Thought I'd give you all an update:
Laptop is still down, replaced the hard drive, but can't afford to buy replacement recovery discs at the moment (See me dA journal for the rant on
why I need to replace them in the first place), so it's sitting there on my desk without a Operating System. Tried installing Linux but when that did not work right away I had to give it a rest as I don't have the time to fiddle with it. I feel bad that I can't be more active, but I'm still around, making sure the place hasn't burned down yet.
