October 21, 1999
Dear Everyone:
Not a happy time for computers just now.
It actually started on Saturday, when I went into the office and
made a special backup copy of the
Versatile
directory, then started running the Database Integrity Check.
This is something I do every month.
On Sunday morning, the Integrity Check showed everything OK in
the system. Then I imported
data to over 30,000 boxes as part of one of our ongoing Projects.
So far, so good.
I then went up to “Jeannie’s” place to look at her computer.
One day last week, when “Jeannie” tried to turn her
computer (my old computer) on, it went “click-click-click” about a dozen
times, then just sat there.
On Sunday, I went up to her place and tried a few things (taking the
cover off, tapping the
hard drive
with a screwdriver handle, carrying it around to simulate a trip to the
doctor’s office) but nothing worked.
Finally, I said I would take it to the computer doctor on Monday.
This was before Monday turned into
Computer-Hell-Day. I was in a
time-guzzling meeting most of the morning.
When I got out, I was immediately informed that the
Versatile Server had gone
down. Sure enough, the
server had crashed, or frozen, or locked up, or anything else you want
to call it when Computer-Fall-Down-Go-Boom!
We got the server started up OK, but quickly realized that the
crash had had an impact on those 30,000+ boxes I had updated on Sunday.
At this point, the situation looked almost
identical to the Great Crash of January, 1998.
That time, it took us two weeks to recover.
Thanks to the special backup I had run on Saturday, it only took
us about 6 hours to get Versatile
back up and running properly.
This indicates that our recovery rate has improved.
It also indicates that all the work I did on Sunday
was erased. Plus, we don’t
know why the server crashed.
You frequently don’t know why a server suddenly goes down like that.
I generally blame it on
Ares, Greek god of war.
It’s as good a
scapegoat as any.
Unfortunately, the real scapegoat may have been
those self-same 30,000 entries I imported on Sunday.
We’ll have to try again next weekend and hope for the best.
As for “Jeannie’s” computer, I did take it to the
computer doctor after we were sure the
Versatile server looked OK.
The prognosis is uncertain.
A “clicking” hard drive often means a dead hard drive.
If that’s the case, we’ll just have to get “Jeannie” a new
computer. Now that she’s had a
taste of email and running a database, there’s no going back.
We should know more by the end of the week.
As for movies, no time last weekend.
I understand there’s a new
Meryl Streep
film coming out this week or next.
This would be the signal that
Oscar Season
has officially opened.
Love, as always,
Pete
PS.
Poor “Jeannie” has had to go back to receiving the Weekly Letter on hard
copy instead of via email.
She’s “out of the Ethernet” until further notice.
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