alexist

Last night I tried to install the 10.4.2 update. It failed to complete, and when I tried to reboot, it wouldn't. I figured that I'd screwed my OS, and tried to reinstall. It failed and told me to try again. I did, several times, and my hard drive failed to come up as a destination. Finally, I clicked on "disk utility". It gives me "SMART status: Failing". I know enough to know about hard drives to know that that is very, very bad. This laptop is only a year old--the hard drive should not be failing.

Unfortunately I can't seem to get an appointment at the apple store--it says check back next hour :/ I HOPE there are still appointments left today.... (from the look of the waiting list there should be, they must have changed the system so the whole day can't be booked in a single hour)

I went into the Apple store (despite them showing no appointments available) and managed to get seen quite quickly.

Tech booted off a firewire drive, couldn't see my HD in the Finder. Finally found it in Disk Utility after quite a while and it eventually came up as "fatal hardware error".

Drive needs to be replaced. Applecare will do that free, but sadly I have to pay £35 for the data backup and restore. I don't have a full backup, only partial :/ Silly me, but who expects their hard drive to die after a year?

it will take 5-10 days :( WAAAH. I'm stuck on Neil's PC now. Which means I have to let him use it when he gets home!

I've discovered that I haven't forgotten how to use a standard keyboard; it was just Neil's old one that I hated. ;-) His new MS one is all right. But I prefer my LCD to his CRT...

ETA: Maybe this explains the trouble I've been having with my laptop the past few days. I assumed it was a software issue, because (like I said) I never expected my hard drive to die when it was a year old!

Neil's just done a sinkful of dishes (including last night's mucky roasting tins I'd put in to soak) AND mopped the kitchen floor.

He says he's trying to get "husband points".

I'm worried about what he's got planned that he needs to save husband points... normally it takes hours of nagging to get him to do dishes!