The False Ducks Blahg

     Well, my birthday came and went and now I’m starting in on the next fifty years.  I don’t really feel like a 50 year old.  I feel like two 25 year olds but my wife won’t let me have them.  That’s a joke people.  Laugh now.  I actually do feel like two 25 year olds.  They’re both in the same body.  One is the fun loving not quite mature version and the other is the rational “it’s time to be a grown-up” person.  It’s not easy trying to balance those two.  The libido of the one is not tempered well by the other who is constantly asked by others to handle adult issues.  I’m tired of having to deal with issues that concern my senior parents and having to be the watchful eye or counseling father to my own children.  Somewhere in there, where both of those 25 year olds overlap is the small space where I get to be me.  So is this blahg.  As an aside, I’ve been using an old picture of myself for this blahg because I was having a good hair day that day.  For today, and maybe today only, I’m going to use a current, as of this morning, picture of myself.  You’ve been warned.

     Last weekend I had a situation that challenged me both to act and to think.  It was as if the two 25 year olds in me were being challenged.  My computer started to have problems a week ago Friday and I had to enact some repairs.  For some time, the video display on my monitor would go all yellow or blue and if I wiggled the cord in the back of the computer, everything would be fine for a time.  I of course had ignored this for some time.  Well, that day I decided maybe the video card wasn’t seated properly in the motherboard (that’s as technical as I’ll get) so I decided it was time to tackle this.  I had built this computer myself four years ago from a bare bones kit.  The kit consisted of a new case, motherboard, fan, CPU (processor), memory, and power source.  I later added a larger hard-drive, new DVD player/recorder drive, video card, and sound card.  It’s really not that hard once you learn the basics and with all the videos on the internet, you can learn to do just about anything.  I don’t however suggest that new parents learn to change diapers from Youtube.  Learn by trial and error.  Get your hands messy.

     I opened up my computer and removed and reseated the video card.  I started up the computer and I had no more problems with wonky colour display.  Unfortunately neither of my DVD drives would work properly and I had promised to burn some disks for somebody.  So I opened up the case again and removed all cables connecting my drives and reattached them.  That did the trick.  Both of my drives worked fine for the rest of the day and the display gave me no further problems.  Cut to Saturday.  My computer will not load into Windows.  It starts with the black bios screen that recognizes all my drives but stalls after that.  Several restarts later, I realize that the several restarts are not doing the trick.  I open up the computer again and check all connections and try again.  Still no go.  I start with the basics and disconnect all drives and try with just my one hard-drive connected.  The computer starts fine and loads into Windows.  This is fine but I need those DVD drives to work.  I try adding one DVD drive along with the hard-drive.  Now my computer won’t even load the Bios screen!

     I could bore you here with the number of attempts I made and the various combinations of what I hooked up and what was not but I will just tell you that I stopped after an hour of getting a “no signal” message on my monitor and no apparent life in the computer.  I decided to go out and cut grass.  Three hours later, I tried it again.  Nothing.  I grab my laptop and research the Internet for possible solutions.  Many sites suggest it might be the memory, the video card, the mother-board, the processor, or the power source.  I don’t think it is the power source because my fan on the mother-board runs fine.  I removed and reseated the memory, the video card, and the processor.  Nothing changes.  It’s now 7pm.  I quit and we drive to Dairy Queen and have dinner.  When we get there, all of their Interac machines are down.  It’s cash only.  Now I get it.  It’s the revolt of all technology.

     Several hours later, I’m lying in bed thinking out the problem.  I can’t sleep and so I pull out my laptop and do some more research.  It becomes apparent to me in the wee small hours that I’m going to have to replace the mother-board.  This isn’t as simple as that may seem.   A new mother-board requires a new processor and new memory.  I’m also thinking it might require a new case, new power source, and possibly a new video card.  I had almost ruled out the video card because the old mother-board had on-board video which meant I could use that if I didn’t have a faster video card.  I wasn’t getting any display through the on-board video either so that’s what made me think it was the mother-board.  The other hurdle was that the next day was Sunday and the only decent place that would be open to buy these components was Canada Computers in Kingston; an hour’s drive east.

     After a few hours of sleep and a print-out of what was in my dead computer, I drive to Canada Computers.  I explain to one of the technicians/sales persons there that I needed a new mother-board, processor, and memory but I might need other things as well.  The sales person tells me she is not technically savvy enough to assist me and that Scott is the best person to assist me.  I tell her my name is Scott and thank her for telling me I am the best person but I’m admitting I still need some help.  She gestures to Scott at the back of the store.  I knew that.  That Scott assesses my situation and explains I don’t need a new case nor power source because those in my dead PC will work with the new components.  It was a good thing that I had printed out the specs from my old system so he could look this up. 

     It is at this point that I think to ask him about connecting my old hard-drive with all of my installed programs and saved personal data.  He tells me I can’t just hook up the hard-drive and expect it to work.  There are all new drivers and a chip-set with the new mother-board and it won’t work with my old hard-drive.  He tells me I have to hook up a different hard-drive with a Windows operating system and add my old hard-drive as a second drive.  I will then have to back up everything onto the new hard-drive from the old hard-drive and then eventually reinstall every program I have.  Either that or hook up my old hard-drive, wipe it completely, lose everything, reinstall Windows, and start from scratch.  I feel sick.

     On the long drive home my head is spinning.  I don’t understand why I can’t just plug in my old hard-drive and expect it to work.  If you own a bunch of DVD movies and your DVD player dies you can just get a new DVD player and it’ll recognize all your old DVDs.  Isn’t it that simple?  Then I remind myself, I own a Toshiba Blu-Ray player.  Nothing has been that simple with the Toshiba.  In a couple of other blahgs I have detailed how my previous Toshiba had problems and I ran into a nightmare with customer support at Toshiba to get it replaced.  I thought everything had been settled when they upgraded me to a newer BDX2300.  It too, has some issues.  Some video formats will not play on it despite being able to be played on my normal DVD player.  But the most frustrating of all is that it will fail to power off and I will have to unplug the power to the unit to shut it down.  There goes Toshiba hijacking another of my blahgs!  I’m done with Toshiba; back to the story at hand.  I didn’t understand why connecting my old hard-drive with Windows 7 wouldn’t work.

     Now we get to the crux of the matter and the part title of this blahg:  THINK FOR YOURSELF.  All the way home, I was sure that that other Scott was wrong and that this Scott was right.  It was the battle of the Scotts this time as if it was the two 25 year olds inside me duking it out to see who knew better.  Again I turned to my laptop and the Internet.  Within a few minutes I had the answer I was looking for and this Scott was victorious.  I promised I wouldn’t be too technical and I’ll stick to that.  I’m just going to post the link here to a website that was invaluable:  http://www.daniweb.com/hardware-and-software/microsoft-windows/windows-vista-and-windows-7-8/threads/281576/using-a-new-motherboard-with-windows-7-on-an-old-hard-drive.  Half way down, is a post by a user by the name of “dcoetzee”.  He suggested downloading a free program called Hirens to create a boot CD that will allow you to load up a mini-version of Windows to click hard-drive repair and it will fix all your problems.  After installing all of the new components in my old case and hooking all connections I downloaded the Hirens Boot CD, which contains a program to burn it to CD, booted from this CD on my newly rebuilt PC and followed dcoetzee’s instructions. I removed the CD, loaded up my PC and it loaded right into Windows 7 and installed the new drivers for the mother-board. Those drivers that it couldn’t find were on the CD that came with my new motherboard. No fuss no muss. I didn’t lose anything and all my programs were installed and all my data was where it should be.

     I don’t like to rub it in but I’m right and the Scott at Canada Computers is wrong.  Think for yourself has always been a motto I’ve tried to live by.  When I worked for Hewlett Packard and Time Warner Road Runner providing telephone technical support I applied that methodology almost daily.  Sometimes I would come across a problem I could not resolve but was positive the scenario had an answer.  I would abandon the employer directive to not go outside our support boundaries.  I would scour through search engine results and forum postings to find a solution.  Most often I was right and I would use this to provide resolution to the customer’s issue.  I would always qualify the support I was providing with the direction that it was being offered for information purposes only.  Most customers followed the direction and fixed their issue.  If I couldn’t resolve the issue on the call, I would go home and research the issue further so that the next time I encountered the problem, I would have a solution.  I guess that’s why I won all those employee of the month trophies.

     THINK FOR YOURSELF.  That doesn’t mean you can’t listen to advice or suggestions but it’s all about making up your mind.  Having said that,  I’m going to give you a suggestion.  I would have qualified what I’m going to provide as a good suggestion but I’m encouraging you to think for yourself.  By the way, this will be a good suggestion.

     I don’t know if I have mentioned this before but I am a fan of the Stargate franchise.  Stargate started as a motion picture with Kurt Russell and was later picked up as a popular television series.  The first of these shows was Stargate SG1, followed by the spin-off Stargate Atlantis, and then Stargate Universe.  I have enjoyed all three of these shows and this past summer Abbie and I went to Chicago for a Stargate convention and got autographs for some of our favorite stars from Stargate Atlantis.  Highly unrepresented at this convention was Stargate Universe.  It only ran two seasons and was very much different than the other two shows.  It was darker and it didn’t resonate with many fans.  I however thought it was brilliant.  One of the things I really enjoyed about the show was the soundtrack.  There were some great songs used in the show and, although no official soundtrack has been released, I’ve been able to acquire many of the songs used in the different episodes.

    One of the great talents I have discovered from watching Stargate Universe is the singer, Deb Talan.  In one episode, they used Deb Talan’s song “Comfort”.  Let me share that with you:

There was something about her voice that evoked something in me.  There was a fragility in her singing and it was something different than the top 40 that you are subjected to on FM radio.  Maybe she’s been played on FM radio but not in my area and certainly she’s not someone I had heard of before.  I wanted more.

     If you research Deb Talan you will learn she is a member of the group “The Weepies”.  I didn’t know that and I don’t know who they are but I’ve listened to a few of their tracks and I enjoy them.  Somewhere during your research you might find out about a concert Deb Talan gave at Finney Chapel, recorded on May 3, 2003 at the Fifth Annual Oberlin College Spring Folk Festival in Oberlin, Ohio.  I’m not promoting the bootleg of this CD but if you want some fine acoustic playing and singing then find and listen to this concert.  Here’s another sample of her singing at that venue a beautiful song she wrote called “My Mother Now”:

If that’s not enough then listen to a more upbeat song called “I Don’t Know Why”.  She encourages the audience to sing along on the chorus.

     As always, if you like a singer, especially an independent artist who doesn’t get the airtime like some of those others who should go back to street singing, in my humble opinion, then go out and buy their CDs or attend their concerts.  Check out Deb Talan’s website for more information:  http://www.debtalan.com/about.html.  I don’t know if she’s going to come to Canada anytime soon but if she does, you can bet I’ll be there…both of me.

    

 

 

Tags: Deb Talan, Scott Henderson, Stargate, Toshiba, Windows 7

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