calliopes_pen | A Computer's Descent Into Madness

It looks like my computer decided to kill itself. This time, it wasn't Dad's fault--shockingly.

I went to turn the computer on, and all it showed was a black screen. It didn't even restart, or get to a screen where anything could be done. (I dragged Dad out of bed and told him what was wrong. He tried for the next three hours to get it fixed.)

Bad news: It had to be reformatted. Apparently, a virus had gotten in undetected, and scrambled the program that tells the computer to reboot. It couldn't remember how to restart itself. Later on, when Dad tried to reinstall Windows, he discovered that the information was there--it just couldn't understand what to do. (That's the reason for a reformat.) Oh, and the family tree information Mom got was saved in Outlook Express--so everything she had found since the last time the computer died is completely gone.

Good news: The external hard drive is still working. All of my things were saved on it. (The last time it was updated was about a week ago. I know where to find what wasn't saved.)

I'm currently reinstalling AIM, Java (for ICQ), and Microsoft Office.

Now, I'm off to read my Friends List.