While most of what happens daily in our Computer Services office is mundane, there are on occasion those things that give us a good laugh. Below is an excerpt from a note sent out to us by one of our missionaries who lives in a remote bush location:

"Hi Matt,

Here’s the hard drive I told you about. Since I last talked with you I tried something else. It didn’t get me anywhere forward. Hopefully it has not set me back either. I took out the hard drive and set it above our fridge, just in case drying it out some would help. I also opened our computer up and set a kerosene lamp under it so the heat would flow through it. I left it that way for a day and a half, and then tried to reconnect it. It didn’t get me any further.

Then, as you will probably notice, I tried opening the hard drive case, just per chance I would be able to see something that was physically stuck and get it moving again. I was not able to find any screw driver tip that would open the star screws under the 'Warranty voided if broken' stickers. So my attempt there was futile. But after putting the Philips screws back in and reconnecting the hard drive to the computer, it makes a funny clicking noise and doesn’t seem to be recognized by the computer. Maybe loosening the screws somewhat would help, or… I don’t know. Feel free to do whatever you think might be helpful.

If you are able to recover anything that would be great."

Unfortunately, but not too surprisingly, I was not able to recover any of his data from the drive. That dampened our amusement somewhat, and I did tell him that, for future reference, his attempts to "fix" the drive probably did not help it very much.

In many of the places where our missionaries work here in PNG the heat, humidity, and salt in the air (when near the ocean) is very rough on computer hardware. We always advise them to back up any important data regularly.