Syphillis for the Silicon Set
Jul. 11th, 2001 12:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rinueWell, I just got through reformatting Valancy's harddrive. Sadly, this is not a euphemism for something more pleasant. I feel physically ill, and I may throw up. That I am so affected simply goes to show that my parents would have been well advised to have gotten me a dog instead of a computer when I was three.
The story is somewhat complicated, and probably boring to anyone who is not a computer tech. I shall try to liven it up through agressive use of simplification and the literary device formerly known as personification.
While Val was at school, Alexandria (her computer) contracted one hell of a virus, which just goes to show you that same gender dorms are just as dangerous from a communicable disease standpoint. This badass of an invader was cleverer than the quietest of moles; it slowly wended its way through the directory subsystems, silently deleting files nobody would ever miss. Perhaps it had a mechanism for examining what was rarely accessed, or maybe it just got lucky. Either way, it went undetected.
The virus ran rampant for two years. Val began to suspect its existence, but she couldn't find it using her woefully outdated antivirus software. She talked of taking it in for repairs, but I suspect this was an idle threat in hopes the terrified virus would go into spontaneous remission. Eventually, the four of us (me, Val, the virus, and the computer) wound up in the same city at the same time for an extended period - something which had not happened in more than three years. I quickly became frustrated by the virus's existence, as I have little patience for this sort of affair.
While I was medicining to Alexandria, the vmm32 file got corrupted. I don't know whether it was me, the virus, Windows (shoddy piece of drek), or a combination of the three. Needless to say, this is an important file. Windows will not start without it. To even get a c prompt is tricky. Moreover, the vmm32 file is different for every computer, and so it cannot be replaced by transfer.
Patrick* and I, intrepid explorers that we are, started mucking about in DOS. (I became surpassingly nostalgic at this point, going on at length about old text-based computer games like Zork. Patrick ate some cheescake in response.) We quickly discovered that the virus had destroyed almost everything we could have used to restore the vmm32 file. (There was another delay here while I orated on the superiority of UNIX over Windows.) We even looked in the hidden directories, like c:/recycled. Nothing. (Remember to back up your files regularly.)
After several hours, we gave up and started copying over all the files in c:\mydocu~1. This was made all the more difficult because the computer refused to recognize its own zip drive. I filled twelve 3.5" floppy disks with whatever I could find, and wrote off the contents of Val's Eudora mailbox as lost. Then I began the reformat.
I feel awful. For Valancy and for Alexandria. It's as though I've given her voluntary amnesia. To make the situation worse, I'm not certain that recovering the files won't just bring the virus back. I can't even tell whether Val's upset, because one of her high school friends just died of a drug overdose and her grandfather is in the hospital. (Moreover, this last calls into doubt my intended method of getting to the aeroport, as Val's mother has the car and Val can't drive mine.)
I suppose it could be worse. The penguins could invade any second.
*Patrick, who never updates his journal, is probably my best friend, even though I"ve only known him for a year. (This actually makes a lot of sense, as he knows me for who I am rather than who I have been. Val, as stated earlier, really trancends a categorization like "best friend.") He's Ron to Val's and my Hermione and Harry. (And yes, we actually test as such on the selectsmart quiz.)
The story is somewhat complicated, and probably boring to anyone who is not a computer tech. I shall try to liven it up through agressive use of simplification and the literary device formerly known as personification.
While Val was at school, Alexandria (her computer) contracted one hell of a virus, which just goes to show you that same gender dorms are just as dangerous from a communicable disease standpoint. This badass of an invader was cleverer than the quietest of moles; it slowly wended its way through the directory subsystems, silently deleting files nobody would ever miss. Perhaps it had a mechanism for examining what was rarely accessed, or maybe it just got lucky. Either way, it went undetected.
The virus ran rampant for two years. Val began to suspect its existence, but she couldn't find it using her woefully outdated antivirus software. She talked of taking it in for repairs, but I suspect this was an idle threat in hopes the terrified virus would go into spontaneous remission. Eventually, the four of us (me, Val, the virus, and the computer) wound up in the same city at the same time for an extended period - something which had not happened in more than three years. I quickly became frustrated by the virus's existence, as I have little patience for this sort of affair.
While I was medicining to Alexandria, the vmm32 file got corrupted. I don't know whether it was me, the virus, Windows (shoddy piece of drek), or a combination of the three. Needless to say, this is an important file. Windows will not start without it. To even get a c prompt is tricky. Moreover, the vmm32 file is different for every computer, and so it cannot be replaced by transfer.
Patrick* and I, intrepid explorers that we are, started mucking about in DOS. (I became surpassingly nostalgic at this point, going on at length about old text-based computer games like Zork. Patrick ate some cheescake in response.) We quickly discovered that the virus had destroyed almost everything we could have used to restore the vmm32 file. (There was another delay here while I orated on the superiority of UNIX over Windows.) We even looked in the hidden directories, like c:/recycled. Nothing. (Remember to back up your files regularly.)
After several hours, we gave up and started copying over all the files in c:\mydocu~1. This was made all the more difficult because the computer refused to recognize its own zip drive. I filled twelve 3.5" floppy disks with whatever I could find, and wrote off the contents of Val's Eudora mailbox as lost. Then I began the reformat.
I feel awful. For Valancy and for Alexandria. It's as though I've given her voluntary amnesia. To make the situation worse, I'm not certain that recovering the files won't just bring the virus back. I can't even tell whether Val's upset, because one of her high school friends just died of a drug overdose and her grandfather is in the hospital. (Moreover, this last calls into doubt my intended method of getting to the aeroport, as Val's mother has the car and Val can't drive mine.)
I suppose it could be worse. The penguins could invade any second.
*Patrick, who never updates his journal, is probably my best friend, even though I"ve only known him for a year. (This actually makes a lot of sense, as he knows me for who I am rather than who I have been. Val, as stated earlier, really trancends a categorization like "best friend.") He's Ron to Val's and my Hermione and Harry. (And yes, we actually test as such on the selectsmart quiz.)
