Happy (?) New Year's Crash…

Last Wednesday, I updated my blog, checked my email, did all the usual computer things, and at the end of the day, I logged off and went to bed, as usual. Thursday morning when I turned on the computer…everything had gone missing. By which I mean, the machine still ran, but it behaved as if it was a brand-spanking-new-fresh-from-the-box machine, complete with setting up stuff like Internet Explorer that I set up when I bought the thing five years ago.

Considerable poking around and a visit to the Geek Squad later, the problem appears to be a corrupt profile file. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be an easy way to put everything back the way it was. The data seems to all still be there, but I have to dig through the file trees and/or the backup in order to find it (at present, I still haven't located my email files, but I think it's just a matter of figuring out where the program keeps its data files. I hope it is, anyway. I think I've found pretty much everything else.)

In other words, reconstructing the computer setup - the address lists, the bookmarks, the calendar, various non-standard datafile locations - is possible, but it's going to take me quite a while. I am SO glad this didn't happen in the middle of Hell Month (when I'd have been scrambling to find the copy-edit and get it back to the publisher in time) or next month (when I'm going to be frantically trying to get various obscure tax documents filed in the two-week window that the government allows for them).

Which is a long-winded explanation for why you're not getting the usual blog post on writing this morning. I'm hoping to be back on schedule by Wednesday. In the meantime, have a nice relaxing holiday!