Hi meara!

So, this morning I started diagnosing, after first checking to make sure that it still was booting to an XP splash screen. It was. So I opened up the box and started disconnecting things to try to isolate the bad actor. I disconnected the two storage drives, then booted up with just the SSD, and lo, there was a Win 7 splash screen and then the desktop a few seconds later. Knowing the SSD was good, I then reconnected the 3 TB media drive, and that worked. So I figured that it must be the last drive (500 GB) that was problematic. But when I reconnected that one, it worked, too. WTF?!?

The upshot is that the machine is working again simply by virtue of unplugging and replugging two hard drives, which makes little sense. This is why I hate computers.

It wasn't all for nought. I'd picked up a 4 TB drive a little while back for an upgrade, so as long as the machine is opened up, I might as well install it.

DX -- In case the problem ever happens again -- is the SSD boot drive plugged into the lowest numbered SATA port? I had lots of trouble successfully booting my PC until I rearranged the plugs so that the booting SSD was plugged into SATA slot #1.

Thanks, Jon, I did have to switch it to SATA port 1 back when I installed it, so that wasn't it this time. I think what happened here is that the BIOS lost track of the SSD somehow, and instead got fixed upon the old 500 GB drive I had in there which used to be the boot drive when it was an XP machine. That's the only thing I can think of, and it's sort of similar to what you're describing.

We used to have a computer that booted from a RAID array and occasionally would lose track of where it was supposed to be booting from.

Technology question. So my laptop is dead according to the HP repair site and I don't know when I'm going to be able to afford to get another.

I have a galaxy S5 Note phone, the one with the stylus . Is there some kind of usb plug in, is there some kind of keyboard that I can plug into it so that I can type without it taking hours and without me making 8 zillion mistakes?

I don't even know what I'm talking about, which is why I'm asking you guys. Anyone have a clue about how I can find a keyboard thing to attached to my phone so I can use it to type on a little better while I'm waiting to save money to get a laptop? I'm desperate here.

You can pair your S5 with a bluetooth wireless keyboard.

Any bluetooth keyboard would work but something like this [link]

would probably be the most helpful because of the built in stand. Any bluetooth keyboard will work but most don't have a way to hold the device itself so you'd end up propping your phone up on something.

Thanks, askye! I'll head out to Best Buy after Dan gets back from his interview, so I can kind of hands-on check it out. But it looks like a good contender until I can save up the money for a laptop.

I wonder if Best Buy has any coupons? I think I'll go Google that.

They usualy don't but they will price match - like Amazon as long as it's shipped and sold by amazon. Or most major retailers. Not weird "discountcrazyprice" website places. It aslo has to be the same make and model and the actual webpage not a screen shot.