My computer just had a near death experience!!

[Darkmatters]

I thought it was all over... I started it up a while ago and every program was really balky and stuttery, so I rebooted - same results (even worse actually). Couldn't get Firefox or iTunes to shut off in fact... had to force quit them. I rebooted several times (sometimes it takes 3 or 4 times before everything is working smoothly again) and the last time I got nothing but a blank grey screen with a flashing question mark in the center of it!!! That's far worse than the mere blue screen of death (which I get all the time - is that normal?) I thought it was all over, and my 1st thought was "Oh shit - how will I let Auron know I can't make it in to moderate until I get a new computer?" .. Followed rapidly by "What will I do if I can't visit DV every day for hours on end?" and "Shit - I guess I lost all the files I haven't backed up yet onto external hard drives" and "What about all the iTunes songs/shows/movies I've bought??!! Are they gone forever now?" Then a little later I facepalmed and realized I have a laptop I can go online with. Derp! But I would have lost all those files etc if it really did die. I tried switching it on again after an hour or so, and it came back to life though. I suspect it's living on borrowed time now though. Unfortunately my laptop isn't powerful enough to do my animation with, so I do need to start shopping for a replacement computer - I guess this one is at least 3 years old now, maybe close to 4? Anyway, right now I'm just thankful for the miracle of digital resurrection!! Glad to be back on the same computer!

[Seroquel]

I'm always afraid of that happening. My laptop's an old piece of shit.

[Taffy]

My old laptop had problems just like that. I'd get the blue screen every so often, almost three times a week. Then I booted it up once to see blue smiley faces cover the screen. After another reboot it seemed to work fine, but it kicked the bucket the next week. Your computer may be at the end of it's lifetime. :\

[Supernova]

Can you give some specs on the computer, also what OS are you running? Just curious because as long as I've been using computers I've not had many run-ins with the notorious blue screen. 3-4 years in my experience isn't very long for a computer to go belly-up. Could be the hard drive going maybe? In any case, definitely back up anything you don't want to lose ASAP.

[Darkmatters]

Yeah, I figure this is the warning before it finally goes. And luckily I happen to have a 500 gig external drive sitting here that was only about half full so I've been backing up like crazy. Let's see - specs: iMac7,1 Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz running OSX 10.5.8. It's probably because I use P2P way too much.. If it does bit the bullet I'll get a newer one and just use my laptop for websurfing, keep my animation computer offline and away from viruses.

[Arra]

My hard drive crashed a while ago and I lost everything I'd saved for years. It was terrible, some things I still wish I had so badly. Pictures, videos, programs I wrote, saved memorable conversations, diaries, old assignments, etc.

[Darkmatters]

You should definitely get yourself an external hard drive or 2. Memory is getting a lot cheaper - you can get a 500 gig drive the size of a deck of cards for under $100 (US). Whenever I fill one up I get another one (lost too much data in the past when my other 2 computers went kaput! )

[Arra]

I need one so badly. I'm still using the replacement one I had before which is only 75 gigs and has only like 5 left. I intend to get an external one and a better regular one, soon.