Postcards From Across the Pond

Five days ago, my computer and I went into a room.
Today, only one of us came out. And it wasn’t me.

Over the past few weeks, I have noticed that my usually speedy laptop was not so speedy anymore. I tried a few things to perk it up, but nothing worked, and on the 10th of February it came to a virtual standstill. And so, the following morning, I got up early and initiated the Return to Factory Settings sequence.

For those unfamiliar with this process, it involves (or used to involve) performing a sequence not unlike that required to launch an Apollo Rocket, whereupon one’s computer would commit ritual suicide and become reborn as a brand-new machine. The subsequent copying and tweaking of data and software could—and often did—take up to two days. So, this decision was not taken lightly.

I was, however, pleasantly surprised to discover that, since I last undertook this task, it has been greatly simplified. Instead of rebooting and holding down buttons and selecting this or that option, resetting was a simple button in the Settings, and you had the option of keeping your data or doing a totally clean reboot.

I began The Sequence at 5:40 AM on the 11th of February. By 6:00 AM, it had finished, and by 8:00 o’clock, all the third-party installations, tweaking, and configuring had been accomplished.

Then I went to Brighton for a lovely day out.

The following morning, eager to get back to work, I opened my laptop only to be greeted by Microsoft’s SmartApp, which was very concerned that I had not turned it on and insisted that it was in my best interest to do so. Therefore, I turned it on, and was immediately unable to connect to the Internet.

Fortunately, the SmartApp was pretty smart, and soon realized that I was not connected to the Internet, and helpfully provided a link where I could get Help. Unfortunately, not being connected to the Internet, I was unable to access it. So, I tried to turn it off, but was told, in no uncertain terms, that if I did, I would not be able to turn it back on and that would be a very, very bad thing, indeed. Having no other option, however, I turned it off. And it didn’t do a blind bit of good.

I banged my head against a wall for several hours trying to fix it until I surrendered and initiated a second Reset Sequence.

Having just completed one, I was able to get the laptop back in shape in just under two hours.

The next morning, Monday the 13th, I woke early again, eager to get back to work. Since I had neglected my choir preparations due to my laptop being unusable, I logged onto the site where I get most of my backing tracks, only to find it would not work.

Two days of emails to and from their support later, it was still impossible to use their site. Then one of my social media sites became blocked and, finally, Google decided I could no longer access my account, meaning everything I used—outside of my Microsoft account—stopped working.

And so, on the 15th, I initiated the Restore Sequence for a third time.

By now, I was getting pretty good at it, and I knew where the pitfalls were. It took more time, but I systematically re-installed all my third-party applications, one at a time, checking the recalcitrant sites and my Google account after each install. Eventually, I discovered the problem was with my security software, and I was able to dig down into its dark depths where I discovered a system setting that was causing the issues. I switched it off. Problems solved.

After four days of not being able to work on The Book, I at last settled down to get back to writing. The first thing I did was try to open the OneNote file that, over the past nine years, has become the Series Bible—a folder filled with sub-folders for each book, and sub-folders within them containing plots, outlines, research, photos, maps, notes, etc.—a file I was accessing right up until I did the recent, third, Reset. Except it wasn’t there.

Somehow, for some reason, it had disappeared from my hard drive. It hadn’t been deleted, as it was not in my Trash Bin. And it wasn’t even in my OneDrive backup files on the web. It was completely and inexplicably gone.

Now, for a less cautious individual, this would have been an unmitigated disaster. The file contained nine years of accumulated data, a vast and irreplaceable amount, that was essential to the completion of the books. But, as a cautious man, I do not rely solely on Microsoft’s OneDrive, and routinely do a full back-up onto an external hard drive. The file, thankfully, was there. I copied it to the laptop, opened it and found all my data intact. Then, because it was getting late, I went to bed.

This morning, I once again rose early, eager to get back to work. Naturally, the first thing I did was open OneNote to access the Series Bible. And it was gone. Disappeared. Again.

Flummoxed, but not out of options, I copied it to my laptop from the external hard drive again, opened it again, and again, found all my data intact. But then, as I was tweaking some of the data, the file disappeared. I was in a tab, entering text, and *poof* it vanished, along with the entire file.

I do not know how or why this is happening, so I finally admitted defeat. Instead of conquering the computer, I have, instead, gone behind its back by copying the file to a NON-OneDrive folder, where it seems to be safely residing (I just checked) and from where I will continue to back it up to the external drive.

Five days, three Reset Sequences, a raft of different issues after each reinstall, and I am giving up, bowing down to the laptop as the victor, grateful that it is, for now, allowing me to access the Internet and work with the data it wishes me to see.

A retired IT Professional, humbled by a laptop; perhaps it’s time to rethink my life choices.