** PC Hell: When the Internet Saved me in the Nick of Time

A friend of mine (Ritch, from Kenya) sent in this article and asked me whether I could publish it here so that it can also help someone who is going through what he went through some weeks ago.

There is nothing as disconcerting (and frightening!) as having to face the prospect of losing all the data you have on your PC due to a computer crash or some other such thing.

Imagine you have worked so hard to put together some information and when you need it “badly” you cannot access it because there is a problem with your computer.

It may be some sort of virus that ventured into your system (because you were careless enough not to use an anti-virus) and it “chewed” your priceless files. Or it may be some other more sinister PC problems.

Three weeks ago I experienced something of the sort that made wish the ground would just open and swallow me alive (of course not literally!).

A lady friend of mine lent me the laptop of her daughter to use and return when her daughter came home for the holidays. Her daughter was away in a boarding school. [Mind you, her daughter’s files were in the hard drive (an 80GB HDD)]

I was very grateful to her and I knew the laptop would make my writing job easier as I could carry it around wherever I went. I was very careful with it and did not dare use a flash or a “suspicious” CD on it.

To download my pieces from the laptop, I would go to an internet café and upload the files to the internet. I would use a flash to carry the pieces from the net to my desktop computer at home. I did not want to take chances with the laptop. You might call me naïve. But then, you would want someone you’ve lent something to be careful with it, wouldn’t you?

Disaster struck, anyway, despite the “elaborate” precaution I had taken.

One day, I was at home writing some of my pieces when out of the blues the screen turned blue. I was jolted. My face flushed and I felt the blood drain from my hands! I had never seen anything like it before.

The screen read, in part: Windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer. Unmountable Boot Volume …”

I tried to recall what I had done wrong but found nothing in my memory accusing me of any “wrong doing”. I called a friend of mine who is a computer technician and explained to him the symptoms (i.e. the screen error message). He whistled under his breath and said that he was on his way to my place.

On arrival, he listened to the whirring of the hard drive and said it was abnormal. He asked to go with the laptop to his office to check it more closely. I readily agreed.

The following day he called and asked me to go over to his office. I literally scurried to his office. One look at his face told me that all was not well.

He told me that the HDD (Hard Disk Drive) was “fried” and I would have to replace it. Oh my!

“The hard drive is gone, my friend,” he said apologetically. I couldn’t believe my ears.

I just did not have the slightest clue how I would break the bad news to my lady friend. I shuddered at the thought of ever dropping the bombshell on her laps.

Dejectedly and overly worried, I took the laptop and headed home promising my computer friend to get back to him the minute I had come to a decision.

At home, I decided to find out what “Unmountable Boot Volume” means. So I “typed” those words into Google on my internet enabled handset.

The second item in the search results read: “Troubleshooting the Unmountable Boot Volume Error Message in Windows XP.” I quickly clicked on it. What I read put a smile on my lips. It said that the problem could be solved with a few simple steps. [This error message means that Windows XP is having trouble booting from Drive C].

I copied the steps on a piece of paper. The next instant I was heading to the nearby internet café. I needed to start the computer with a Windows XP CD-ROM. The remedy consisted in repairing the installation and checking [using the command chkdsk/r] to repair the hard drive.

I got the CD-ROM, sat in a corner of the room and started following the instructions. And you know what, the remedy worked. I restarted the laptop and it was back to normal again.

I felt like hugging everyone in the room. The results were too good to be believed.

That incident taught me that there is a lot of information around us that can be used to our own advantage but we continue suffering because of lack of knowledge.

If only we knew how to harness all the information at our disposal!