December 21st: Fixing Computers and Babysitting

Today was alright.

Since I could sleep in today, I got out of bed at around 10am.

My neighbor's kids's computer had some issues, so last night my father picked it up and brought it to me so I could fix it. The issue appeared to be with Windows, because it kept blue screening and boot looping, and none of the USB ports were functional when loaded into Windows, but they were working just fine in the BIOS. It also seemed like they had reset Windows (maybe accidentally?), but in the process, something went wrong, so the reset didn't complete.

First, I already knew from first sight that the computer was NASTY. There was dust all around the computer. I got my vacuum out and began to vacuum the dust from the inside. Then, I wore a mask and some gloves and opened it up, and WOW, it was INCREDIBLY dusty, so I vacuumed all the dust out. Afterwards, I checked if there were any memory issues, which there weren't. Then, I checked the hard drive, and there weren't any issues. So, I began checking the contents of the drive to see if there was anything to back up (with permission, of course), but unfortunately, it looks like they really did reset Windows, so anything they had previously was already gone (unless they went through data recovery services, but that would take too long.) So, while I was fully wiping/formatting the drive, I prepared a Windows USB.

Wiping the drive took a long time since it's a one terabyte drive, but afterwards, I installed windows. I remember that when I initially installed Windows for this computer around 2020, no peripherals worked, but this time everything was fine, which was good to know. Right now, I'm just updating everything and optimizing the settings, and I'll also be installing Chrome for them so they don't mess up that step (the kid that uses the computer is rather tech-illiterate.)

While I was fixing my neighbor's computer, I also got my server ready to have a new SSD installed. Since I already had the vacuum in my room, I also vacuumed my server up. It wasn't too dusty, although the vents that were facing the wall had some dust built up. It was crashing a lot, and I think the source is Ubuntu, not necessarily the memory, so I got out a spare hard drive, put all of the server files on there, and wiped the original hard drive. Now, when I have the chance, I'll just go buy an SSD, install Ubuntu and the rest of the server software, and the server will be running better than before.

Throughout all of the computer fixing today, I had to help babysit my baby nephew. He misbehaved a lot today. He refused to take a nap or eat. As his father says, I think he is in his "terrible twos" stage of being a toddler. 

Thanks for reading,
Issac