OUCH !!

Just as I was about to post to this blog late yesterday afternoon, my PC quit. Without warning. Right in the middle of a Skype phone call.

The hard drive died. It is under warranty and I have backups, but this unwelcome intrusion is still is a big pain. It takes time to setup a PC - lots of time.

First I had to install Windows - twice. Well, three times actually. I use Windows 7 now, but the PC came with Vista. So I will install Vista, and then Windows 7. And then because a few of my apps do not run under Windows 7, I have to install 'XP Mode' too.

Then the application installations began, starting with Anti-Virus software. And then Windows updates. And Office updates. And Adobe updates. And browser plug-ins. And on & on the list goes. Then I could restore my documents. But I still am not done, I'm sure. For weeks I'll be stumbling across needed tweaks, namely configuring my preferences for more settings than I care to remember.

I don't have time for this!! So I planned ahead and bought two hard drives. Next time a disk drive goes belly up, I won't have to repeat this intrusion. You see, my PC, like many newer PCs, is equiped with a RAID controller that will let me mirror two drives together. The way it works is that both drives run simultaneously, keeping in sync with each other at all times. When one does fail, the PC can continue by using the remaining good drive. And as long as I replace the bad drive before the other one dies (which it will do, I'm sure!), I should be able to avoid this hassle of starting from scratch again.