1. Turn it off
2. Flip upside down
3. Pull apart the keyboard and hard drive and dry off
4. Let air dry over night
5. Go to your happy place (mine is Belgium waffles with strawberries: see above)
Hopefully tomorrow it will at least turn on, so I can get the thousands of photos, all my writings and that novel I wrote last fall onto a storage device. If anyone says “should have” and “backup” in the same sentence I might just start crying again, waffles be damned. Trust me I know.
UPDATE (next day): So this morning I hopped out of bed, and press the power on button on my laptop. The blue power light flickered on, then nothing (I tried this about 100 times). I collapsed back into bed and pulled a pillow over my head. I was going to have to replace my kick ass computer with a crappy one, I probably lost my documents and I would no longer be able to store gigs and gigs of photos when I traveled, and I envisioned running around Europe with a big clunky crappy cheap computer.
3 hours later…
HUSBAND: OK I’m going out to the computer repair place.
ME: (from beneath pillow) ugh.
HUSBAND: Woah. Did it do this before?
ME: What, flicker feebly then die?
HUSBAND: No, all the lights are on and… holy crap
(Microsoft theme song is heard)
ME: Shut up!
HUSBAND: I know!
So, yes the computer decided that it needed it little more sleep this morning (was it hungover?) before it would miraculously restart like nothing ever happened. The only side effect is that time started resetting itself randomly, but the wireless, webcam and all the keys work. I AM SO LUCKY. I seriously think it was all the thoughts of waffles. Maybe the belgium-waffle-gods smiled on me today. Yum.
Photo: Christine Gilbert (uploaded pre-spillage)
July 23rd, 2008 at 9:35 pm
Well, that just sucks.
anthonys last blog post..Mapping Out a Quest and Mexican Restaurants
July 23rd, 2008 at 10:05 pm
GAAHHHHH…..
not to mention the loss of the wine
In all likelihood though the data is probably still recoverable - even if the laptop itself is kaput but wow…that sucks.
I spilled coffee on mine once - thought it was dead but a couple of hours later it just magically turned itself on and worked fine ever since.
July 23rd, 2008 at 11:42 pm
Oh no! I know exactly how you feel, except currently it’s my external hard drive that is on the fritz. I’m not even sure if my data is recoverable, and even worse is that I’m not sure whether I have time to get a replacement drive back to me since I’m leaving the country in a few weeks. I think you’ll have much better luck with your hard drive, though.
Daniels last blog post..Twitter with ease
July 24th, 2008 at 3:33 am
wow! I’m terribly sorry. I know how you feel. I had a mini laptop incident too. just think waffles.
Nomadic Matts last blog post..The Weekly Photo
July 24th, 2008 at 9:30 am
Fingers crossed it all works out…
July 24th, 2008 at 9:58 am
Thanks guys for the support! Holy crap that sucked… but thankfully it all worked out for now…
Lesson learned: Back up your stuff, stupid.
July 24th, 2008 at 10:39 am
I could have written that post - if only you’d been drinking coffee instead.
Yesterday morning, a full mug, with sugar, on my laptop keyboard.
No more laptop. Prognosis for the hard drive? Uncertain.
Backup? None.
Lessons learned? PLENTY. Daily backups. No more coffee. And two months of work down the drain.
Perhaps these stories will inspire others not to think, “That won’t happen to me!”
July 24th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
Yeah!
July 24th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
One of these guys has saved me more than once. It will at least limit the amount that seeps in the keyboard. If only there was a reservoir to collect the wasted red wine!
http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=keyboard+cover&btnG=Search&show=dd&cid=9788217382156628751
Matts last blog post..nn404 Not FoundnnNot FoundnThe requested URL /commentluvinc/remoteCL5.php was not found on this server.nnApache/2.2.3 (CentOS) Server at http://www.fiddyp.com Port 80nn
July 24th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Glad to hear that all is well in the end. I am always paranoid about that happening to me; perhaps tonight I will backup my laptop. (Since it’s been awhile since I’ve been paranoid enough to be kicked into action!)
July 24th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
This made me all mopey, but I’m glad it turned out fairly well.
I will go with your theory the laptop was hung over. Or that laptops are fickle creatures that (despite what my programmer boyfriend tells me) actually have a secret agenda to make us support the waffle industry.
July 24th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
That blows. Remember: Once, Twice, Three times a back-up.
I have an external hard drive getting repaired. Too many photos possibly gone forever. Back everything up twice, at least.
Stevos last blog post..going for broke
July 24th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
Chelsea: This made me do a spit take: “[laptops] actually have a secret agenda to make us support the waffle industry” Thanks for making me laugh… it’ been a long week.
July 25th, 2008 at 1:33 am
I hope that you only feed your laptop cheap red wine….Keep the good stuff for yourself.
August 14th, 2008 at 3:09 am
i like this entry. very witty
i think i’ll be checking your blog from now on