Friday, April 15, 2005

Computer on the Fritz

I saw this phenomenon once before. My den computer doesn't want to boot up. It can't see the hard disk. Last time, I held down 'shift' while booting, and after a few tries, it found the hard disk, and all was well again. That really shouldn't have worked. 'Shift' during boot means "go into safe mode", or no extensions. This time it ain't working. Instead it just shows the icon of a folder with a question mark. This means "where's my disk?" Since last time when my computer 'healed', the hard disk had all it's data intact, I theorized an intermittent loose connection.

I tried jiggling the computer before a reboot, trying to adjust the 'loose connection' I was theorizing about. It worked. Now my computer complains about the missing disk much sooner during the attempted boot sequence.

So tomorrow I'll clean it up, blow compressed air into it, and if that doesn't work, I'm off to the Apple Store at the mall. They were very quick about fixing Jean's computer, so I can only hope that they do the same for me. Especially if my theory of a bad cable is correct. Wish me luck.

No comments:

Post a Comment