If you guessed “at work?” then you were right! 🙁

I just got home, rubbed the cat, and am going to type this up before going to bed. So, can anyone tell me why I decided to work on computers? (Rassafrassin’ computers!)

Last Monday, you may recall that JohnnyCache died on us. So I spent the day reinstalling the software on a new HD an all that jazz. Got it running by the end of the school day.

Today’s disaster was worse – the Fileserver went kaput. At around 8:30 this morning, several of my students informed me that they’d just gotten the BSOD (Blue Screen of Death). Shortly after that, kids and teachers were popping in to tell me likewise. I checked all the servers and everyone was up and running. Oh yeah, except the Fileserver. Perhaps the most important computer of them all. Gah!

What made working with the Fileserver harder than with Johnny was that it can only been seen through Terminal Services. Still, I did hook it up to a monitor just so I could see what happens at the boot. But there was no keyboard jack. I looked like it kept hanging up at the boot, and when I’d try to access it, it would reboot again. Time to call in Dean, our technology partner.

He had another job in Troy to do first, but he was there before lunch. Dad (who was in working the morning only) and I were very happy to see him. He actually found a keyboard port when he opened the case and discovered which of the drives had gone bad. We started backing up crucial files from the server (starting with mine and dad’s, then the superintendent and secretaries, finally the teachers, e-mail, and grades. Students were not backed up at the time.) This took a hell of a long time, so I headed back home around 4 to change clothes and get mail (alas, my amazon.co stuff didn’t come today – I want my Ghost Light!). I returned, did more backups, drove off to Troy to pick up some Lo Mein and an egg roll, returned to do more backups. Around 8:30pm, I called Dean back to tell him I was nearly done with backups and by 9pm, we were trying to put the new HD in.

You’d think with RAID-5 and a mirror this would be an easy replace & restore operation. No, dammit. The C volume had errors – so we broke its mirror. But the RAID-5 volume did not have errors. And it didn’t like us swapping out the harddrive. So our final action was to start backing up the student files (these are all being backed up to my own computer’s harddrive) and we’re going to try and use the Fileserver as is (with the broken mirror) until the weekend. Maybe this weekend we can FINALLY get the new Fileserver up and running. (One of our summer tasks that we were unable to finish.)

I hope that my amazon.co order arrives tomorrow. Cuz if it does, I’m going straight home and watching Ghost Light. Twice. Maybe three times. Bleh!