InsaneJournal

Computer Woes
I have probably permanently damaged my laptop's hard drive. So, well done me. The thing freaked out at me last night about a corrupted hal.dll file. I called my brother to google for me and surmised that booting WXP from disc would solve the problem, and so resolved to contact IBM support and pick up my long-languishing WXP discs (which did not come with the laptop itself).

This morning at work I did some more background reading and surmised quite differently: the physical disc is almost certainly damaged, chances are it will have to be replaced, I don't know how long it will take or how much it will cost, and it seems likely that the data is mostly unrecoverable. My backups, of course, are not up to date. Best of all, the whole thing is my fault for being too careless with the machine, forgetting momentarily that such beings are very delicate and sensitive.

...Who names a boot file hal.dll? Are you trying to make me paranoid?