Computer Failure

As should be obvious from a quick read-through of my About Me, I am a computer guy, and have been so for just about my entire life. My very first computer, purchased as a present by my mother, was an Apple ][.

I was 10 or 11 at the time. The next computer I owned was what is now known as a “PC” – which is to say, a computer built around an Intel ™ processor – the 8086. [Except, it wasn’t actually an Intel 8086. It was a cheaper Z80 V20 (edit from a friend who reminded me of the correct chip), which was a drop-in replacement for it, but that’s a whole different story.]

Note that this is way before Windows came to dominate the “PC” side of things. It ran MS-DOS, which was the Microsoft steal / clone of IBM’s original PC operating system, PC-DOS. Yes, the early days of personal computing was even crazier than the Wild West. Everyone was copying and cloning everything they could.

That first computer wasn’t even an “officially-licensed” motherboard. It, too, was a clone of an official IBM 8086-based motherboard. And I built the entire damn thing by hand, back in 1985 or ’86. For all of the desktop computers I’ve owned since then, there have been, literally, just two that I didn’t build myself. One of them was a replacement for one that was fried by lightning striking my house in 1998, and the other was an Apple Mac Mini that I bought in the early 2010s.

My Second Apple Computer

The Mac Mini was the second “modern” Apple computer I’ve purchased and owned (not counting phones, tablets, etc.). The first is an Apple Macbook Air which has been a stalwart work-horse. I got that computer because I knew that I was going to do some writing and, for once in modern times, I didn’t want to be a system “administrator” – I just wanted to be a “user”.

For various reasons, I have an utter loathing of Microsoft Windows and the Microsoft software … “biosphere”. Apple (for all of their many other faults) built MacOS on a Unix base – which means that it was designed, from the ground up, for multi-user and security. [One reason I loathe MS is that “security” is a “modern” idea for them. This is why Windows users almost always have to deal with software viruses and such. Anything which is *nix-based has never had this problem.]

So, I’d gotten that Macbook Air and was incredibly pleased with how it ran. Then, when I found and started using Scrivener (which, at the time, was a MacOS-only product), it all “came together”. I had a home NAS (Network-Attached Storage – basically, a personal “cloud” storage device), so I could easily store / backup files. I wanted to also have a desktop to use for writing / editing, so it made sense to get some sort of Mac desktop. Enter a Mac Mini and a KVM (Keyboard / Video / Mouse) switch, so I didn’t need to load my physical desk with more hardware and it was perfect. [The KVM switch was necessary because my primary computer was, and still is, a Linux system – currently running the Manjaro distro.]

I could work on either the laptop or the desktop. And, since my files synced regardless of whether I was at home or away, I had given myself a seamless environment.

What Happened Recently

Over the past couple of months (Spring – Summer, 2022), my Mac Mini system had been freezing and locking up occasionally. Since a forced reboot (power-cycle) solved things, I really hadn’t thought too much of it…

Until this past week when it froze … and a reboot didn’t solve anything. A couple of reboots later and I got a “Giant White No-Sign of Death”. [This is a reference to the XBox 360’s “Red Ring of Death” – which usually indicated it was time to buy a new Xbox 360.] Unfortunately, due to the way Apple does stuff, there isn’t any sort of recovery CD or recovery USB stick. If it’s failed – you have to take it in (somewhere) for service. So, I dutifully made my appointment at an Apple store – for earlier today.

[Side note … just to complicate matters, this is the first weekend after the new Apple iPhone 14 was released to the public … so everyone was flocking to the stores today.]

“It’s dead, Jim”

Showed up at the store, checked in, and the tech came by to help figure out what the problem was. A few minutes later and he’d figured out that that hard drive had failed.

Unfortunately, because this is a Mac Mini which is about a decade old, Apple had already EoL (End-of-Life)’ed it … meaning that it’s considered hideously obsolete. He said that he couldn’t even check it in for a drive repair. From Apple’s perspective, it’s just a hunk of metal.

Where Do I Go From Here?

Now, if this were a “regular” computer, I would lament and then just pull / swap the hard drive. But – it’s an Apple product, so it’s a tightly sealed unit and there’s no way in.

I’m left trying to decide what to do next. Sure, I could just go “Oh, well, it was fun while it lasted” and, indeed, toss it on a garbage heap somewhere. I haven’t really lost any files and it was backing up regularly to that NAS I mentioned above. But that shrinks the number of computers I can write on to just my laptop.

Or, I could “Cross-grade” my Scrivener license and also run it on my Windows desktop (which I currently use just for gaming).

Or, of course, I can get some sort of replacement Mac Mini – either an older (possibly refurbished), or a new(er) one. Obviously, this is the most expensive option.

RIght now, I’m honestly unsure what I’m going to do.