[AT] computer problems

[Cecil E Monson]

	I don't know if I mentioned this on the List or not but Tuesday
of this week, we had a power outage where the power went off and then
popped back on for a split second before going off again. The computer
had just started to re-boot when it went off the second time.  It raised
Cain with my computer and all I got when I tried to turn it on was
first a blue HP screen, and then a black screen with the words 
"Operating system not found". Not a good thing.

      I found out in checking my manuals that XP Home has a partitioned
drive and the boot recovery program is on the hard drive. XP Pro has a
provision to boot from a disc but not XP Home. Oh, it comes from the
factory supposedly with a disc but you never get it. Must have something
to do with a bulk license to install XP or something.

	I had just about given up when my wife said she had heard that
a young local guy was pretty good at restoring crashed computers and not
too expensive. So, I called him and ended bringing him my computer this
noon. He had it an hour and a quarter and called saying he got it to
boot and was going to run it over the weekend to make sure it was OK.

	So, I got lucky this time. FWIW, I have a UPS power supply and
had inadvertently mixed up the power cords for the monitor with the one
for the computer several weeks ago and had no surge protection on the
computer at all - just on the durn monitor. You can be sure it will be
plugged in the right way when I get it back. Must be CRS setting in
early.

	On a tractor note, I have all of my tractor photos and files
on the second hard drive on this computer and it would have been a real
blow to find out I lost them all. Like I said, I got lucky this time
and everything is OK.

Cecil