R.I.P. P.C.

This Phoenix is a sad Phoenix.

The hard drive on my desktop computer broke the other day. It's still under warranty, but first I need to buy a new one to try and recover my files from the broken one (my extensive collection of hard-drive recovery programs was ironically on that drive; thank god I still have some original disks). The problem is that it's bigger than any hard drive I can find at the appliance stores around here. Japan is not like America: we don't have computer shops on every corner here. We don't have computer shops at all.

I found this one at Newegg.com which would be perfect for me, but Newegg doesn't ship internationally. :-( If I were still in Spokane, I could pick up this one at CompUSA for even cheaper (after rebate), but I don't live in Spokane anymore, which is why living abroad sometimes has drawbacks.

But just when you thought things couldn't get any better, just wait! Yesterday, the memory chip in my laptop died. I was watching a video and boop! Brief flash of blue screen, and "restart". I say "restart" in ticks because it didn't restart. Nothing came on the screen. Did the monitor die? The hard drive? What? I went through the troubleshooting checklist and it is indeed the memory. So, my laptop went from 1280megs to 256megs. It's working...but....slow......... Have you ever tried to run Windows XP on a computer with 256megs of RAM? Let me save you the trouble: Take a photo of your computer, and paste it on your monitor. That's what it's like. Slow is too small a word.

I bought the memory from MemoryStock.com, where there is a lifetime warranty on all memories except laptop, so I may be hosed on that. I can get another stick from them for $267.00 (including shipping to Japan). Crucial.com has the memory I need, but it's $339.99 plus shipping, but either way I'll have to wait until payday (the 21st, one week from today). The thing about Crucial is: The memory is fairly competitively priced (usually more so than this), it comes with a lifetime warranty, and it's reliable enough that you'll probably never need the warranty. That's what I look for in memory. I should have bought from them the last time, but I was short on funds (when am I not?) and wasn't thinking clearly.

Sigh.

I should have brought my back-up laptop with me, for days like this.