Fixing Up The EEMUR Lab Part 2

Old IBM systems in the EEMUR lab, in various states of assembly for
troubleshooting and cloning.

Being one of two or three ICT's who had experience cloning hard drives, setting jumper to designated drives and master/slave, cannibalizing parts from multiple machines, et cetera, I volunteered to take the lead in fixing up of the lab. For the next few hours, I floated from one computer to the next, tutoring others in the pulling apart of computers, pairing of drives with IDE cables, changing of boot orders, and execution of cloning software. After awhile the crowd thinned and I was left with a handful of others diligently prodding and sculpting machines into working order. Some of the stubborn systems just plain refused to come about. One kept rebooting in an endless loop another couple shocked my fingers when I tried to hold on to it while I pulled out the power cable. Still another had somehow lost its CPU.

This morning I had even fewer helpers and by two in the afternoon is was just me and the machines. Methodically, I sank into a rhythm, getting one computer working on some process before moving on to another. I researched errors on Google, and got into the real heavy troubleshooting, using things like the recovery console, the F8 boot options, running chkdsk and fixmbr. I got to dig around a bit in a tool we use called Hiren's Boot CD, an ample toolbox of computer maintenance, administrative, and troubleshooting software that will no doubt be indispensible. I became so engrossed in my work that I lost interest in food and sleep. It was exactly the experience I had been craving ever since my time in Guatemala.