BLARGH.

So, yesterday evening, my computer froze in a wonderfully typical show of display driver croaking, which is annoying in itself, but of no lasting consequence.

Except that when I rebooted it, it didn't come back up. It froze right at boot with the exact same error message Caroline started getting on her own computer two days ago.

Sorry to all those of you I left mid-chat -- that's the reason why.

So both our computers are now out of order, with the same apparent symptoms, at nearly the same time. I would very, very much like to know how that's even possible.

Some further digging revealed that my computer is probably fine and I hope to fix it with a mere BIOS setting switch, but I would be really interested in figuring out just how the HELL that setting came to change on its own. (Caroline's, however, looks like a plain nearly-dead hard drive, and there's nothing you can do about that, alas.) But, in the meanwhile... Blargh.

My already floundering NaNoWriMo is, henceforth, real, real fucked.

( NaNoWoes ahoy. )

Anyway. Computer troubles first, alas. I know I've got good techies among my kind readership, and I have two questions for you:

1) Can brief brown-outs damage hardware? Would a desktop UPS be a good idea?

2) What workable solutions for household backups (10GB at most, I'd say) exist?

Thanks loads.

But of course, in the meanwhile... Nothing to do but wait, evidently.