A little story of me and my laptop

4/8/2011, 10:00 AM - Something is clearly wrong. Random things are popping up everywhere on my screen and something called "Windows Restore", which I'm pretty sure is not an actual Windows program, keeps trying to run willy nilly and when I try to stop it it only gets worse.

4/8/2011, 10:30 AM- Further examination reveals all of my files and programs have been wiped and Windows is flashing something called a "critical hard drive error". I freak out.

4/8/2011, 10:40 AM - I realize that only the files and shortcuts from programs not currently running have been wiped, and luckily my itunes was running at the time of the incident. Heart attack averted.

4/8/2011, 11:35 AM - After making sure all of my music files are backed up on discs, I throw my defunct laptop in my backpack and drive to school to meet up with a first year student who wants tips on interviewing with my employer. I am 8 minutes late.

4/8/2011, 12:45 PM - After my meeting I head over to the laptop repair center with my sad little computer. The guy working there looks shockingly like Zac Efron from High School Musical but with shaggier hair and a much lower-cut shirt. The low-cut shirt weirds me out. I explain to Zac Efron that there is a virus on my computer which has wiped out everything since the dinosaurs, and then open up my computer to show him said virus and the weird "Windows Restore" malware program. "Oh yeah," he says. "You've got problems."

4/11/2011, 9:14 AM - I get a call from the repair center that my laptop is ready to be picked up. Oh joy! Unfortunately I don't have class on Monday and wasn't planning to be at school at all that day. It's been a rough weekend without my computer and I feel utterly usesless and unproductive, but I figure one more day won't hurt, and if I can make dinner plans with my parents maybe I can mooch off of their computer.

4/12/2011, 8:30 AM - I go to the laptop repair center again to retrieve my hopefully fixed computer. Zac Efron greets me and hands my my laptop. He explains that they ran a bunch of diagnostics on it and it looks like nothing was even wrong with it. I am skeptical. I sit down and open my computer to see if the malware is still running. It is.
"Hey," I say pointing to the screen. "Remember this virus thing that the whole reason I brought my laptop in in the first place? Yeah... it's still here."
Zac Efron scratches his head. "Huh. I have no idea how they missed that."
Yeah me either.
"Well, it looks like we're going to have to re-image your computer."
Awesome.

4/12/2011, 3:00 PM - After a few meetings in Burnsville for one of my school projects, I head back to campus and pick up my laptop. Good as new.

4/13/2011, 9:35 AM - I decide to get all clever and try to restore my files from dropbox. However, it turns out backing up on dropbox is not the same as backing up on an external hard drive - when you just drag and drop an entire folder into dropbox it only saves the .lnk shortcut, and not the whole folder. Also it turns out that if you foolishly decide to act like you know what you are doing when it comes to technology and attempt to convert the .lnk file into another type of file you can actually open, it will f up all of the .lnk shortcuts on your laptop and turn everything into an encrypted word file. Oops.

4/13/2011, 9:35 AM - After another short stint in the laptop repair center, sans Zac Efron, everything is fine. Never again will I attempt to fix something on my computer by myself. Never.

And now, back to your regularly scheduled programming.
Also thank god for disc backup.