Rackafrackafrickafrack, Chapter 2

Well, I brought the Big PowerBook to the repair shop in Peterborough today, and a few hours later got a call back from the nice tech-geeks there. Seems the hard drive is going bad, ergo the inability to boot. It will need replacing, and will get it–with a 160-gig one, the biggest they can get for me. (I need all the uncorrupted space I can get in this corrupt old world.)

They’ll also have to do a data retrieval, since I have about 140,000 words’ worth of unfinished novel on that drive, as well as an aborted false start on a novella (which, frankly, can stay lost for all I care, as long as my big one’s saved), plus dozens of short stories, poems, essays, and what-have-you. Gonna cost, kiddies, but it will come to a lot less than I thought; I was sure I wouldn’t get away with under $7-800 in repairs. Turns out it will probably come to less than $300, counting the labor and the two layers of sales taxes.

No word yet on when it will be ready; they’ll call me when it’s done. I guesstimate a week to 15 days.

Big sigh. Big breath.

Now, if it had been the motherboard, I’d have been motherfucked.

I dodged a bullet this time, but all the same, I’m gonna be putting all my works-in-progress onto USB flash drives from now on.