computer less

Every evening before I go to bed, I connect my devices to their chargers for the night. I do this at my computer so they can sync at the same time and so that I do not use them in bed.

Monday night, I noticed that SuperDuper! failed to back up my hard drive. I set it to try to copy again but didn't wait to see if it worked. Backing up my hard drive to a boot drive takes a while, about 20 minutes. I wasn't too concerned since I back up nightly and I also have a Time Machine backup. I went to bed.

I got up the next morning to a gray screen. My first thought it is that it was stuck between awake and sleep and needed a nudge. I tried the track pad and tried the mouse. Nothing worked. I had to force shut down my machine. I restarted the iMac and it took forever to boot up. Then it seemed stuck in one of the login items. Force quit was not working so I had to force shut down again. This time I opened in safe mode. It took a while but did get me to the login screen. I tried my account and had the same hang ups. Repeat. This time I logged into my Test account. It seemed to work a little faster since I don't have any start up items. I clicked on safari and it took forever! Force quite took minutes to show up, minutes to allow me to click on anything.

More restarts resulted in the same thing. I tried using Disk Warrior but it ejected the disk when I tried to reboot. I tried resetting PRaM. Finally I took out the added ram and made an appointment with the Apple Genius.

I got my iMac in early 2010 but it is a model introduced in late 2009. A few months ago, there was a recall on those iMacs to replace the hard drive. I did not take it in because I wasn't having any problems. I didn't want to be without a computer for a few days. And the iMac is heavy to haul somewhere. It is only 21.5" and after taking it in Tuesday, I was glad I didn't get the 24". Jonathan was my Apple Store genius. He tried to boot up the computer and then ran diagnostics. He said that the hard drive was covered under the recall and that they would replace it then test to make sure everything worked. He asked if I had a back up. I have two. The bad news is that it would 4-5 days for the repair. Ugh.

The boys noticed right away when they got home from school. They weren't too concerned since their computers work and so does the wifi. Then Ryan remembered that he syncs his iPod on Wednesday mornings. He backs up his iPod and then chooses his music for the week. In typical Ryan fashion, he said he would never be allowed to sync again. I told him that would could sync if I set up iTunes through his computer. He thought about it but didn't want me using his computer. I understand his reluctance and I am doing my best not to need to use his computer. Ryan said he would OK for a week with not syncing.

I miss my computer but am OK with my iPad and iPhone. There are a few things I miss and cannot do on my devices. I cannot use Lightroom nor Photoshop so POTD, Project Life, scrapbooking and cards will have to wait for a few days.