The Computer Crash of 2020

I can’t remember the last time any of my computers crashed, but the one I had been using crashed a few weeks ago and it took two days to fix it. Oh BTW, I can't remember last time I blogged either 🤣.

It all started when I downloaded an alternative program to Microsoft Office called Libre Office. I’ve been using Microsoft Office 2007 and was no longer getting security updates for it. It still works well but I thought I’d try something else.

A couple of hours after installing Libre Office, my computer froze and I could not shut it down. Surprisingly, it wasn't the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD). I did a hard shut down by pressing the power button but after turning it back on, I couldn’t even get to the Log In screen. I tried turning it off and on several times to no avail. Then I tried to press the F8 key repeatedly during boot up to get into Safe Mode. That didn’t work either. So I put the computer aside and used my older backup Core i3 computer (the one that crashed was a 15.6 inch Dell Inspiron laptop, Core i7 processor, with 12 gigabytes memory, and a 1 terabyte hard drive).

I turned on the crashed computer again and waited several hours hoping that the log in screen would finally show up. It didn’t so I tried again the next day to no avail. Oh by the way, did you know that the computer tries to heal itself by scanning the drives and checking for errors? Well supposedly, the computer found errors and fixed them but still won’t give me the log in screen. I finally tried the F8 technique once again and this time it gave me the Safe Mode screen which enabled me to restore the computer to the time before I installed the new software.

The computer started working again but time and again, it would notify me about hard drive errors. By this time, it was a few days past Black Friday to find a deal for a new computer, however it happened to be Cyber Monday. I found something that I wanted on the Best Buy website. It was an Asus Vivobook 17 inch laptop with an AMD Ryzen 7 processor, 12 gigabytes memory, and 500 gigabyte SSD hard drive. It was 250 dollars off the regular price so I ordered it and it arrived more than a week later, and I’m typing this article on it right now on LibreOffice Writer. This time, when I installed the software, it didn’t make this computer crash.