Two Thursdays ago, I walked into work, booted my computer up, and watched in horror as my computer came up with the following error:
Wanna see?
If you don't know that that means, it means "You just wasted 2.5 days trying to encrypt your machine. Ha ha ha!"***
AGGHHH!! Frustration does not begin to cover my feelings. I did as I was supposed to: I encrypted my machine, I started working on my open projects again, and this happens.
Did I mention that Friday at 5PM was the corporate deadline for encrypting each computer?
So on Friday, I start trying to encrypt the machine again. Of course, we get off work at 1PM on Fridays, so I know that I'm working against time. Thank God for Teresa.
"Victoria, you sent me proof of encrypting that machine earlier in the week, right?"
"Yes, I sent it in email."
"Then quit that and go home. I'll send in the proof that you did what you were supposed to and we'll encrypt the machine next week. Bye"
Thank you!
So on Monday I return, chipper, happy, ready to start reinstalling the encryption software. I reinstall Windows, get everything done by Monday afternoon, encrypt the machine Tuesday morning and send in the proof.
Then I rebooted the computer.
"INVALID LBAI"
Yes, you are seeing that right. This time I go to the helpdesk. James takes a look at my computer and suggest I find a nice cliff to toss it off. He calls Dell, order a new drive for my computer, then we get started again. On Friday, having sent in proof that I've reencrypted my machine, I reboot.
"INVALID LBAI"
This ceased to be funny about two reboots ago.
The new drive arrived on Friday. I uninstalled and reinstalled Windows and the excryption software again. This time I receive a new error and my computer no longer senses my keyboard.
By Monday, everyone in the office is ready to throw in the towel on my computer. You can't make up this kind of absurdity. I wipe the drive clean again, reinstall Windows, and start the encryption to run over night. I came in Tuesday expecting the worse. Instead, I had a Windows desktop . . .I rebooted the sucker twice.
If I'm going to have to reinstall this stuff for the 5th time, I better find out in advance, right?
Right. Machine still encrypted, Windows still installed.
As of this moment, this very moment, I've had a working computer for 1 hour. I'm not doing anything important, lest I screw with fate.
2.5 weeks of knitting in my office. All because some idiot lost a laptop.Not bad at all. Just not fair either.
***Actually, it really means that the master boot record (the file that starts up Windows) is gone, missing, has been moved, etc. For me, with an encrypted drive, this means that the computer cannot boot from a recovery disk. Long story short, reinstall everything, starting with the OS.
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