This last couple weeks has been really trying on the tech. It all started with the main PC – I knew it needed to be reloaded because of some ntdll.dll errors I’ve been getting. I decided to take it down last week and reload before everything went south and I couldn’t do anything.

I think it started a chain reaction….

One by one, the tech in my life went through a “Growing pain”. From the PC’s to the Podcast rig, each one has been less than accepting. Makes you think when the tech you rely on goes down. Even more, what do you lose when it does go down.

A couple months ago I had a friend that brought their computer to me. The hard drive died. I tried everything to get the data off it, but in the end they lost pictures, music and other items. They got back about 20% of their data thanks to things like MySpace, but a lot of information was gone and lost.

The podcast rig having problems is another story. Mainly, my podcast rig consists of the mic, the mixer, an EQ, a compressor and the PC I record with. I started having problems with the mic cord and it seemed to spread like a virus. Because of this I had to miss 2 podcasts this week. I am hoping to make up for that tonight.

The PC was an annoyance, but I had everything backed up. I went to reload the machine and got about 70 percent done when the hard drive I used straight up died. AUGH!

Well 1 new hard drive later the new PC is about 95 percent done. The biggest issue is that I have Photoshop CS2 but cannot load it. I have the CS2 software and a license key, but the software is commercial and the license key is corporate. I remember when I bought it we realized it and the company sent me a corporate download of CS2. Now, it seems to be a bit harder to get that software. Won’t get into it too much, but bottom line is that’s the only piece of software that hasn’t complied 100%.

Once it’s done I will image the drive, back up the data and call it a day. The podcast rig has been working just fine since last night (crosses fingers). Will be back making stuff later today. Thank goodness the laptop didn’t go down. Knock on wood.

Here are some of the photos during the reload process. The pictures are found on my flickr account…

The innards of the main computer

Dual screens show reloading while laptop keeps me working

For some reason the Dell FP2005 shows a green screen where the Viewsonic has the blue. There is only one other time the tint is different: when I look at a properties screen in Windows. Otherwise everything else shows no difference, including pictures.

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