"Bereaved Orc" writes the following:

Yesterday afternoon, we return home from
church, and I go back to the computer room
and switch on my PC. I plan to play Murkon's
Refuge for a couple hours to pass time while
my wife is napping before we have to leave for
evening services.

Instead of the usual happy Windows XP
startup screen, I see a scary-looking black
and white DOS window with the following
message:

"SMART failure predicted on hard disk 0:
Maxtor 98196H8-(PM). WARNING:
Immediately back up your data and replace
your hard drive. A failure may be imminent."

Ouch. Ouch. Can I say it again? I hate that
sinking feeling. I try to do it; I really do. I hit
F1 to continue as my poor dying computer
instructed, and all appeared well, but I know it
is only a facade of good machine health. I
start a CD burning to back up my files, but it
crashes halfway through, telling me the sector
it was trying to move files from was
unreadable. Ouch. And then Windows
seems to go haywire! Where are my icons?
Where is my program list!?!

Panicked, I restart the machine,and it appears
to work normally again. Well, except for that
ominous warning message and having to hit
F1 to continue starting up. I try the internet,
and am still able to connect, so I log into
RinkChat looking for someone; ANYONE, who
can help. famous is there (doesn't she know
something about computers?), but idle.
CURSES. Rabbitlord is the only one here
talking until Ciaran and Nyperold come in.
Ciaran says I should run Scandisk and have it
attempt to repair the problem, then run the
backup again.

Flustered, I need to have Ciaran tell me where
to find Scandisk. How emabarrassing. So I
run it, which requires restarting the machine
again. Crossing my fingers, I say "goodbye' to
the RInkChat gang.

It makes it through the first check. Cool.
Second check, also cool. Third check; I'm
thinking maybe this is going to work after all.
Fourth check makes it to the 60% mark,
finding and fixing a couple problems. I leave
the room for a few minutes; maybe that was a
mistake. I wasn't there for my poor computer's
last breath. Not that I think I could have done
anything for it.

When I come back, all I see is a silent, black
screen with one line of white text:

"No operating system found."

Thanks guys. You tried. It was too far gone
already.

Gri"won't be on-line at home for a while"shny