The big hard drive in my computer did that thing again.

It just stopped working. The computer would freeze while booting. It would only be recognized by the drive controller every now and then. The drive test from IBM says it's dead. Time to send it in and get a replacement drive, since it's still under warranty. It's handy that they allow for that, but not so handy that it's necessary in the first place.

This happened once before, sometime around Christmas. I reformatted the drive and things seemed OK. Guess Life #2 just ran out. I'm not sure if hard drives get nine lives or not.

Too bad it's not even a year old. I got it last April.

So I'm buying a new computer. Yes, a whole new computer.

I've had my current computer for over two and a half years now. I think that's pretty good for a computer guy. I've definitely gotten a lot of use out of this one.

For now, I'm limping along on the incredibly loud (by comparison) 14 GB drive I originally bought with this computer those two and a half years ago. Everything I ordered today ought to be here by the weekend. Then I'll see if I can hobble together something useful out of all the parts. I did it before, I can probably do it again.

Julie is glad I've finally ordered something. She thinks it might mean that I'll stop obsessively saying "I wonder if I should buy a new computer?"

I expect that to be replaced (just as obsessively) with one of "Why doesn't this work like it should?" or "I wish I hadn't bought this" or, hopefully, "Man, this new computer is really nice."