There’s been a death in the household in the form of my wife’s venerable old desktop. She built it herself back in 2003 while earning her degree inComputer Systems Management (hers was the only one that booted up on the first try out of the entire class I might add). Two nights ago the OS (XP Pro) which was still on the original install she did 6 years ago suddenly called it quits when it conked out on trying to load the logon screen (one of those blasted STOP! errors). The usual and somewhat unusual modes of recovery have failed. All files and folders were backed up to an external drive 2 weeks ago so no problem there except for one thing…

Outlook Express.

Yes, the email program that does it’s absolute best not to give up it’s messages or contacts once Windows goes south. And though I still have access to the Windows partition when I boot her PC up on a Linux based “Live-CD” and can easily rip the guts out of OE and try to sort through the entrails after a reload of the OS, I’d much rather force the OS to wake up long enough to back up her email files in a more appropriate and convenient manner.

So now, when all conventional means of reviving the OS have failed, it’s time to resort to desperate measures.

Now where did I put those welding goggles?