jemjabella

Disastrous Day

I've had a heavy workload for the past few weeks which means work has been quite hectic — and the reason why I've not been online in the evenings of late — but today was particularly ridiculous.

Within 10 minutes of getting into work, I had a dead system on my hands. The Dell we use for our internal job/client/supplier management system had managed to corrupt itself. To be honest, it'd been giving system errors since I started nearly 2 years ago so it's done well to hang on this long, but it couldn't have picked a worse moment to bomb out on me.

I managed to get into Windows and recover data, so only time was lost, but I can't believe it took me most of the day to get it back into a fit state. I spent a good hour trying to figure out how I was going to get the right drivers without a) knowing the individual hardware component info and b) no working 'net (because the network adapter wasn't configured) only to discover that Dell has an excellent driver/support system. I entered in the service tag and got the full list of drivers despite the system being plenty old. Well impressed there.

Reinstalling XAMPP was quick and painless as ever, but the SQL backup was so large it kept timing out. In the end I managed to split it up into chunks and get everything back in that way, but God knows I wish I'd remembered about BigDump.

On top of all that, I managed to injure myself 4 times. I smacked my arm on the door of a colleagues car, and my knee on the dashboard (low dash, long legs). I then cracked my head on the underneath of my desk as I was plugging my KVM back in, and as I instinctively pulled my away from the desk I walloped the side of my face/eye into the corner of my PC. I seem to have escaped the black eye, thankfully.

I need a holiday, and vodka. Not necessarily in that order.

Comments

There are currently 27 approved responses to "Disastrous Day".

1. 

   Hannah 12/06/08 at 17:02 #

   That's pretty hectic! I think I'd rather have a hectic work day than a very boring one, though.

   Hehe, had to add that BigDump made me giggle.

2. 

   Aimée 12/06/08 at 17:33 #

   Look on the bright side... after today, it really can't get much worse. Have a strong drink and sleep, and I'm sure tomorrow will seem a bit brighter. :)

3. 

   Peter Green 12/06/08 at 17:50 #

   Thanks for the Big Dump pointer!
   Maybe next time I feel like pulling my hair out because of the size of a D.B. I'll remember this!

4. 

   Sarah 12/06/08 at 18:00 #

   Sorry to hear you're had a bad day. We all have them sorts of days. :(

5. Mumblies   12/06/08 at 18:15 #

   Awwwwww never mind Jem *hugs* I'm sure tomorrow will be a better day.

6. 

   Carly 12/06/08 at 19:22 #

   Sounds like my day at work... actually mine was less technical but still very demanding.... grr

   I uninstalled then reinstalled XAMPP recently, and I still can't get it to work... hmmm

   Dunno what to do about it really.

   Hope you get your vodka, and your holiday soon!

7. 

   Stephanie 12/06/08 at 19:35 #

   No vodka, but there's some leftover chardonnay from last night's dinner...

8. 

   Aisling 12/06/08 at 19:38 #

   *gives vodka* Not much I can do about the holiday, though! But, it's almost Friday! Never fear!

9. 

   Hanna 12/06/08 at 19:47 #

   Vodka might have been good for me too today :(. But tomorrow is Friday and then it's weekend YAY! :)

10. 

    Erin 12/06/08 at 19:47 #

    I just hope tomorrow goes better for you, it being Friday the 13th and all. Perhaps you ought to take a flask in with you to work? You know, just in case.

11. 

    Jem 12/06/08 at 19:48 #

    I'm not working tomorrow, thankfully. I was going to but I've decided I can't be arsed!

12. 

    Rachael 12/06/08 at 20:33 #

    Oh Jemmie, your day was even suckier than mine! Feel free to have my share of the vodka. ;)

13. 

    Lydia 12/06/08 at 21:40 #

    Poor Jem...I hope everything gets better.

14. 

    Robbie 12/06/08 at 22:04 #

    >_< Dells are...special. I'm surprised you managed to do what you did. Feel better soon! Maybe have some of your famous hot chocolate.

15. Mat   12/06/08 at 23:53 #

    Why do you need some staggered exporter :| mysqldump will do dumps pretty damn quickly and theres no socket that can be timed out.

    Sucks, hope you are feeling better :)

16. 

    Jaclyn 12/06/08 at 23:59 #

    Wow. That sounds horrible! At least you didn't lose data!

17. 

    Regina 13/06/08 at 06:26 #

    Awww hope you are feeling better now. Bad days suck. -_-

18. 

    Annie 13/06/08 at 07:11 #

    Yikes, I hope your battle wounds are better. After a day like that it's a good thing you don't have to work today. I hope you have a nice day with your vodka. ;)

19. Mat   13/06/08 at 07:12 #

    It's an importer, not an exporter, and all I had access to at the time was phpmyadmin

    Cheers Mat

    My apologies, But you can always use mysql on the command line and using the 'source' command you can load db dumps in super quick :D

20. Audrey   13/06/08 at 09:45 #

    It sounds like you managed pretty well. I work as a support technician for a university that a) uses Dell as our supplier and b) handles a large volume of users compared to the number of staff. My suggestions come from experience not harshness for you. How could anyone have harshness for such a l33t n!nj4?

    1. Save your data to your network drives. These are found in "My Computer" at the bottom as drive letters typically starting around "H:\". If your company does not offer network backed-up storage they really should. If you'd not been able to recover data imagine how much you (or others) might be set-back.

    2. Take the Dell Drivers section with a grain of salt. Some models can be shipped with multiple hardware configurations. There could be 8 drivers listed as network drivers, but only one is the one you need. Installing an incorrect driver can cause page faults (aka "Blue screen of death"), restarting loops, or other issues; So just be wary. Even putting in a specific service tag can yield vague results.

    2. Run Spybot Search & Destroy on your system to remove malware. It is a powerful tool for any computer user. Not using it is just prideful ignorance; like refusing to wear a life jacket while swimming in the ocean. Spybot S&D takes a while to run, so start it during a lunch break and let it run. Also, the Immunization and Tea-Timer features are great. The first protects you from known malware, while the second informs/confirms registry changes that software attempts to make (keeping you aware of what's going on).

    4. Running CCleaner to get rid of useless information your machine saves about you and old cookies can help system performance if it's slow. The registry cleaner (second tab) of this program organizes your registry (like fragmenting organizes your hard drive or Disk Repair works in a Mac OS), which can also improve system stability.

    Jem, I am not saying all of this because I think you maybe don't know (you seem very computer savvy) or because I know anyone at all from either produce. I am saying them to be helpful. Feel free to email me if you want any other technical support tips or have questions about what I've said. I recommend those programs for home use too. They are powerful and safe to use.

21. Audrey   13/06/08 at 09:50 #

    Websites for Spybot S&D and CCleaner (it didn't list them because I used carrots.)

    Spybot S&D - http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html
    CCleaner - http://www.ccleaner.com/

22. Karl   13/06/08 at 11:37 #

    I'm a tech, and I can say Spybot and CCleaner I would not let NEAR any of my systems (200+)...clean install, windows updates, decent AV - job done. 3rd party crap is just that. A well looked after copy of windows shouldn't need it.

    As to the backups, I've said this to Jem several times...however, it's not my network..heh.

    This server was only an auxilliary "make do and mend" XP Pro webserver - it could be backed up to either network or pen..

23. 

    Jem 13/06/08 at 12:51 #

    With all due respect Audrey, I'm a trained IT support technician. While I appreciate your advice, you're better off giving it to someone who doesn't know what they're doing.

24. 

    Melissa 13/06/08 at 21:19 #

    I hope you get to relax this weekend, you definitely need/deserve it. :)

25. 

    Arwen 14/06/08 at 03:14 #

    If it was me, I probably would have sustained twice as many injuries. Good thing you got everything back up and running, though!

26. 

    Vera 14/06/08 at 05:41 #

    We-ell.. let's just say "this was not your lucky day" XP

27. 

    Jeremy G. 20/06/08 at 07:22 #

    This reminds me of MANY days in my life. I once threw a desktop pc off the roof of a 12 story building for not cooperating. True story. Recently, I was ready to set my computer in the middle of the street and light it on fire because my blog layout was pissing me off :) It's fun, it lets out steam.