Saturday Mornings
I’ve only slept in one of the three Saturday mornings so far. I’ve been in “maintenance mode” since March where the weekend distance is no different than the weekday. Now, the weekend long distance either doubles or triples from the norm, depending on what the schedule dictates. After doing the longer ones my legs are sore as I’m not accustomed to it, but this is counterbalanced with a small sense of accomplishment as a small obstacle is overcome.
There’s an App for That
The screen shows me how many push-ups I need to do.
I just laugh because there’s no way I could do that many. Maybe if it was the first set, yes, but the last set? No.
The Bad Hard Drive
Part of the return process involves running a diagnostic program on the bad hard-drive. Per their website, 20% of returned drives are actually bad. It would have been helpful if I read that part before purchasing a replacement drive, transferring the data to it and spending an additional two hours formatting data off the bad drive. I could fall within the 80% of the perceived faulty drives that are actually good.
After performing tests on the drive in question, the program refers me to a second diagnostic DOS based-program which is bootable from either a 3.25″ floppy drive (who still uses those?) or a CD.
The Drive to Drive Transfer
The replacement hard drive arrives in the mail. It’s warm as it has been baking on my front doorstep for several hours. After spending an hour getting past the POST 21 error messages, it’s time to copy the contents of the failing hard-drive to the good one.
I know one of the commercial programs that does the job is Norton Ghost; however, there is a free software program called G4L (Ghost for Linux) that will also get the job done. Presumably ghosting means to duplicate. After creating a bootable CD image of the program, I plugged in the bad hard-drive and its replacement and started the computer up.
You’re presented with a text-based menu system. I choose option 1 which requires typing g4l and pressing enter.
Saturday Mornings
The distance isn’t long enough to make two laps around the neighborhood this time. I’m not complaining. Really, I’m not.
I tempted to sleep-in and do this in the evening.
Memory Ajar
Pulling out the video card to reseat two memory sticks, I mutter, “I wish I had a Mac” as I wouldn’t be dealing with this crap. I quickly dismiss the thought as Macs are computers with training wheels (e.g., they just work) and resume trying to fix this new problem.
I must have nudged something as I pulled out the cables from the bad hard drive, introducing another POST error.
After the computer starts up, it automatically shuts down and powers up a second time. An LED display on the Intel motherboard displays the number 21 and beeps three times. The error is memory related as I encountered the same program earlier this year after transporting the computer from Orlando. I figured that the ride might have of bumped the memory out of place.
[ Video showing the problem (23 sec) ]
The following actions corrected the problem when I first experienced it a few months ago:
- Pull up a small white latch on the PCI-Express video slot.
- Remove the video card.
- Remove the two sticks of memory, after pulling back the pair of white levers that hold each memory stick in place.
- Vacuum the inside of the computer, taking care not to suck up anything.
- Insert the two sticks of memory into the blue memory banks, closing the white levers on each stick.
- Insert the video car into the PCI-Express video slot.
- Push down the small white latch on the PCI-Express video slot.
If you omit step 1, part of the latch will break when attempting to force out the video card.
This time around, I omit step 4.
Sometime later, I shine a flashlight into the case computer case and see a small hair resting over the top side of the video card and the over-sized computer heat sink. I remove it with a pair of tweezers, and the computer starts up without a problem.
Update 1 – The problem happened again. Tried flashing the BIOS to a new version. I have a feeling that I’ll have to RMA the motherboard.
The Second Loop
Half way into the second loop around the neighborhood last Saturday morning, I think to myself, “I just want to go home.” Things begin to warm up as the sun climbs higher into the sky. People are doing their routes on the opposite side of the road.
I think of how it will feel doing four loops around the neighborhood instead of two. Will it be any cooler outside? Probably not.
Saturday Mornings
If I head out the door by 6 a.m., I should be finished by 8 a.m. The time required to do laps around the neighborhood grows over the next several months and by September if I leave at the same time, I should be done by 10 a.m.
Building One
One of the new folks who started working last week attempted an ultra in 2009. His first name is a bit unusual so I Googled him out of curiosity. Mention of the ultra is listed in the About section of his blog. Although he quit half way into it due to foot problems, he traveled twice the distance than I have ever gone. He also encountered flip-flop man in St. Petersburg while preparing for it.
He sits in the next building across from mine, in Building One. If you work in that building, chances are at that I won’t see you. I’ll have to introduce myself one of these days.
HDD
An abbreviation for Hard Disk Drive.
The computer screen glows to life with a task bar at the bottom of the desktop and a dialog message. I must have left the computer on all day again. You can’t tell because it’s just as quiet on as it is off. As the monitor comes to full brightness, I can make out the message better. It reads something to the effect of that I should immediately back up all of my data because the hard drive is going bad.
I turn the computer off, wait a few seconds and power it back on. After the computer POSTs with a solid single beep, a text message is displayed. The white text tells me that my hard drive is going bad and that I should turn the computer off. I press enter to load the operating system and everything looks fine.
Shutdown and restart. The same warning message appears.
When I purchased this particular hard disk drive, the half the customers complained that their hard drives went bad in about 3 – 6 months. Do you know what? They were right.