Computer troubles: since I know you're all desperate to hear.

With hopes and best wishes, my beloved laptop was sent off to be repaired. Wobbling sound? CPU fan, check. Run a diagnostic? Check.

They called over the weekend with good news: the CPU fan was fixed just by blowing it out with compressed air. (Icarus glances over at one very smug, very large, very furry kitty.) They found a death-Trojan lurking and updated my virus protection... and all was well.

With flowers and rejoicing, my laptop returned home.

Alas. The reunion was brief. The laptop announced that its "registry was corrupted" (serves me right for letting it out of my sight in poor company) then insisted I restart. The restart left me staring at a dark screen with the bad news my hard drive was an "invalid disk."

I tried set-up, to no avail. I tried my boot disk. It did nothing.

Wailing and tearing my hair, I called the repairman. He thought it might be a hard drive problem.

"But, kind sir," I said, "would that not have been discovered during the diagnostic?"

"Er...."

Yes, it seemeth the diagnostic was never run once the wobbling CPU was so easily dispatched.

Forlorn, I am once again without my beloved laptop... computerless.