Linaewen's Lake of Small Birds

I'm very thankful to be posting this on my own computer -- which is barely recovered from a Really Bad Thing that happened to it last night.  All I was doing was installing some Windows updates, but something when haywire (I suspect the optional update to my display, but there was another optional one that might have worked with it to wreck havoc) and my computer went down.  After which I was unable to start it up, not even in Safe Mode, and none of the repair options that were available to me (including all the nice System Restore points I had set) helped solve the problem.  Thanks to Dell including a recovery CD with the kit and kaboodle, I was able to reinstall Windows and that did the trick.

However, everything is back to square one, so now I'm reinstalling things -- including all the drivers (which I must admit, I'm not really sure which ones I need and which ones I don't, but I guess I'll find out).  Hopefully I'll be able to get it back to the way I like it and need it to be so I can continue getting all the work done I need to do, like today -- but it probably wont happen today.  ;-)

It was interesting getting the computer going again and then having it tell me I didn't have anything with which to access the internet.  So I unzipped the modem driver, and voila!  I'm immediately able to detect my wireless router.  I felt very smart and capable after that -- but today I'm just tired from waiting up for hours for security updates to install, most of which failed for some reason.

Anyway, I think I'll forgo my work plans for the day and just spend it trying to get things back as close to normal as possible on my computer.  It's a little bit like doing spring cleaning, and then having to decide what to put back in place after moving it out -- what's necessary to have, what I need to make things go more smoothly, and what's actually just as good being gone.  I have a file back up on another drive that's only about 2 weeks old, so most of my stuff is intact and can be recovered, but I'm not sure about all the programs I had installed.  Fun.

Even so, in spite of being dismayed and irritated at the unexpected problem, I"m thankful that I do have a good back up of my files, that my computer came with everything I need to reinstall stuff, and that I have enough computer savvy to put things back together again on my own (with occasional advice from the DH).  Even if it will be complicated.  ;-)