This morning I awoke to an odd grating/whirring noise coming from my laptop computer. Upon lifting the screen, I noticed the noise was coming from the hard drive, which was extremely hot. Not matter how many keys I pressed, or how much I moved the mouse, I could not awaken the computer from its slumbering state.

Bad news.

So I tried the usual remedy: rebooting. After failing the usual start-up checks, I got the ominous message:

"Cannot find boot device." This same thing happened to the communal family computer at home just before I left for school. It's FUBAR'ed, so naturally I was a bit apprehensive.

So my solution? Since the hard drive was making odd whirring and other noises, I figured I could "re-align" it by gently smacking it around some. Well, after rebooting again, it mercifully started back up normally. I don't know if it will crash again… Windows XP reports the drive to be "healthy," and Norton could find no viruses…

Does anyone else have a suggestion? Well I am back for now, but if I am not on-line for a while, you will know why…