Mon pauvre little computer

As if all of my current administrative and bureaucratic woes were not enough stress for the moment, my dear, precious little Toshiba laptop decided to die on me yesterday.  During my lunch break.  I guess he decided he wanted a break too...and he was hoping for a permanent one.  That or I just have extraordinarily bad luck.

Unfortunately for him, I refuse to let him go to computer heaven.  After quite a bit of overly dramatic freaking out and nearly breaking down in tears, I have decided to attempt to save his life.  There was much panic over whether or not we would be able to save all my files (I REALLY need to get in more of a habit of backing up my files...the last time I did was in 2010 when my last computer died on me) and quite a fight to try to repair the 1000 damaged sectors on my hard drive and recover my system back to factory settings.  Luckily, using Ubunto we were able to back up all my files onto our wonderful Freebox server but unfortunately we weren't able to repair the hard drive and the recovery wizard on my computer just kept stalling after entirely wiping out my hard drive.

I sent Lionel out to buy a new hard drive, because as far as we could figure the hard drive was the only problem.  As he went about installing it, we realized the other absolutely asinine thing I had done (or rather not done).  I had never made the recovery CDs for my computer meaning I am currently without an operating system.  After much freaking out, we decided tonight to run to the store and buy Windows 8 (much to my chagrin as I HATE Windows 8), only to discover that apparently my computer doesn't entirely support Windows 8 and it will cause issues with some of the devices on my computer.  So off we ran to a different store to try to purchase Windows 7, but they were already closed. 

I wasn't particularly thrilled about having to spend the money on Windows, but after looking at buying a new computer and discovering that there is practically nothing on the market and in my price range that meets my limited requirements for a PC (really, I just want a laptop with a 13.3 inch screen, a damn CD/DVD drive and absolutely NOT a Dell, HP or Compaq), I figured this was my only option.  However, when we got home from our unsuccessful shopping trip, I started digging around online for other solutions and discovered that I could purchase a copy of the recovery disk for my computer with Windows 7 directly from Toshiba for only 35 euros.  Much better than 110 euros for Windows!  So I placed the order and after I paid they informed me that I would receive my disk within 14 days.  14 days!?!  I would have been happy to pay more to have it much, much faster but they didn't give me the option.  Here's hoping I get it much quicker than that!

Needless to say, being without my computer is quite an issue for someone who works from home and requires constant access to my company's two different servers in order to get anything done.  Luckily I can borrow Lionel's computer for the time being, and while there are some issues with it, I can perform most necessary work-related tasks with it and the few bugs (like I can't print from our servers to my printer without making major modifications to Lionel's computer) can easily be dealt with with the help of my coworkers in our office.  Our IT guys were able to remotely connect to Lionel's computer today to set up all my accesses to our servers and get all of that straightened out, so in the end I only went about 8 hours without access for work.

Still, this has all created much unnecessary stress for both Lionel and myself and at a time when I really didn't need to be dealing with anything else stressful.  Add to that the pressure of having to make the decision between trying to save my computer or just buying a new one (and I really hope I made the right choice!), and I'm just feeling worn out and mentally and emotionally exhausted at the moment.  But no time for that because I still have to move forward with working on our taxes and my request for citizenship!