I hate it when this happens. You breeze merrily along, relying on your laptop for everything, when all of a sudden it starts to do some really odd things.
Last night, I wandered into my home office to check my email before powering down for the night, and my laptop was mysteriously trying to reboot for no apparent reason - and failing. Try as I might I could not get it to boot. I went to bed hoping that it was just a little warm, and would be OK in the morning after a night of rest.
I tried it again on the train to work today, and sure enough it booted just fine. "Phew" I thought, "just a glitch, some random tear in the delicate fabric of Windows XP Tablet Edition". However, when I arrived at work and started using the machine in earnest, it wasn't long before I was suffering random reboots and blue screens again. At one point, my C: drive disappeared from Windows Explorer and I got a "Hard Error". I have no idea what a "Hard Error" is but it didn't sound too hot. Anyway, I get the feeling it is the network card that is failing, as I seem to have much more stability using just wireless.
There are two types of people in the world - those who have lost data, and those who will. I am of the former variety, and as a result I have a pretty good automated backup strategy for most of my machines. There is very little I need to recover from the laptop, and luckily the wireless connection (and safe mode) has allowed me to do so.
Even though I haven't really lost anything (except time figuring out the issue!) I still find it very annoying when this happens. Even once they come back from being repaired, I always feel like these broken machines have been somehow compromised, and you start to blame every little issue on "that failure I had before!".
The worst part is that I no longer have a machine that I can use to connect to our corporate network when I am at home. My freedom to work from home, or to go home in time to put the kids to bed knowing I can return to work after they are asleep has been revoked. Being able to work through the items in my Inbox on the 50 minute train journey to and from London is no longer an option.
It is funny how you come to rely on things, how they come a part of your everyday life. Whilst my machine is at the Laptop Doctors, I will have to change my working habits and routines. It is just as well my Smartphone has "Jaw Breaker" on it, for those long train journeys home...