#oneaday Day 76: Day of Disaster

It's been "one of those days" today, and I'm pretty glad it's over.

I came downstairs this morning to get ready to do my usual weekend stuff for MoeGamer and YouTube, and was confronted by a message I hadn't seen for a few months at this point, helpfully informing me that my computer couldn't find a boot device.

The last time I saw this message, I bought an SSD and installed Windows on it, and this solved the problem. Apparently not quite well enough, however, because it appears that my old hard drive, which was still in the computer just in case I needed anything off it, was the one that had the Windows Boot Manager on it. And when this apparently gave up the ghost completely sometime last night or this morning, it took the ability to boot with it.

Fury. Nothing makes me frustrated and angry more than a computer that doesn't work for no apparent reason. Particularly when things just keep going wrong after an initial disaster. And today, shortly after we determined that yes, there was indeed a serious problem here, I pressed the Power button on the case, something went "snap" and the button didn't come out again, meaning it was now impossible to turn the computer on or off using that button.

Great.

Fortunately, through a team effort between me and Andie, we managed to diagnose the problems and jury-rig a solution. Andie managed to pull the actual switch part of the button out of the case and "mount" it outside the case so it's usable again now, while I did some digging online about how to set up a Windows Boot Manager on a drive that doesn't have one.

If you ever find yourself in the same situation, the "Method 2" on this page worked perfectly up until the final step, after which "BillyBigun"'s second answer on this page finished the job nicely without having to reinstall Windows or reformat my SSD. Relief.

Pour one out for that old 1TB hard drive, though, we've been through some shit together, and now it's finally time for it to rest.