Hi Folks,

Last Wednesday morning I rebooted my HP laptop,  Instead of rebooting normally I got the dreaded black screen with the words "operating system not found".

Before panic set in, I restarted it a couple of more times.  Then I first called Microsoft where I ended up in India.  They had me repeat everything I had done before telling me to call HP.  Boo Microsoft customer service!

The second call to HP was ridiculous.  I don't know what country the customer service rep was in, but she spoke poor English, was rude, and had no helpful advice to offer.  In fact she told me to try reinstalling Windows from the manufacturers disk, which would of course wipe out all the other programs installed since the purchase of the laptop.

I took the the computer to Data Doctors for a free hard drive check.  Sure enough it was wiped out.

Panic set in for a moment, because I had my PowerPoint presentation for the monthly chapter event ready to go.  I calmed down quickly, wrote my notes out by hand, and gave the presentation without technology - just the way we used to do them before computers!

Fortunately I subscribe to Crash Plan which automatically backs up by files daily.  That was a comfort to know.

I spent Thursday doing research and making the decision whether to repair what I have or buying a new PC.  The final decision was to repair what I have.

A new 500 GB hard drive (the old one was 250 GB) was $100 and a snap to install.  I purchased Windows 7 so I could rid myself of Vista and purchased Office 2010 so I would be "current".  Of course every thing is slightly different so the adaptation process is a pain in the ass.

All other programs have to be reinstalled as they are not part of a back up plan.  That is certainly a reason for a 2nd, external hard drive that mirrors drive 1.

The restored data is now on my desktop waiting to be copied into the proper folders.  The only flaw, so far, is that my Outlook files did not copy.  Hopefully, I can try to restore them again.

Until next time,

Chuck Trautman

480-773-74910