Our desktop computer died last week. About a month ago it began running very slowly – I’d type text into my status updates at Facebook and have each letter take a god 5-6 seconds to show up. Eventually, it would boot up, but we were unable to click on any desktop icons OR the start menu to access programs.
But we couldn’t afford a new computer. So we did the next best thing: we wiped this one out and started over.
First, we logged in via safe mode and moved off any files to our external hard drive. We had already done that many months ago, but got lazy after time and began saving things on the C: drive again. And so we spent a couple days moving files over until our C: drive had nothing of any importance left on it.
We then wrote down a list of all the programs we wanted to keep. We then went hunting for the disks to make sure we could reinstall. Fortunately, we found almost everything. The only thing we have yet to find is my old copy of Adobe Creative Suite that I use for my freelance work. We found the CASE and the serial number information, but no installation disks.
Armed with the knowledge that we had the disks for everything we truly needed to have on the machine, and that all the user files had been safely saved onto the external drive, Denis wiped out the machine and began reinstalling the operating system. That took most of yesterday afternoon.
Today we attempted to get access back to the Internet, but nothing was working. We had two routers in the house – one wired, one wireless. The wired router loaded and ran perfectly, but we wanted wireless. Unfortunately, that router (the one we had been using up until the computer broke) was no longer working properly. So Denis ran out to Best Buy a couple hours ago and bought a new router.
And here we are two hours later, not only with a shiny “new” machine and a working wireless network, but we’ve taken the time to set up our printer to be on the network as well – which means we can now print directly from both our desktop AND our laptop.
Not only that, but since the machine is no longer bogged down with programs we no longer want/need/use, it is lightning quick. No more having to wait for the computer to catch up with my 98-wpm typing speed!
Huzzah!