Phew.
And the best thing is that I actually have two working laptops right now.
There was a moment yesterday when I felt really guilty about spending the money on a new one but I think I’m over that now. It is pretty. And shiny. And doesn’t have the things on it that I really need, of course.
So I started yesterday by restoring the older laptop from an older backup. I was hoping that that would eliminate the bug. Losing four weeks of data would be an acceptable price for having a working computer. Especially since all the really important things like the novels and the budget were in the cloud. (Hurray for multiple backups!) It was interesting to note how much I don’t care about photos, by the way. Also a lot of the family photos are still on paper, and my husband has some on his computer as well.
Then I decided to go and buy a USB-C to USB-A cable and a new USB drive. (I have a 32 GB one that the boy lost somewhere, argh.) I rode my bike for ten minutes through the freezing streets. Good thing they were clear.
Then I came back and tried to use the new laptop in target mode with my husband’s computer, but no luck. Then I made a bootable USB drive with Sierra on it – no luck again (someone on the internet said that that had worked for his computer but I guess his came with the Sierra OS in the first place), and then I made a bottle USB drive with High Sierra, and –
I managed to start the new computer from that drive, and to format the hard disk, and then it was perfectly usable.
Cue snoopy dance, and pompom shaking and overwhelming relief.
I have decided for the first time in decades to not migrate all my data from the old computer to the new one on auto-pilot but this time I will just hand-transfer what I need.
It is interesting to see what is important to me in my digital life. The first app that I installed was Firefox, even though there was a perfectly serviceable browser on there. Next was Thunderbird but then I shied away from configuring all my email accounts by hand. I will try to transfer the preferences file from the old computer later. Then I installed Scrivener (the program I use for writing) and then I spent about half an hour trying to find my activation key with no luck. I found the one for Scrivener 2 which I bought in 2015 but not the one for the current version. Will have to do more digging.
I installed GarageBand and realized that all my podcast files are still on the old computer (but that one is working, so phew), I installed my budget software right away (which was completely painless), and dropbox, and all kinds of things.
I’m waffling about installing Office. We’ll see.
Then I went to bed rather early, and slept like a log for eight hours.
Today the boy is going to the orthodontist to get his braces out. Yeah! I decided not to go with him because I don’t think he really needs his hand held through this, and riding on a bus for 45 minutes, and then sitting in the orthodontist’s office for an hour is a little pointless.
So today I will run (brr, cold), and then take a hot shower, and help making lunch, and I will only teach two students, and in between I will probably transfer all the files from one laptop to the other.
When I told my husband that both computers were working again, and that I was feeling bad about spending all that money he said not to worry. Then he said, „Well, since the old on is working again you can sell it, then.“ Which I really don’t want.
For one I’m somewhat attached to that machine which has been working for me for more than seven years already, and also I think it’s a good idea to have a spare computer in the house. My husband is using one for recording that’s even older than that, and I don’t know how long that one will be working. Also there is 750 gigabytes of data on that computer that I don’t want to lose. Of course I could pull the hard drive out and out the old one back in again that came with the computer when I bought it.
Nah.
Oh, and I have a new student as well. She starts next week, yeah!
I think I’ll go and sleep for a week now. And then I’ll think about how not to get all emotional and tense every time something like this happens.
I did meditate yesterday and read my daily stoic essay, so that’s something.
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