Last evening started just fine. My wife and I both had work to do, so we decided to work at our side-by-side computers. I decided to rip some songs from a Beach Boys CD and add them to my music directory. After all, I can listen to the files on my computer, while my wife listens to the CD at work, or in the car, etc.
Everything was going just fine. I got up to get a cup of coffee as I continued my work. As I was pouring the coffee, my wife and I were discussing what sort of refrigerator we wanted for the house. Did we want side-by-side? With water and ice? Or did we want the freezer on the bottom? Those are more energy efficient. Blah blah blah.
Walking back to the computer, negotiating piles of the kid’s crap, I hear a POP! I stopped. Did I step on a balloon? Or break a toy? What the hell happened? Both my wife and I were trying to figure out exactly what I had done. We’re looking on the floor and we can’t figure it out.
Then my CD/RW drive started whirring sickly. It opened and dropped some shards on the floor. And closed again. And opened again. “I’ve been hit!” it seemed to be trying to say.
I calmed the drive down and powered the whole system down. I unplugged everything and got my tools. It was time for emergency surgery.
First I removed the drive and inspected the inside of the computer. It looks like the wound was contained. As you can see on the drive, no shards, not even miniscule, had escaped from the casing of the drive. This was good news. I wouldn’t be frying any of my internal components. Whew! It also meant that I could continue working.
Then I got out the high-techest tool that is needed in order to fix or diagnose a problem with a stuck or unpowered drive (located in the left of the frame):
I inserted the tool and popped open the drive. It was a clean incision. As you can tell, my greatest fears were being confirmed. The tray was empty. It could only mean one thing (note high-tech CD drive tool in its extended position on the right):
Finally, I started the extraction process. Or, to be more technical, I had my wife pick up the drive and shake:
Here’s the thing: I loved that CD. Here’s the other thing: It’s part of a five disc boxed set. I can’t just replace that one disc. Here’s the other, other thing: Fu(this word has been edited, as it is not deemed family friendly. Therefore we have decided to replace it with a word which we feel will be equally compelling) FRELL!
This isn’t the first time that this has happened to me. I had another disc explode a few years ago. However, I find it concerning. How, in the hell, is it possible that this happens to someone MORE THAN ONCE???
The statistics are staggering. It almost hurts to think about it. So I won’t.
But, be honest, how often has this happened to you? Never? Exactly. It’s happened to me twice.
And I LIKED that damn CD. Mother(edited again . . .Gary has some rage that he needs to deal with today)freller!
I’m going to send it back to the manufacturer. With the CD pieces. I doubt they’ll do anything. It’ll be blamed on the user. I put the CD in wrong. Or I somehow compromised the overall inherent goodness of their product. I could talk to the record company, but that would be pointless. They would sue me for pirating and put me in jail with the college kids who set up that P2P server. Worse, I’d tell them during the interrogation that the reason why they’re suffering in sales is due to the fact that 98% of the music they put out is complete (Edited) (Edited) (Edited) (Edited) (Edited) (Edited) crud. Radio is a musician’s enemy these days.
Sigh. Oh well. I’ll go pick up a new drive today. Attempt to get my old drive replaced. Sigh. Why me?
Oh crap. Is that thunder?
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