to be holding.
10:39am: Leta has first of four poopy diapers. On the evenings and weekends, I am on poopy diaper detail.
12:04pm: Leta is laid down for a nap. She isn’t pleased about this, but succumbs 18 seconds after crib dropoff.
12:10pm: Gathering all my crap for a stint on the main house computer to edit and print some photos for JB and McQueen of our recent road trip. Maybe do some more work on some shots and post them to flickr.
12:13pm: Realize that machine needs to be restarted due to a security update. Machine is super sluggish shutting down, forcing me to hard reset the machine.
12:18pm: Upon reboot, greeted with flashing question mark. Begin to chant mantra, “This is not good” over and over a la prayer in Frannie and Zoey. Will not stop this until 11:08pm.
12:19 - 1:30pm: Scurry about house trying to find recovery CDs and hard drives. None work. Both Leta and Heather awaken. Heather knows something is wrong and is terrified that our run of bad technical luck is going to destroy the family and take the farm. I console her mentioning a couple of options, one including firearms and perhaps a cricket bat, the other her new iBook and a FireWire cable.
Decide to try to install older version of operating system on main computer. Was at Mac OS 10.4.2. Will try to do a fresh install of 10.4 and rebuild the OS updates by hand. Can’t. Machine doesn’t even show it’s own hard drive as an install option. Start to claw eyes out and then stopping while remembering that eyes are useful and that would be misdirected rage.
1:30 - 2:08pm: Main computer is not seen on FireWire. Decide it’s Google time. Seems like the update has caused others a lot of grief. Determine that it’s time to call in the wolf.
2:45pm: Purchase the excellent Disk Warrior from Alsoft. They did not pay me to write this: IF YOU OWN A MAC, YOU NEED TO BUY THIS SOFTWARE TODAY AND INSTALL IT IMMEDIATELY. Download the software and install on iBook.
3:00pm - 5:00pm: Attach main computer to iBook via FireWire cable. Reboot main computer, holding down the “T” key, forcing it to boot into something called “Target Mode”. I believe this is to allay any urge to destroy the machine through physical means. Launch Disk Warrior on iBook and after a moment, it brings up the drive on the main computer, but says there are problems. I turn it loose, allowing it to do it’s thing.
Thirty minutes later, I decide to check on the iBook. It has fallen asleep and Disk Warrior is displaying a disconcerting message. I decide to fix the energy settings so that the machine will not go to sleep when plugged in. I force-quit Disk Warrior and start it back up, again seeing the drive and letting Disk Warrior do it’s thing.
I decide to walk away in the middle of this process and go to the hardware store to buy a replacement washer or sprinkler head, Heather and Leta joining me. Leta decides that it will be necessary to bring three toothbrushes with her to the hardware store.
We return home and I install the new sprinkler head.
5:04pm: I check on the iBook. Disk Warrior has mentioned some problems and that I’ll need to click some stuff to fix them. I do. In the middle of the fix, the main computer hard drive shows up and I browse it to see if the photos are still there. They are. I click the rest of the necessary buttons and decide to walk away.
6:02pm: iBook check reveals that there was a problem. I repeat the process in Disk Warrior.
7:20pm: Leta is in bed, and this time, there are fewer files with problems, but some of the files are ones that other people have mentioned the “Security Update” breaks. Hmmm. Ponder further legal action and click some more buttons.
8:30pm: Do a check. Looks like it worked! I can see the main computer hard drive in the Finder of the iBook! Breathing is much easier.
Eject main computer hard disk from iBook. Disconnect cables and reboot main computer. Wow, the fans on the main computer sure are getting louder by the second… The Apple logo is there though. And the little “shit is happening” widget is showing that the computer sees the hard drive. Decide to let the computer do it’s thing and walk away.
10:00pm: Machine has not restarted, appears stuck on logo screen. Decide to see if I can reinstall Mac OS 10.4 (machine was at 10.4.2. Remember all those paragraphs ago?).
10:40pm: Install complete! Machine boots up. Files still there. Will update to 10.4.2.
10:59pm: All updates (not including ones labelled “Security”) are installed and machine reboots. Heather asks for verification and I show her the 160 folders of our photos. She sighs and I shut down the machine, vowing that tomorrow, we back it all up. The pain.
I’ll write about the Nikon D70’s issues later, but I’m writing a lenghty letter to Nikon in my head. I don’t normally write manufacturers directly, but this time, it’s personal. o
August 23rd, 2005 at 9:14 am
This is a prime example of a situation where Windows would have been the better option. You had to go through so much grief to get your files back. If you were on Windows, and your box crashed, you would have slit your wrists and accepted the fact that all your data was toast, saving you all that extra work of recovering your files and continuing on with life (which is sure to be chalked full of more system failures)
Glad you got your data back. I had much better luck with that last security update although it did give me a scare when the system hung on shutdown :o(
Mike
August 23rd, 2005 at 9:43 am
Back up. Back up. BACK UP!!
August 23rd, 2005 at 10:13 am
Sort of wandered in here but I’m hearing more and more not-so-good news about Macs. I have always “had to” use a PC but really want to “go Mac”…feeling less and less sure now…they’re all just crap right?…pencil and paper rarely fail…help?
August 23rd, 2005 at 10:36 am
Grammar Retentive,
Why don’t you take your shit out on the road and go after someone like Paris Hilton for her “Thats Hot!” (notice the missing apostrophe) campaign and leave the rest of us here to enjoy Jon’s site in peace. How’s about that?
August 23rd, 2005 at 10:59 am
Went through the HD panic last night, but my D70 is only a couple months old, so no issues yet. Naturally though, because I bought a Mack ext warr, I doubt ANYTHING will go wrong.
praypraypraypray…
On the other hand, I didn’t buy AppleCare for my iPod, and the click wheel died 7 mos in (outside free shipping time). They should call it AppleExtortion.
At the risk of incurring the wrath of the blurboclan, I wouldn’t buy another piece of Apple hardware if it was 75% off. I know of lots of people with iPod problems, and a reseller I used to work at was an Apple warr depot, so I’ve seen the crap first-hand. Your iBook and HD issues (as well as the other comments here) only serve to reinforce my opinion.
And seriously, WHO critiques the grammar of someone after their technoweekend from hell?
August 23rd, 2005 at 12:45 pm
If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’ve got gremlins :/ I suppose Nikon D70s don’t respond well to “technical taps”, do they? And how many GB does 160 folders (holy cow) take up? If you haven’t already copied them to DVD, I assume that’s near the top of the list now!
August 23rd, 2005 at 12:51 pm
Mac vs. PC = All computers suck. PC users, remember XP SP2??
One thing can be certain, hard drives fail. Data needs be backed up and done so often. We have been careless and are paying a price. I think Macs have been, in my experience, slightly more reliable than their PC counterparts.
The iPod battery issue is interesting… I think that there are third-party alternatives to the service plan that Apple offers. I don’t think that it means iPods suck. Just that ownership means things and some of those things are going to include battery replacement.
I’ll have more to say about all of this in a post soon, once the maelstrom of reality (and apparently retrograde magnetic issues) settle down.
August 23rd, 2005 at 1:26 pm
you should have expected it, mercury was in retrograde.
August 23rd, 2005 at 2:29 pm
Delurking to say I’m sorry to hear about your meltdown. I’m glad you were able to get a good Franny and Zooey reference out of it, though.
August 23rd, 2005 at 2:58 pm
What a hellish experience! I would totally lose my marbles if I thought I lost all my pics on my computer. Glad recovery is happening!
Don’t sweat the bottle thang. My nephew never even went to the bottle. He went from the breast to the glass, never would take a bottle EVER. For more than a year my brother and sister-in-law were confined to home, or close to it, because they would have to stop frequently for breast-feeding stops on any long trip (such as to my house 4+ hours away). She was home with the kids, so that was advantageous, but TJ just never ever agreed to take a bottle. So after a little over a year of breastfeeding, he finally began drinking from a cup. Thank goodness they are done with that; their third, who is their youngest and their final child, is Rachel who is 3.
And ROCK ON with your response to grammar-retentive!!! This is a weblog for criminy’s sake, not an entry for “Grammatical Review Monthly”.
August 23rd, 2005 at 9:58 pm
Grammar:
My grammar died a long time ago. I suggest you read Mark Twain. Note his grammar. Oh, his real name was Samuel Clemons. Get Life.
August 24th, 2005 at 7:05 am
I’ve had similar drive-scares, not just with personal files but work stuff too (I’m self-employed), so now I have my boot drive RAID-mirrored, and a two backup Firewire drives RAID-mirrored. I do retrospect incremental backups of all documents to the Firewire RAID and to a remote FTP site every night, and I backup the entire boot drive to the Firewire RAID every other day with SuperDuper! (yes, the exclamation point is part of the name). So in order for me to lose files, I would have to lose four drives at once as well as a remote FTP server.
That doesn’t seem geeky does it?
August 24th, 2005 at 8:43 am
When my dad was working on his PhD, our computer crashed and he lost 4 chapters of it. Ever since then, I have been an obsessive back up fiend. Zip drives, CD-Rom’s, stuff on the desktop and the laptop. It drives my husband crazy, but your story just proves I’m not insane.
As to grammar, I spend most of my days now reading law briefs and you would most likely shrivel up and die from the poor grammar that is required of legal language. It really is not the end of the world, so please relax. And watch out, your participle is dangling.
August 24th, 2005 at 9:12 am
Happy Anniversary! Try to forget about all the turmoil and have a great time.
August 24th, 2005 at 10:12 am
Gotta back you up there - Disk Warrior is AWE.SOME. I used it a few years back on my old iMac (Granite!) when I had a similiar lack of function occur. Granted, it took having to acquire a floppy drive to use the disk my uncle gave me of Disk Warrior, but damn, it was worth it.
August 24th, 2005 at 11:23 am
Q: What did the SWAT Team penis say to the SWAT Team condom?
A: Cover me; I’m goin’ in!
Happy Anniversary.
August 24th, 2005 at 11:23 am
You know what you’re doing, yet still had a hell of a day sorting the technological issues of your exploding computer out.
Perhaps backing up my own files would be a good idea.
Hmmm.
August 24th, 2005 at 2:58 pm
Having been a Mac consultant for a number of years, I will second the DiskWarrior recommendation. I also recommend AppleJack. It’s a little app that runs in single-user mode (apple-s while starting up). It also has saved my ass (and others’) many times. When I do system updates, here’s the drill:
1) Run Apple Disk Utility and repair permissions
2) Install the update
3) Restart into single user mode
4) Run AppleJack
5) Restart
It may seem excessive, but I RARELY have the kinds of problems that many people talk about after updating their system software.
August 24th, 2005 at 3:44 pm
The only thing that saved my computer the last time it did something like that was the cables. They’re threaded through the desk it’s on and in order to pitch the boat-anchor off the balcony I needed to disconnect all of them. I made it as far as the moniter power cord before calming down. Too bad though, it woulda been nice to see that puppy fly, and bounce, and perhaps burst into flames…
August 24th, 2005 at 6:33 pm
First of all, hilarious post.
Second, I’m not sure if I should love you and your wife (for entertaining me this afternoon) or hate you (for entertaining me so much that I couldn’t stop reading posts and got very little work done). In either case, I’ll be back - love, love, love both blogs.
August 24th, 2005 at 6:34 pm
It never would have occured to me until today, but you might want to hang onto some of the major parts to your large appliances. I reference the story mentioned on my blog about some nutcases from Topeka who protest the funerals of fallen soldiers because “God Hates America”, etc:
http://ninjapoodles.blogspot.com/2005/08/speechless.html
Then I stumbled across this comment on the story on a local newspaper’s website:
“I am the most peaceful person on earth. I avoid killing ants in the kitchen if I can help it. But I am putting the folks from Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas on notice that I do have a solid stainless steel 3 and 1/2 foot drive shaft out of a Speed Queen washing machine that I will lay upside their heads should they try their mind-blowing stunts of ignorance within the city limits of Fort Smith, Arkansas.”
I was dumbstruck by that comment, a little…but I guess if you are a “peaceful person”, you might not have conventional weapons on hand with which to go upside someone’s head.
Just something to keep in mind.
August 24th, 2005 at 9:53 pm
And I’m thinking if Jon does get a hold of that shaft, it’s probably headed for Nikon headquarters.
August 25th, 2005 at 8:31 am
Good Grief, sounds like our household,lol.
What is it with toddlers and things in there mouth? I could write a whole page on the things I found in Aidans…http://blog.myspace.com/23521301
August 25th, 2005 at 8:23 pm
1) Happy anniversary to a couple who seem to compliment each other in every way. May you always be strong for each other.
2) Don’t sweat the small stuff, and it’s mostly small stuff. As long as your big rocks (Heather, Leta) still fit in your jar of life, who cares how much sand gets poured in it.
3) I so totally miss comments at dooce on Chuck Fridays…