AWOL
I’m sure you don’t want all the details, so I’ll keep it short. I tried to remove the Linux partition from my laptop. I was willing to back everything up and do a fresh install of Windows, but Scratchy (who’d done this before) assured me that would be way more trouble than was necessary. He even said I didn’t need to back up anything - in fact I’ll quote: “It won’t be a problem.”
Five minutes later, that changed to: “It shouldn’t be a problem.”
A few minutes after that, he was sitting at the table, leaning over my laptop with his head in his hands.
I couldn’t access anything. I couldn’t even see the files to back them up, because the laptop wouldn’t boot up. It was confused, you see: it thought that it had 63 partitions, each holding 27% of the hard disk. You do the maths.
Bear in mind that this laptop contains the family’s schedules, my passwords, my address book, my bookmarks, all my program registration details, my banking information, my email… and you’ll start to understand why Scratchy feared for his life.
Eventually, using a Linux Live CD and a few sneaky tactics, I got the important stuff copied slooooowwwwly to a pc, using a combination of a USB stick and uploading/downloading files to my webspace. Scratchy spent the time googling for some kind of fix, but we knew that any further work on it might result in all the files being permanently lost - hence me trying to prioritise and copy essential data. Eventually I finished and he found something that told my laptop that 63 times 27 doesn’t make 100 (wouldn’t you think a computer might know that?), and so it’s now running again (though I still don’t have the partition formerly known as my d-drive working), so I’m back. And I might, if he’s lucky, just let Scratchy live.
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