Today is the first time I've been here (or anywhere on the net) since last monday when I turned on my computer and it told me I didn't have a hard drive. To make a long story short, my hard drive went to PC heaven (or hell) and the tech told me it was probably just a fluke that it crashed on that day. What do ya all think? Virus or weird timing?

-- Kimbo WA (Aliveandwell@WA.com), May 11, 1999

Answers

What did the tech have to do to get your PC running again? Replace the drive, or just restore the files on it? If the latter, it was possibly a virus (possibly). If the former, it was more than likely a routine hard drive failure.

My main drive (an old 1.6Gig Quantam) is starting to chuckle a bit too loudly; I plan to replace it soon. :)

Glad you got your problem fixed, though.

-- Stephen M. Poole, CET (smpoole7@bellsouth.net), May 11, 1999.

This just in : NEW VIRUS WARNING!!

If you see a message on the boards with a subject line of "Badtimes," delete it immediately WITHOUT reading it. This is the most dangerous virus yet.

It will re-write your hard drive. Not only that, but it will scramble any disks that are even close to your computer (20' range at 72 Fahrenheit). It will recalibrate your refrigerator's coolness setting so all your ice cream melts and milk curdles.

It will demagnetize the strips on all your credit cards, reprogram your ATM access code, screw up the tracking on your VCR and use subspace field harmonics to scratch any CDs you try to play.

It will give your ex-boy/girlfriend your new phone number. It will program your phone autodial to call only your mother's number.

It will mix antifreeze into your fish tank. It will drink all your beer and leave its dirty socks and underwear on the coffee table when there's company coming over.

It will hide your car keys when you are late for work and interfere with your car radio so that you hear 1940's hits and static while stuck in traffic.

"Badtimes" will make you fall in love with a hardened ax murderer. It will give you nightmares about circus midgets. It will replace your shampoo with Nair and your Nair with Rogaine, all while dating your current boy/girlfriend behind your back and billing their expensive dinners to your Visa card.

It will try to steal your grandmother from your grandfather. It does not matter if she (or he for that matter) is dead, such is the power of "Badtimes", it reaches out beyond the grave to sully those things we hold most dear.

It will rewrite your back-up files, changing all your active verbs to passive tense and incorporate undetectable misspellings which grossly change the interpretation of key sentences.

"Badtimes" will give you Dutch Elm disease. It will leave the toilet seat up and leave the hairdryer plugged in dangerously close to a full bathtub. It will drink all your soda then pee on your bathroom floor.

It will remove the forbidden tags from your mattresses and pillows, and refill your skim milk with whole. It is insidious and subtle. It is dangerous and terrifying to behold. It is also a rather interesting shade of mauve.

These are just a few signs. Be afraid, be very, very afraid. PLEASE FORWARD THIS MESSAGE TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW!!!

-------------------------------------------------------------

-- ScottC (circulating@e.mail), May 11, 1999.

Before I read the above warning, have you checked your battery / setup? Hard disk types get lost on most computers when the battery fails. What kind of PC? You may be able to auto-detect the drive, and it'll be good to go, 'til you turn it off. We need more details. <:)=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), May 11, 1999.

Anyway, now that I have read the above "warning," if you have a drive that is less than a few years old, let's just say that they hardly ever "fail." Does happen, but not too often. If you still have the drive, and after you have run a virus scan, you could try making it a slave if you want to try and get anything off of it. Just my $.02 <:)=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), May 11, 1999.

Hi Guys, He had to replace the hard drive and it was a 3 year old 1gig drive. Since he's my brother he gave me the new hard drive and "donated" his tech's time. Thanks for the replies... as for the author of the badtimes answer, I'm very aware of this menace. That virus is also known as ex-husband.

-- Kimbo Wa (Aliveandwell@WA.com), May 12, 1999.

(Nightmares about circus midgets.)

(Heh. I enjoyed that one.)

-- Stephen M. Poole, CET (smpoole7@bellsouth.net), May 12, 1999.

A new champion! ScottC supplants Stephen Poole for best Y2K post. And to think he does this for free.

-- cd (artful@dodger.com), May 12, 1999.

Took my old 1 gig drive and loaded Linux on it. Nice to have Unix available as an option when I start up. Have been using various flavors of Unix at work quite a bit lately, so need more practice.

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), May 13, 1999.