I think the best way for me to deal with this is to be completely honest. About two weeks ago I started having really weird problems with my Macintosh. I was horrified. Never before had I experienced a serious technical problem. Sure—I’ve had extension conflicts, unexplainable crashes and freezes, but who hasn’t? I mean, this is a Macintosh, after all. 

This, however, went far beyond such simple explanation. For the first time ever, I virtually tip-toed around my beloved 7100, scared to death that one false move would send it six feet under. I had no idea what to do.

Seemingly out of nowhere my computer began to freeze whenever I selected ‘Restart’ or ‘Shutdown’ from the ‘Special’ menu. At this point I was pretty much in denial that I actually had a problem. I just ignored it, and manually shut down my 7100 with the power button. Not long after that, I would shut the Mac down manually—and about three seconds later it would restart itself! “No problem,” I assured myself, “I’ll simply shut my power bar/surge protector off and that should do the trick.”  It did, and I convinced myself I was happy. Things went on like this for a few days—and then they started to get worse.

Whenever I tried to ‘Get Info’ on a file, the 7100 would freeze. Whenever I tried to copy something, it would freeze. I’d empty the trash, and it would freeze. Open certain folders—ZOT!—freeze. I was mortified.

What bothered me most is that these new difficulties seemed quite random. I decided to reinstall the system software. I pulled out the System 7.5 CD, started my machine with the Disk Tools floppy, selected ‘Clean Install’ and anxiously waited for my baby to come back to life. When it finished, I was prompted to reboot the Mac with the newly installed software. I cautiously pressed the ‘Restart’ button and held my breath. Time slowed. The hard drive’s customary grinding seemed almost ear shattering, tearing through the otherwise silent room like a chainsaw gone awry.

It crashed.

In the depths of my emotional and spiritual frustration I forced myself to face a bitter reality. My Macintosh was not perfect. How could this have happened? My life…my ideology…my very existence were now in complete and utter choas.

I tried turning various extensions and control panels off and on, zapping PRAM, rebuilding my desktop (about eight times), but to no avail. I was stumped on this one. I had no idea what had gone so wrong. Once again, I tried to deny everything.

I thought that if I went away for a few hours and then came back everything would be okay. I thought maybe the problem was with me. I just could not accept that it indeed was a problem with my beloved Macintosh. I hauled out some video tapes and watched Jurassic Park and a few episodes of Seinfeld to help restore my faith. I theorized that my proximity to the 7100, the geographic elevation of my neighborhood and the moon’s trajectory around the earth had recently combined to create a deadly gravity well that promised to destroy my Macintosh (if not the whole house). I hauled the 7100 downstairs and set it up. 

I was shocked. It still did not work.

Of course, not having a recent backup of any of my data did not help matters any. I decided to attach another hard drive (which I would use to startup my computer). I figured that if it were a hardware problem, the problem would persist with the addition of a new startup disk. If it were a software problem, starting up from the secondary hard drive would result in normal behavior. If nothing else, I’d know the general nature of the problem.  

After fudging around with SCSI ID addresses and power cables for a few minutes, I successfully connected the secondary hard drive. The moment of truth had now arrived. Was there actually a hardware problem with my precious Macintosh? Had it been something I had mistakenly done? Or was it indeed the deadly gravity well?

After one teeth-clenching restart with the secondary hard drive, everything seemed to be functioning normally. It soon became clear that it was not a hardware problem—and my sigh of relief could be heard for miles. My only alternative, at this point in time, was to format the culprit hard drive. After copying all of the data to the secondary hard drive, I formatted the first drive and installed a fresh copy of System 7.5. I then transferred all of my precious data back to my drive and held my breath as I restarted my computer. I copied several items, ‘got info’ on several files, and restarted and shutdown my Mac from the ‘Special’ menu at least ten times. It worked. I beamed with untold joy. 

As I was fine tuning my extensions and control panels, I realized something very important. The problem did not lie with my Macintosh, but rather with my hard drive. I could not have been more relieved. The hard drive which is currently installed in my machine (the hard drive which was giving me problems) was not the original hard drive packaged with my Macintosh. Several months ago I had upgraded from the original drive to a larger one. Therefore, the problems I was experiencing really had nothing to do with my Mac itself, but rather with the third-party SCSI drive I had purchased from a local computer store. My faith was restored.

And to think, for a brief instance, I actually considered that there could be something wrong with my Macintosh. Sheesh.

Renzo Piche suffered only mild psychological scarring from this incident. He welcomes similar stories of woe and other feedback at rpiche@aol.com.