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The Catalina Chronicles
May. 7th, 2005 07:04 pmOr... Dagas was defeated by the Catalina.
Forgive me for not cutting this. And by forgive me, I mean, I'm already feeling sucky enough, so if you actually make any sort of big deal about the format of this entry, I'm likely to degut you with my key. Or my dagger, once I get that back from my RA. So please, back off.
Ahem.
As for any preliminary information that might be useful, and by preliminary, I mean like before Tuesday, Catalina would sometimes randomly turn off during FFXI time, which at one point I believed was caused by an overheating system or a non-working fan. However, within the past few weeks before this problem, she was actually working fine and reliably during FFXI, and actually during the rest of the time, leading me into a false sense of security that everything would be okay.
Tuesday, May 13, 2005
I wake up, turn on Catalina as usual, and she's working as usual. Since my Bio-Anthro final was on that day, I decided to go to compass and start doing a little study-study with the PDF files. Since there was an update available for Acrobat, and I've been putting it off during the entire semester, I decide to actually update it. Update is sucessful, and I think I download something else to make sure that it automatically updates it or something, except that it gets annoying pretty quickly so I cancel it. Everything is fine, and during my last vestiges of free-time in the morning, I'm able to sign on to FFXI and do a few things. Shish-kabob, Bonevene, and Deadlegend could probably confirm this, if any of them had the memory or the inclination to do so. I sign off at around 11:15 a.m., which will be the last time that Catalina has the semblance of perfect working order.
Skip ahead to about 3:00 p.m. which is when I get back to my dorm after a long and arduous day of classes. At this point, my computer is making the funny noise, which I'm going to describe as something of a viscious whirr. But things seem to be running okay still, there's just that funny noise. So, I start doing my normal things, web-browsing followed by a sign on to FFXI. Only I seem to notice that there's a lot of lag, even for Jeuno. And so I restart, which is where all the fun begins.
First thing I notice is that the computer is slow to start. I know this from all those times that it shut down before, and from the fact that I know the airship timer. Usually, I will shut down about 1 or 2 min before the airship arrives (and this always seemed to happen) and then between starting things back up, and getting back on FFXI, I will have just missed the airship. This time, I've managed to shut down at about 6 min, and get back on FFXI about 4 min until the NEXT airship. This time, it manages to run enough for me to go to a regional vendor and get back to Lower Jeuno Moghouse (by Warp) and get down to Port Jeuno to try to catch another Airship. (Note that this time probably won't make any sense to non FFXI players). At this point, my computer is freezing up, and I think I'm able to get an 'ick' off to someone in tell before I freeze up completely and the blue screen of death occurs.
Pretty much this night from here on out is a series of ever-more-futile attempts to restart my computer, each time getting slower and slower to restart, while working for less and less time. Eventually, it gets to the point where she will no longer actually get to windows and freezes up somewhere in the booting process. I give up. Although I try to IM around for someone who can help me, eventually running into Neko-boy.
Wednesday, May 4
I hope and pray that it's just some sort of weird blip, and that things will be back to normal in the morning. No can do. So I try restarting a couple times, during various parts of the day. No use. And things are now to the poing where sometimes it won't even go past the first start up screen.
Thursday, May 5
Things start out bright. I discover that I have the system recovery CD, and I actually manage to get the system back to it's original factory restored condition. Even the funny noises seem to have calmed down. However, this only lasts for about a half-hour or so before things start to fail again. Just enough time to get connected to the net, download AIM/Firefox and start downloading the virus scanner from CITES and the updates from windows. >.< Also note that this is the only time that the system recovery thing works.
So, after this gloom, I also decide to poke Neko-boy into looking at my laptop, since he agreed that he'd try to help me on Tuesday. We set up a combination computer check/final study thing. When the time comes, he goes to check the computer, only to find out that he has the wrong screwdrivers for the job. Therefore computer check gets postponed to Friday, and the Dagas still has a non-working computer.
Friday, May 6
All right, pretty much the same thing as the day before, trying to use the system recovery CDs or trying to reinstall windows, anything to get things working again. No use. At this point, I'm not even going to go into the errors that I've seen because pretty much I can just say that everyone seems worse than that last.
Skip to after the Japanese final, when Neko boy shows up, this time with the proper tool kit. Since he believed it's the fan, Neko-boy and I start disassembling Catalina, eventually getting her down to her very guts. The fan is clogged and dusty, but other than that, seems to be in perfect working order. Together, we managed to get the thing reassembled, with one small metal thingie missing, and a missing screw from where the keyboard attaches to something else. Not a really big deal. Except for the fact that the status lights on my comptuer no longer work, everything else is in just as good (or bad) working order as before.
Since we've eliminated the fan, our next course of action would be to check the hard-drive, which leads us to...
Today, Saturday, May 7
I try auto-recovery ONCE. It gets slightly further than it had before telling me about the "WRITE ERROR" on the disk.
Neko boy and I start trying different software solutions, trying to figure out whether or not it's the Hard Drive. We still don't know. Heck, I can't tell you half the stuff he did with my computer, although I think it may have left it even worse for wear, because now my computer seems to start having READ errors on system recovery (after he left, I tried this), and when trying to reinstall Windows, the cluster that was once NSTF or whatever the standard form of file transfer is, is now unknown or unrecognized.
So, at this point, we're calling it a defeat. The laptop is posessed and short of say sprinkling it with holy water and calling for an exorcism, there seems to be nothing I can do for it here. Therefore I'm going to start concentrating on final exams, abusing my fic journal (if you don't know it, you probably don't need to know it), and generally bugging people on the interweb instead of people in Vana'diel.
***
Okay, I feel like crap, and for some reason, I would like some really, really fluffy shoujo-ai (and yes, I suppose that does make me a flaming lesbian, and right now I really wouldn't care, but I'm just in the mood for Shoujo-ai) and maybe get back in contact with my bro. Or maybe RP, or pretty much anything to escape.
And for all of those people who know the people I know in FFXI, I will not be back before May 13. At this point, I'm going to have to see about getting it fixed at home. If I'm lucky I might be back on at the beginning of next semester, but if my computer is really ruined for good, who knows?
Over and out.
Forgive me for not cutting this. And by forgive me, I mean, I'm already feeling sucky enough, so if you actually make any sort of big deal about the format of this entry, I'm likely to degut you with my key. Or my dagger, once I get that back from my RA. So please, back off.
Ahem.
As for any preliminary information that might be useful, and by preliminary, I mean like before Tuesday, Catalina would sometimes randomly turn off during FFXI time, which at one point I believed was caused by an overheating system or a non-working fan. However, within the past few weeks before this problem, she was actually working fine and reliably during FFXI, and actually during the rest of the time, leading me into a false sense of security that everything would be okay.
Tuesday, May 13, 2005
I wake up, turn on Catalina as usual, and she's working as usual. Since my Bio-Anthro final was on that day, I decided to go to compass and start doing a little study-study with the PDF files. Since there was an update available for Acrobat, and I've been putting it off during the entire semester, I decide to actually update it. Update is sucessful, and I think I download something else to make sure that it automatically updates it or something, except that it gets annoying pretty quickly so I cancel it. Everything is fine, and during my last vestiges of free-time in the morning, I'm able to sign on to FFXI and do a few things. Shish-kabob, Bonevene, and Deadlegend could probably confirm this, if any of them had the memory or the inclination to do so. I sign off at around 11:15 a.m., which will be the last time that Catalina has the semblance of perfect working order.
Skip ahead to about 3:00 p.m. which is when I get back to my dorm after a long and arduous day of classes. At this point, my computer is making the funny noise, which I'm going to describe as something of a viscious whirr. But things seem to be running okay still, there's just that funny noise. So, I start doing my normal things, web-browsing followed by a sign on to FFXI. Only I seem to notice that there's a lot of lag, even for Jeuno. And so I restart, which is where all the fun begins.
First thing I notice is that the computer is slow to start. I know this from all those times that it shut down before, and from the fact that I know the airship timer. Usually, I will shut down about 1 or 2 min before the airship arrives (and this always seemed to happen) and then between starting things back up, and getting back on FFXI, I will have just missed the airship. This time, I've managed to shut down at about 6 min, and get back on FFXI about 4 min until the NEXT airship. This time, it manages to run enough for me to go to a regional vendor and get back to Lower Jeuno Moghouse (by Warp) and get down to Port Jeuno to try to catch another Airship. (Note that this time probably won't make any sense to non FFXI players). At this point, my computer is freezing up, and I think I'm able to get an 'ick' off to someone in tell before I freeze up completely and the blue screen of death occurs.
Pretty much this night from here on out is a series of ever-more-futile attempts to restart my computer, each time getting slower and slower to restart, while working for less and less time. Eventually, it gets to the point where she will no longer actually get to windows and freezes up somewhere in the booting process. I give up. Although I try to IM around for someone who can help me, eventually running into Neko-boy.
Wednesday, May 4
I hope and pray that it's just some sort of weird blip, and that things will be back to normal in the morning. No can do. So I try restarting a couple times, during various parts of the day. No use. And things are now to the poing where sometimes it won't even go past the first start up screen.
Thursday, May 5
Things start out bright. I discover that I have the system recovery CD, and I actually manage to get the system back to it's original factory restored condition. Even the funny noises seem to have calmed down. However, this only lasts for about a half-hour or so before things start to fail again. Just enough time to get connected to the net, download AIM/Firefox and start downloading the virus scanner from CITES and the updates from windows. >.< Also note that this is the only time that the system recovery thing works.
So, after this gloom, I also decide to poke Neko-boy into looking at my laptop, since he agreed that he'd try to help me on Tuesday. We set up a combination computer check/final study thing. When the time comes, he goes to check the computer, only to find out that he has the wrong screwdrivers for the job. Therefore computer check gets postponed to Friday, and the Dagas still has a non-working computer.
Friday, May 6
All right, pretty much the same thing as the day before, trying to use the system recovery CDs or trying to reinstall windows, anything to get things working again. No use. At this point, I'm not even going to go into the errors that I've seen because pretty much I can just say that everyone seems worse than that last.
Skip to after the Japanese final, when Neko boy shows up, this time with the proper tool kit. Since he believed it's the fan, Neko-boy and I start disassembling Catalina, eventually getting her down to her very guts. The fan is clogged and dusty, but other than that, seems to be in perfect working order. Together, we managed to get the thing reassembled, with one small metal thingie missing, and a missing screw from where the keyboard attaches to something else. Not a really big deal. Except for the fact that the status lights on my comptuer no longer work, everything else is in just as good (or bad) working order as before.
Since we've eliminated the fan, our next course of action would be to check the hard-drive, which leads us to...
Today, Saturday, May 7
I try auto-recovery ONCE. It gets slightly further than it had before telling me about the "WRITE ERROR" on the disk.
Neko boy and I start trying different software solutions, trying to figure out whether or not it's the Hard Drive. We still don't know. Heck, I can't tell you half the stuff he did with my computer, although I think it may have left it even worse for wear, because now my computer seems to start having READ errors on system recovery (after he left, I tried this), and when trying to reinstall Windows, the cluster that was once NSTF or whatever the standard form of file transfer is, is now unknown or unrecognized.
So, at this point, we're calling it a defeat. The laptop is posessed and short of say sprinkling it with holy water and calling for an exorcism, there seems to be nothing I can do for it here. Therefore I'm going to start concentrating on final exams, abusing my fic journal (if you don't know it, you probably don't need to know it), and generally bugging people on the interweb instead of people in Vana'diel.
***
Okay, I feel like crap, and for some reason, I would like some really, really fluffy shoujo-ai (and yes, I suppose that does make me a flaming lesbian, and right now I really wouldn't care, but I'm just in the mood for Shoujo-ai) and maybe get back in contact with my bro. Or maybe RP, or pretty much anything to escape.
And for all of those people who know the people I know in FFXI, I will not be back before May 13. At this point, I'm going to have to see about getting it fixed at home. If I'm lucky I might be back on at the beginning of next semester, but if my computer is really ruined for good, who knows?
Over and out.
