Laptop down, a cautionary tale

... written for Panbo by Ben Ellison and posted on Jun 5, 2006

So immediately after I bragged/blogged about riding the high tech LimoLiner to New York City, I managed to incapacitate my laptop! It was pouring buckets when we stepped off the bus, but I just didn’t think about leakage through the zipper of my snazzy rolling computer bag. I’d left the laptop in standby mode, too, which I think may have compounded the poor thing’s fragility to a few drops of water. At any rate, I did notice moisture and I did try to dry it out, but when I turn the old Gateway Solo on all I get now is a “can not find operating system” error message. It may be repairable (and I do have a boot CD back in Maine), but I thought this a good excuse to buy a new mobile computer (with a wonderful 17” screen). And I lost very little data as I’m fiendish about backing up (pat on back). Still, the whole deal has set me back time wise, and I don’t yet have all the software tools I need to create full Panbo posts. So posting may be raggety here until I get back to Maine at the end of this week. Treat your electronics better than I do!

Comments

I trashed a nice laptop with saltwater when the handle came off the shower hose in the cockpit and did a wild snake dance ... managing to shoot through a portlight and onto the keyboard while it was in operation. But I removed the hard drive and put it in a case with USB connection (bought mine in Singapore for $12) and, after finding everything there and transferring what I wanted, now use it as a nice compact 40GB external hard drive.

Posted by: Terry at June 6, 2006 2:29 AM | Reply

So, are you going with a PC or a Mac? :D

Posted by: Adrift At Sea at June 6, 2006 2:38 AM | Reply

Macs are gorgeous, but I'm too Scotch and have too much PC software already. I got an HP DV8230US, which just may have the same screen as a 17" Mac? So far, so good.

Posted by: Ben at June 6, 2006 3:05 AM | Reply

New Macs can run both OS X and Windows..

Macs make great Windows PC

Boot into Windows when you must, use OS X the rest of the time.

Posted by: GPSNavX at June 6, 2006 5:53 AM | Reply

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