Tortilla wrap/pinwheels

The above wraps are made with pepperoni and my mix of cream cheese/Kraft Old English cheese and a few banana peppers in the mix. They were okay. The next batch I made, I nixed the Kraft OE Cheese and in half of the pinwheels I used salami instead of pepperoni. I also used a lot more cream cheese per wrap.

I met some friends last evening for a birthday get together. I hit another deer on the way home. I can't believe it! I saw her coming and I'm saying "No, no! Don't do it! Stop!" while I was inching my car left of center and stopping. I nipped her left buttock and she kept on going. So did I. When I got home I checked for damage. Not even a hair on my car. I didn't like the idea of that deer running around hurt, but there wasn't much I could do. It was eleven p.m. and on a dark two lane highway with no place to pull over. What would I have done anyway? Chased the deer into the river?

I am going to try to stop driving at night. I guess. For a while at least. What else can I do? It isn't like I can stick to the Interstate. That's where I hit my first deer.

The baby shower was a blast. I had a migraine earlier in the morning. I took my medicine. I looked washed out and wan, but I did okay hosting the games. I had fun. I hope everybody else did, too.

Guess this celebrity!

It is a trick question. It is the father of the baby for the shower we are having Sunday. One of the games I cooked up was "Guess the Celebrity Baby" and we threw this one is as a trick question. It will be fun to see what celebrity they attribute to my nephew.

We had a blast with the games. My daughter did most of the work. Let's see if she will help me in getting up in front of 30 to 40 people. She might, I don't know. Me? I got over my fears a long time ago. Well, there still is a little bit of anxiety when it is work-related. But women at a baby shower - no problem-o!

We are still getting snow. I broke down and purchased a new shovel last evening. Just in time. I tried it out last evening and everything is covered again this morning. It feels a little loose, so I'll have to look into tightening the screws that hold it together. It was the last one of this type. Light when I picked it up, and it felt right when I pretended to shovel snow in the store. They had a couple of metal designs - much too heavy. Then there is the almost U-shaped scoop on the end. I don't get those at all. I scrape almost as much as I shovel, so they don't look like they would work for me.

I have a party to go to tonight. I am going to try my salami wraps on my friends to see if they like them. Then I will make them for the shower. I also have the ingredients to make pepperoni-flavored wraps. Some recipes call them tortilla pinwheels. I am going to experiment with a few different ideas.

And, I am making a fruit pizza. The last one I made, I ended up putting way too much fruit on the top. It was overloaded. This time, I will try to scale back but sometimes I only know one regimen when it comes to food. The more the better! That probably stems from growing up the youngest in a large family. I had to be quick and grab the food and eat it fast. Because if you blinked, it was gone!

Sigh. My boxer seems to have regressed a little bit in the chewing department. He was doing so well. The pups are caged now when I am gone from the house, so it had to be him. He chewed up a plastic basket. It was a cheap thing, but that wasn't the issue. His safety is the issue. He may have ended up swallowing some of the bits of plastic. It was a mess. He gave me his best Eeyore look when I scolded him.

This morning I found a tiny cord to a 12-in one multi-card reader. I am upset, but I had purchased the incorrect reader as it was. I got it for my daughter for Christmas but she found out the other day that it won't read her camera card. It was useless to us and I was going to give it to a family member who had the memory sticks it would read. I don't know who chewed it up. Whether it be the boxer or the pups. They all gave me guilty looks this morning. I have no idea how they found the cord. I check stuff before I retire. They have a way.

Go Green!

My daughter has decided it is time to "go green" with a vehicle choice. We left this store yesterday evening about 5:30 p.m. My sisters and I. It took me over an hour to get back to my house after that because of the dizzy snowfall and not being able to see the lines on the Interstate.

My daughter still has not arrived home yet in her "green" car. Hmmm. That may take a while. :D

Random

Here are some of the icicles I took down over the back porch. They were hanging down over where we step off the porch, and I didn't want to get clunked in the head one day. I am still getting dripped on each time I walk off, though.

More of them kept forming each day, so I would knock them down. I didn't bother with the ones higher on the house. The gutters are mostly one big ice tube. The roof/gutter repair business should be booming this spring. What a mess.

On a good note, my niece did have insurance on her electronics this time. Who knows? Maybe the insurance companies pay thugs to randomly steal stuff to improve their business. Hey, I'm just shootin' off random thoughts this morning.

I took a vacation day today. My daughter and I are meeting two of my sisters to wrap up some loose ends on a baby shower we are throwing this week-end. I love babies. I love people having babies. I wish I had more babies. I am more than happy to take a grand niece or nephew for a few hours a day, though. I'll settle for that.

Besides. My four dogs keep me plenty busy with responsibilities as it is. I'll tell you this much. I don't sit around in my pajamas in the morning. Not since I got the extra three hounds this past summer. It is outside at around 5:30 every morning. Rain, shine or snow. Sick, headache or pain. My daughter did help out a lot after I had surgery. I have a routine. The coffee pot and the computer get turned on and then the dogs go outside. It takes me anywhere from 20 minutes to half an hour to take them all out to do their business.

When we come back inside, I feed them. I get myself a cup of coffee and I sit down to read e-mail, blogs and facebook. Facebook is hard for me to get used to. I don't really like the layout, but almost everybody I know uses it and it is an "okay" way to keep in touch. I do not like the games. I "HIDE" all notices of games so I don't have to read the updates on who got what fish in their aquarium or who built what fence on their farm.

It was funny. My daughter got her last paycheck from Toys R Us yesterday. It was dated December 31st. It is void after 90 days so I guess the store thought they better mail it out since it didn't look like she was going to come and get it. She was expecting $70, it was almost $300. She was in heaven. What a nut!

I try hard to remember what it was like at 18. I was so naive it was painful. Painful, I tell you. Painful to remember some of the stuff I did not know and how I stumbled through life learning the hard knocks. I was fortunate to have older sisters to help out with things now and again.

My boxer is funny. Just now one of the pups chewed on the area rug. They know they are not allowed to do this. As soon as the boxer heard the noise he sat up quick and had this "I didn't do it!" look on his face. He does this almost each time I yell or scold the dogs. He quickly sits up and tries to look innocent or good. What a clown!

Adagio

It took most of the week-end, but I was able to re-install Windows on my "big" computer. I lost the data that was not backed up. (About two weeks worth). I purchased this mammoth in 2003, so there were plenty of updates. I should have purchased Windows 7 instead of re-loading XP, but I didn't feel like it. The refresher course in re-loading the OS was enough for my brain as it is.

Most of my programs have been restored. I do take snapshots of my desktop from time to time and I had an image of that to go by. I detailed in my notebook each step that I take for record keeping. We'll see how this goes. I don't have that second hard drive in place yet. The one I purchased just a month ago.

Have a baby shower to prepare for this week-end. That is a nice break from technology. My daughter and I are in charge of the games. We are doing the normal baby-oriented word scramble. We are adding "Guess that celebrity baby" into the mix and the game of "Guess that baby name of the animal".

We also are making a fruit pizza and some little finger foods. I'll take pictures if the food comes out looking decent enough. :D

On a sour note, my nephew called last night to say that my niece (his sister) was robbed yet again. This is the third time in two years. All technology stuff. We are beginning to suspect it to be somebody she knows. This time a window was unlocked that is supposed to be locked. As if somebody unlocked it on purpose when they were visiting. Laptop, ipod, camera, GPS, dvd player. All technology stuff. For the third time! It does not seem to matter if she lives alone or with a group of friends. I'm not positive if she got insurance after the last time. I really wish she would move back to be close to family instead of two to four hours away from all of us.

No Dice

Troubleshooting sometimes reminds me of the movies where the characters are in a cave and faced with many different tunnels to choose from. You go down one tunnel, it's a dead end and you have to come back and go down another one.

It is time consuming. I am persistent. If my system is recoverable, I'll find a way to recover it. I don't think it is so much the few photos or data that I have lost. It's more of a challenge, now. I'll have to wait until the week-end to continue the work. My actual job is getting in the way, now that the snow days are over. I went yesterday to a job, ended up with a massive migraine and had to call off sick the latter half of the day. I had blood work taken in the morning and this meant no coffee or food until after the appointment. My system did not like that and retaliated.

Watched "The Time Traveler's Wife" on one of the snow days. I liked it. My daughter liked it. They were SO sly using real life sisters to play the same Alba at different times.

I tried to get the book at the library last week, but it didn't even come up in the search files. It must be too new. Then as I was standing there at the library computer, I began typing in titles of the books I saw displayed on the shelves. Those books didn't come up in the search, either. So, there you have it. What a system!

I shoveled snow so much I broke my old snow shovel. I will have to try to find a new one this week-end as I hear we are getting more snow. First my car, then my computer and now the snow shovel. Sigh. I hope that is all for the broken stuff.

Oh, my!

I apologize for the graphic nature of this photo. I was browsing the web for baby shower stuff when I came across this shower curtain for sale. I was horrified at the time, but now I chuckle. What kind of sick-o would hang this in their bathroom? They must have a bizarre sense of humor. And how about the person who thought it up? I can see them sitting around a table tossing out samples (and drawings) of their latest ideas.

One mother of three proudly shows off her new frog-on-a-lily-pad design for a shower curtain. One single mother suggests a jungle theme complete with colorful birds. Another shows his drawing of cute little ducks splashing in the puddles. Then there is Norman in the corner. With his greasy hair and crooked smile. He slowly slides his drawing to the middle of the conference table. They all just stare in silence. Since nobody can say anything his idea gets elected and the picture is on it's way to the art department.

Norman eats his lunch alone.

Sad Boxer

Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, I'm goin' to the garden to eat worms, yum, yum!

The Soloist

I finished reading this one yesterday. Ack! Wikipedia changed the format of their web page. The book was very good. I also liked the movie. I could imagine how hard it was for Mr. Lopez to keep working with this homeless man. And I can't help wonder what would have become of this musician if Mr. Lopez had not discovered him playing music.

What a story. Most of us are uncomfortable around mentally ill people. I know I am because I am not familiar with it. I try to be compassionate or empathetic when I do get a tiny little bit of exposure to one, but conversing or seeing one such being is very rare in my life.

To hear about the conditions of how these people live in a large city completely boggles my mind. I have NO concept of what that would be like. Growing up in my tiny little town, we knew nobody like this. I live in a slightly larger town, now and I hear of homeless people but I rarely see any.

While I was browsing the library I came into contact with some folks who were very smelly, had layers of coats on and looked as if they were homeless. I imagine the library is a place to come in and get warm. It still boggles my mind.

Meanwhile, my troubleshooting continues with my computer. I am running certain diagnostic tests on it now. I found some Dell manufacturer CDs in my stash and am putting the system through a series of tests, now. The memory march tests are next. Whoopee! It's gonna be a long day.

I'm supposed to meet some sisters for lunch. There is a winter advisory but I am not sure how bad it will get. It doesn't look too bad to me, but I guess we are better safe than sorry.

I am getting real tired of trying to type on the wrong keyboard since I have both systems side by side so that I can watch the diagnostics while I work on this backup system. What a dork. Sigh. It is time consuming and takes a lot of patience and perseverance. I have a few more books that I am going to be reading. I just did it again. Tried to type on the wrong keyboard. (silent scream).

The books are:

"When Battered Women Kill" by Angela Browne. I have never, ever been hit (let alone battered) by a man or woman for that matter. I think my Mom smacked my behind when I was little, but I was too little to remember. I was the good kid. (Boring!) Anyway, with this book I am always interested in empowering women. Or the weak in general for that matter. I cannot fathom women in this type of situation, so I try by reading books like this.

"Climate Change" by Robert Henson and "The Suicidal Planet" by Mayer Hillman with Tina Fawcett and Sudhir Chella Rajan. Wow, there's a mouthful. I like to educate myself on current events. I cannot stand those who preach and rant about subjects they know nothing about. Or, they think they know something about it when they have not researched it. I like to be informed. I like to listen to both sides. I like to keep an open mind.

So, my computer can run tests all day. If I come up with a solution, fine. If not, I'll just keep on reading. I have five computers in this house right now - all with Internet access. Well, except my main one. I think I have enough to keep me busy on this cold (very cold) winter, blustery President's day. Which is not until NEXT Monday by the way. Or, did they change that, too? Is it now the 3rd Monday of February? Wouldn't surprise me. Huh, yep. Looks like they did make it the 3rd Monday of the month. Whatevuh! Loco!

The Horror!

Pups in August, one month after we got them.

The pups are the only pics I have without accessing the external backup hard drive that I have. Horror of horrors my PC may have died. I am using a backup machine that work gave me, I don't think it has a working cooling fan. It is so quiet, I do not hear any fan running. Whatever.

Saturday morning I decided it would be a good time to call Norton AV and work with a tech on why my live updates were not working. It took an hour and they were swift, they were great and they got things fixed, gave me a free update to 2010 and an extra 30 days on the subscription. I shut my machine down Saturday night before retiring.

I got up this morning and Windows won't boot up. (Silent scream). What? I do not have an XP recovery disk. Heaven only knows what the heck happened to it. I probably didn't have one shipped with the system but that is unlike me.

I worked with it for a while and then pulled out the spare machine I am working on now. I only had one folder of pictures on it. It was the pups in August of 2009. Sigh. Maybe there were many signs. The one hard drive failing, Norton AV live update not completing. I don't know. Coincidence all? Maybe.

Time to bite the bullet and purchase Windows 7 and install it? Harrumph!

The kids ordered "Couples Retreat" on pay per view. It has some funny parts in it. I got a better laugh from watching "The Graduate". I had not seen it in years. My favorites were when Benjamin was attempting to get a room and the hotel check-in attendant rang the bell, then Benjamin put his hand over the bell, and the attendant hit his hand. That brought a chuckle and the next part was when Benjamin told his parents he was going to Berkeley to ask Elaine to marry him and he storms out the door, and as they stand there with bewildered looks on their faces the toast pops up in the toaster and they look at it like "What the heck?"

Classic.

In case this ever comes up in Trivial Pursuit, the woman who plays Ben's mother is the same lady who plays Roz in "Nine to Five".

I have tomorrow off from work. Will I work on my seven year old machine some more? Probably. I may be playing taps by the end of the day. I think my last backup was about a month or so ago. So any pictures or files I have saved since then are "poof" - gone. Wah.

Yikes

Is this what they mean when they say "He gave me the ole stink eye!" ?

Covered

How in the world do they drive like this?

My buddy

This little girl shared my seat with me during the first half of the super bowl. I had to leave at half time because I was far from home and the cigarette smoke was getting to me.

She is a little tiny thing. After being around my hounds she seemed like a delicate china doll baby.

One of my rat terriers woke me up at 3 a.m. this morning barking. I couldn't get back to sleep. As I sat here reading facebook, email and blogs I think I know why he was barking. The wind is picking up out there and will take my welcome sign and bang it against my front porch wall. This always seems to spook the hounds. Well, I can see why.

I did a lot of reading. I read quite a few blogs that are political along with ones that are just plain fun. I try not to get too wrapped up in others' views of what is going on. I like to keep my mind open and try not to get swayed by the rants of others.

I consider myself a liberal but I don't pigeonhole myself into an all or nothing mindset. I apply my own judgement to what I say or believe and do. I also make sure that I read the opinions of others who may or may not be liberals.

It goes back and forth, back and forth. The liberals trashing the conservatives and vice versa. I get real tired of it. Like a yo-yo. Each party making fun or mocking the other. Sometimes it just gets old and I quit reading for a long time. My newspaper is pretty much the same. I read the opinions and just shake my head in disbelief. Are these the ravings and rantings that make up the general public? Please tell me no.

I joined in for a while with my local newspaper. I called myself "The Village Idiot" in a satirical manner. The rants became so ridiculous I signed off one day with "this is pathetic" and I never went back again. I don't read them anymore. Is this what it has come down to? At times I am completely aghast at what I am reading. I ask myself "Is this person for real?" Sometimes it scares me to my core wondering if the general public thinks, acts and believes like what I am reading. And I keep searching high and low for some semblance of sanity. Out there. Somewhere?

More wintry mix

My back yard lamp post from Friday night

We are scheduled to get more of the white stuff today. Over a hundred schools are closed in my surrounding area. I was to meet a C!sc0 rep at one of the schools today. I told him to call me first to see if we were closed. I don't want him driving all the way in from Columbus for no reason.

I do not look forward to shovelling more of the white stuff. It is what it is. I should get myself a new shovel. One with the bent handle that is supposed to be better for you. I was afraid my old flimsy shovel was going to break when I was cleaning off my driveway Sunday morning so I could get my car out.

My brother's test results came back. He had a biopsy taken from a growth on one of his vocal cords. He showed me the picture from the scope on Sunday. He said that one vocal cord was vibrating correctly when he spoke and the other didn't move at all because of the growth. His was benign. They said they got it early enough and he must quit smoking.

He is 52. I think he has been smoking since he was at least 15. If my memory serves me correctly. He overdid the talking on Sunday and had a sore throat on Monday. That was from not speaking for a week after surgery and having a houseful of family and friends Sunday night. I had to leave at half time because the cigarette smoke was so bad. Sister 1949 and I were the only 2 not smoking. That and the little children, I think. It was a smoking chamber in their house that evening. He was smoking. He is looking at getting Aeros. I wish him the best of luck.

I didn't get to see many of the commercials. Sigh. I laughed at the dog collar one with the guy sitting on the bench. But I don't recall the product so it wasn't a "good" commercial. What was Kiss thinking? Bad move. Bad, bad move! Soda pop? Really?!

With the ad about Leno, Winfrey and Letterman sitting on the sofa, I so wanted O'Brien to come up behind them and pour a bucket of Gatorade over their heads or something. Now THAT would have made me laugh!

I had a registry file recover on my system when I turned my computer on today. I am still having some Norton anti-virus issue. Something not working correctly with the live updates. I am not working today, so maybe I will dedicate a few hours to troubleshooting this system with Symantec and their product today. Should be fun! YAY!

Lemon Cake

The cake itself was inedible. Add a ton of lemon icing and all those lemony candies and it passed. Then drink a huge glass of milk. I just ate the icing and the candy and dumped the cake part in the garbage disposal. It reminded me of a heavy, doughy biscuit. Yuck!

Dogs in snow

Who let the dogs out?! Without their harness and leashes? Me! That's who. With this much snow, they didn't go far. I did have one little scare when Slade (the brown one) took the pups for a run down the alley way. Sable was either too lazy, too sore, too tired or too smart to follow. I walked to the edge of my driveway and called them back and they came a-runnin'. Whew.

They had a blast in the snow. I uploaded the videos on Youtube. I think a search for Cheech Chong snow dogs might get you to the videos. I don't know. Yep, it sure does. Four videos taken just this morning. Sorry about the throat clearing in the one video, I had to keep reminding myself to stay quiet. You can also hear the wind howling.

I slept in! I slept in! My daughter woke me up by calling me. She wanted to know if I had taken the pups outside yet. It was 7:45. She wanted me to take videos so she could see them in the snow. The alarm went off at 5:30 since I had forgotten to turn it off for the week-end. I turned that sucker off and said "Aw, hell no!" and went back to sleep. I cannot believe I slept that long.

Then I have had anti-virus problems for a couple of days. I am hoping it is because I installed that new back-up hard drive and Norton just can't figure it out. I hope that is all it is. I ran the auto-fix a few times and it seems to be working for now. I do not look forward to working with tech support on the telephone for hours.

And, I discovered that I DO NOT have a cake mix in my cupboard as I thought. Well, there is no getting my car out and going to the store today. I don't feel like shovelling all that snow this morning. It may take me all day to get the sidewalks and the driveway cleared anyway. I'd hate to call my nephew and ask him to stop at the store and pick up his own birthday cake mix. Good grief!

I can't believe that I am going to attempt to make a cake from scratch! Me! This should be vewy, vewy interesting. If I retain my sense of humor through the ordeal, I'll take pictures and share them. Fat chance, though. I am not a baker. Cook? Definitely! Baker? No.

And by the way, I read his friend's facebook post that tells about them driving in the snow all evening last night playing. My nephew has his new all wheel drive Subaru and they said it goes everywhere! They passed dozens of cars that slid off the road but they had no problems at all. That and my nephew is a very good driver. He has driven all over the country. He loves to just take off and drive and drive and drive.

The snow we have is a very wet and heavy one. While taking the dogs out last night it was eerily quiet. I heard a loud pop and snap and a tree branch fell from my neighbor's tree. The wires going into my house were covered with ice. I think the worst one was my old POTS line, though - so I didn't care.

Step by Step (Yawn)

Let's see if I got these in the right order. Anyways, you probably don't want to know all the details, but here they are. Step by step. Picture by picture.

Knowing which hard drive to buy helps. Since I had taken the old (non working) hard drive out the day before, I knew exactly what I needed. I decided to go with the exact same (since it was on sale).

Opening up the computer and here is what we see inside. Since the blue cables are so easy to see, I will use them to guide. There are 2 (one for each hard disk drive). They provide the power to the disks.

I want to remove and replace the bottom disk in this case. I remove the "P3" cable. This cable attaches the hard disk drive to the Motherboard and this is how the computer reads and writes to the disk.

I also remove the blue (power) cable. They just plug in (easier than a telephone plug).

I had to put the camera down to start the removal of the hard drive because you have to squeeze the green plastic sides in a wee bit to remove the disk. Squeeze them in while pulling the hard disk drive out towards you. I then glided the old hard drive out.

Here is what one of the cables looks like on the end that plugs into the hard drive. It will only go one way so you can't really insert it incorrectly. And, it only fits into one slot on the hard drive so you can't place it in the wrong area.

You want to remove the green plastic side bars off the old hard drive and place them on the new drive. You need a Phillips head screw driver for this task. It is very easy to remove them.

After removing one of the side bars, I compare the two drives side by side. The new disk drive is on the left and the old one is on the right. See how the holes line up the same? They make it very easy.

And you screw the green plastic casing side bars onto the new hard drive. The above photo shows one of the glide bars on the new drive and one is still on the old one.

Then you slide the new drive back into the bay. It glides in easily and clicks when it locks into place.

I re-insert the cables into the new drive, making sure that I push them securely into place.

Here is an "after" picture of the two hard drives. Both of them have a cable that attaches them to the Motherboard (this is the one with several colorful wires attached) and both of them have a thinner blue cable attached (for power).

Here is a picture of all the drives in my system. At the very top is the 3 ½ inch floppy disk drive, below that is my CD-ROM drive burner and below that is my CD/DVD burner. Then the two hard disk drives of course. I ordered this computer in 2003. You will notice that today's models usually do not have a 3 ½ inch floppy disk drive, nor do they have 2 CD-ROM drives, nor do they have 2 hard disk drives (unless you order them that way).

My 4 gig of memory. Still going strong for 7 years! That was an enormous amount of RAM back then.

A newer video card was added later. I can't recall why. I think I just wanted one. Maybe the original one died, I can't recall. I do know that I had to replace the monitor somewhere down the line.

We then close the case back up. I do this slowly and watch to make sure no cables get pinched during the process.

The back of my mammoth system.

Oh, I thought I would post this. Here are Western Digital's instructions. LOL!

I re-attach my computer to all of the cables and power and the monitor and start it up. At the first splash screen, I press and hold my Ctrl key, while pressing "I" one time. This enables me to enter the RAID configuration Utility.

What is this? An error message? When I did this before (in 2005) I had a Dell technician walking me through the process. Sigh. I don't remember what I did here, if I got the same message, so I decide to exit. I'm not giving up. I have another plan.

Are you sure? Hell, yes! Get me out of here!

Windows starts and my task bar tells me that the system does realize that I have installed a new hard drive. Whew. That's encouraging.

Lo and behold. I get the usual icon in my task bar telling me that RAID is degraded. I double-click on the icon to begin the GUI version of RAID configuration utility.

I right-mouse-click on the new drive and am given the option to "Rebuild". Yes, I'll take it!

This will delete any data on the drive. I know that it is brand new, so I am not worried. Right? Right.

Whew. Rebuild has started successfully.

The rebuild is in the process. I remember from years ago that this takes a while. This is NOT the time to work on my computer. This is the time for other stuff. Reading a newspaper or a book or a magazine. Playing with the dogs. Watching TV. Cleaning house. Doing dishes. Something other than the computer.

That is NOT the correct time in the task bar. My battery on the motherboard is probably going bad. Do they still use batteries? I don't know. The life of a battery in CMOS used to be about six years. It was about 6:30 and the rebuild was finished by 10:30.

Sweet. I had a few glitches. My Norton hiccuped once. My Spybot gave me a strange message. I'll have to iron out the wrinkles to see what is what. But, all in all - so far, so good!

And this is what I consider fun! I rarely get to do this anymore. I work with big ol' routers and switches, now. The laptop with the docking station has replaced my PC. I do NOT take apart laptops. This is why I built a Linux server and a web page. I miss the old days when I used Peter Norton's disk utilities. BEFORE they merged with Symantec. BEFORE Windows. Command Line Interface. Sigh.

Edit: Two of the pictures will not open when you click on them. I got a headache trying to figure out why. Maybe tomorrow I'll troubleshoot that. :)

Inside the box

Here is a photo of my two hard drives. There is room for one more on the bottom, there. This is after I removed the cables that connect them to the Motherboard. One cable for power and one for ( a word fails to come to mind) - operations, control? I see the dust has begun to accumulate again. Sigh.

I'm sorry, guys. I can go on and on about computers all day long.

Does this example, help?

I have 2 Hard Disk Drives in my computer. We will call one of them “A” and one of them “B” for this example.

RAID 1. If I write the word “example” and save it to Hard Disk Drive “A”, my computer automatically writes the exact same word “example” to my Hard Disk Drive “B” in the exact same place.

The same example applies if I save a picture to my hard drive. The exact same file is saved to disk B, making me a perfect copy of my entire hard drive. Most would say this is overkill.

It “Mirrors” everything I put on “A” to “B” so that if “A” would ever die or fail, “B” just picks up and I can keep on working with just a short pause or two in my computer. (I did see the pausing on Saturday while I was working on the computer).

In my case, “B” failed, so A is still working and running along. If I want that "safety net" of an exact copy of everything on my original (A) hard disk, I will need to replace B.

Without a net

At first I thought it read "Deathstar"

Actually, this is the "good" drive. It is still one of the original disks from when I purchased my system in 2003. I think it was 2003. It was Dell's top of the line 2nd generation XPS. It was a gaming system. I needed a gaming system like I needed another hole in my head. But, it was easier times back then. It was my first "real" computer that I could buy without limitation and I went all out.

The second hard drive is a Western Digital 500 gig. I took it out and reinserted it hoping to bring it back to life. No such luck. Ah well.

Now, do I buy another 400 gig to mirror the above Hitachi, or do I just go with the TB drives that are almost the same price as the 400/500 gigs? If I do go with the TB, I'll have to nix the RAID 1. It would only mirror what the 400 gig can hold. That would be a huge waste of space. I didn't mind losing 100 gig when I put the 500 gig as my second drive.

I could put the TB drive in - let it mirror and then turn RAID off and remove the 400 gig and use the TB drive. Maybe? Would that work? Then use the 400 gig as an internal backup drive. Decisions, decisions. I'll hash this around for a while.

The Staples store (4 miles away) has a WD 400 gig internal SATA hard drive. I can order one online for $10 cheaper, but would have to wait a week before it arrives. Decisions, decisions.

Meanwhile, my RAID volume icon keeps blinking in my task bar reminding me that I am cruising without a safety net. The icon looks like 2 55 gallon drums. One is white (indicating the good hard drive) and one keeps blinking from dark red to red/yellow. Stop it already!

And you know what? I might just cover that little hole up to see what happens. I hate it when they say "Don't Do This!" Or what? I'll lose all my data? It can't breathe? It will come and murder me while I sleep? What?! Cripes! At least tell me what the consequences are.