Phew!

On Thursday night this computer died - or so it seemed - all the tricks I knew for managing to get it work failed and I was left wondering how I could recover all my essential files, contacts and the like when my tame computer experts were all away for the weekend.  In one last attempt I managed to boot it into set-up mode (it had been 'hanging' at the end of the boot checks just before the 'clunk' that tells you it's going into windows (if this sounds ancient technology, it is, but at least it's user fixable!)) tabbed round the options changed nothing whatsoever, then it slowly but surely opened up windows and so far so good... not that I'll be shutting it down in a hurry!

The hope was that it would see me through my move north and give my time to decide what new hardware will best serve my needs - what can connect to my equally old but reliable and really cheap to run HP laserjet 5 A3 printer, what has enough USB ports for the umpteen things I conect (I currently have a powered 7-way USB hub!) and so on.

Anyway I now have, so far as I know, the world's only Lazarus computer, busily printing off essential documents and waiting for me to back-up (again) and copy/print absolutely everything I might possibly want, just in case...