Last Friday was Black Friday here. Literally in that around 10am when I was getting down to work on my computer, the screen suddenly went black and the system started to reboot. My hope were raised as Windows loaded again, but dashed a few seconds later when I got the message “Windows has recovered from a serious fault” and then everything went black again – and this time the computer didn’t reboot.
I used to work a lot with computers and have often fixed other peoples, but this had me beat. I couldn’t persuade the system to boot from a CD, and nothing looked obviously wrong when I opened up the box, though it was very dusty!
I unplugged the inessentials and tried again with no luck, and eventually I gave up, sulked for a bit, then called out a repair service. They told me an engineer could come in around 4 hours, though after4 hours they phoned to revise that to 6. I’d hoped to go out and take pictures but instead found myself staying in for the call.
The good news was that he eventually got it going. The bad news that it took him an hour and a half at expensive rates, and that he couldn’t really identify the fault. Removing the memory then replacing just one of the four memory modules brought it back to life, but it continued to work when all four were replaced, and all passed the memory tests on his diagnostic software. Perhaps it was just a poor or corroded contact, possibly on the memory but perhaps somewhere else on the motherboard, disturbed by the pressure on removing and replacing memory. Perhaps a short circuit somewhere broken.
So I now am considerably poorer, have lost a day’s work on the computer and half a day’s photography and have a computer with a doubtful motherboard. It could well go again any time, though at least I can now do everything that worked for that engineer without having to pay anyone else!
If there is plus point it’s that it’s made me think more carefully about what I can do to save things if the system does go again. While waiting for the repairman I set up email on another computer, and checked that I had all my essential files backed up on an external hard disk (most of them were there.) I also installed a copy of the free Raw Therapee v2.4 conversion software – it’s an old computer that isn’t powerful enough for Lightroom or recent versions of Capture One Pro, and none of the software already on it could read D300 or D700 files.
Raw Therapee does seem to produce decent results, but trying it out in case I needed to process the job I had booked in for the following day I was soon very aware why I use Lightroom. And very relieved that the computer was up and running when I needed it.
Firstly, workflow and in particular the much better design of the interface. Raw Therapee seems too much of a community effort, with everyone wanting their own particular bell or whistle included, rather than picking the best approach.
Then I’ve become entirely addicted to the various possibilities of Lightroom’s ‘Adjustment Brush’ – allowing local adjustment of exposure, brightness, contrast, saturation, clarity and colour – in any combination. Being able to define presets for particular purposes is extremely helpful – I’ve got one called ‘Remove Highlights’ and another called ‘Spotoff’ – which works well together with the supplied preset ‘Soften Skin’.
And finally the whole output side is easier to use – and I’ve set up all the presets that I need for different purposes.
I haven’t quite managed to catch up with what I missed, and haven’t quite decided what to do about the computer. The serviceman suggested it was probably time to think about a new one as it’s hardly worth replacing motherboards these days and systems are now so cheap. But it seems so wasteful.
And of course I’ve been checking my backups, although I lost none of the files on my hard disk – except for the anti-virus that was corrupted and had to be removed and re-installed. But today I’ve been busy writing out more of my images on to DVD.
DVD may not be good for long term storage, but there is something satisfying about a box full of disks that you can take out and put into almost any computer. Of course I also have the files on removable hard disks, the latest a 1 Tb Toshiba USB 2.0 model that cost me under £70 (now £75) and will store around 80,000 NEF RAW files. I’m happier with belt and braces.
Although digital photography has many advantages – and I often mention some of them – it has made us entirely reliant on computers. If you’ve not thought about what would happen if your computer suddenly stopped working, now would be a good time to do so.