Muddy Waters

I've had plenty of opportunity to consider which would be worse. Losing the motherboard would include the loss of the XP OEM license that's tied to it; a double whammy.

On the other hand, there's a lot of data on the HDD that's valuable to me personally, although the value is mostly not measured in cash. But losing my projects and other original work from the last few years is a chilling prospect indeed.

At this point it's not outside the realm of possibility that both mobo and HDD are failing. Attend:

I happened to notice that 'snapping' my PC's power supply on/off switch would cause the overload light on my UPS to trip for a split second (normal UPS behavior, says the manufacturer), but toggling the switch gently didn't trip the light.

One night I turned the power supply switch on and the UPS's overload light stayed on permanently, bricked. While this did happen *during a thunderstorm* and I'd been avoiding snapping the switch since noticing the problem, I still have to wonder if the power supply is faulty and ruined my UPS, and if it might have damaged some hardware as well.

-Tarbolde

Let's hope it really is a failing harddisk, and not a failing motherboard. :-(

- Tricob.