4

Reckless BIOS Updates

So this hateful, deceitful guide told me that the error message I was seeing was caused by [some bullshit, I don't even remember]. And the solution the guide recommended involved updating my BIOS.

Normal Person Talk: A BIOS is a little chip that is the first thing to speak to your computer when it wakes up. It basically tells the computer that it is a computer and trusts the computer to figure out the rest from there.

wavebreakmedia/iStock/Getty Images
"Hey. Hey, lady. You're a computer. Wake up. I need to play games on you."

3

Maniacal OS Repairs

I managed to restore the BIOS to its previous version, but even then my computer still failed to start.

Thinkstock/Stockbyte/Getty Images
By now the whole experience was beginning to age me.

Among other things, the BIOS tells the computer which part of the hard drive explains how to be a computer ...

Normal Person Talk: The hard drive is the part of your computer that never forgets. Never anger your hard drive.

... and this was for some reason no longer working. I could still see things on my hard drive and start the computer into a recovery state. But none of the simple options from there seemed to work. Which left only a more extreme option, called "Repair." This sounded like exactly what I needed, even though it promised that all the programs I had installed would be removed. Which was fine with me -- reinstalling programs is easy (there's that word again). So I clicked "Repair." The recovery program chugged along, reinstalling Windows from a copy it kept on a rescue partition.

2

Foolhardy Backup Regimen

Backing up your data is a great way to show how little you believe in yourself. When Cortez reached the New World, he ordered his ships burned to better motivate his men. And that worked perfectly.

Wikimedia Commons
Except for the natives.

OK, I'm not that cavalier. Almost everything I do is already in the cloud in some way, and although that's not technically a backup, whatever, data nerds. What I had forgotten was that I, for some silly goddamned reason, had documents that I was working on saved in my Program Files folder. I had a solid couple days of work in there, just in files, not backed up at all. Which I'd just deleted.

Marilyn Barbone/Hemera/Getty Images
Outside, a flock of birds takes wing, spooked by a primal roar.

1

Vigorous Power Cycling

Anyway, after causing the walls of my house to bulge out a bit from all my bellowing, I decided that this wasn't that big of a problem. I could redo that work. Everything else was safe; I just needed to get my computer back up and running, and everything would be fine.

So I took stock of my situation. My computer wouldn't boot. My one attempt to repair Windows hadn't worked. I turned the power off and on again, you know, just to double check. Nope, nothing. I turned it off and on again. And again. And repeated about 15 times with increasing rapidity.

It's possible frustration was affecting my judgment.

Daniel Hurst/iStock/Getty Images
Among other things.

Here's the thing about the power button on your computer. You should press it, like, once. It's not an elevator button that needs to be pressed rapidly for the elevator to move. Once is enough. If you were to, say, hypothetically press the power button 15 times in a row with increasing rapidity, maybe to teach it a lesson, maybe to teach it that you are its master, that can actually cause your computer to explode. Or not explode so much as, say, fry a very important part of itself called the motherboard.

Normal Person Talk: A motherboard is ... you know what, fuck it. FUCK IT. FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFU-

Marilyn Barbone/Hemera/Getty Images

No more booting, or BIOS, or recovery drives would work now. At that point, my toaster was a more effective computer than my computer.

VYCHEGZHANINA/iStock/Getty Images
Hey. Hey, toaster. Wake up. I need to play games on you.

Anyway. One restless sleep, one new motherboard, and one new Windows license later ...

Normal Person Talk: A Windows license is FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFU-

... and I was back up and running. Nothing is easy. Never forget it.

Chris Bucholz is a Cracked columnist and endless source of good advice. His first novel, Severance, is incredible and available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Apex Books. Join him on Facebook or Twitter.

For more computer tips from Chris Bucholz, check out 6 Sexy Ways To Speed Up Your Computer and 6 Ways To Fix Computers (So People Stop Asking You). Just try not to get yourselves killed.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel to see how angry IT is with Chris Bucholz in 5 Reasons The Guy Fixing Your Computer Hates You, and watch other videos you won't see on the site!

Also follow us on Facebook, because rumor has it that's the first step to unlocking the Matrix.