Firework recovery update

Marginally good news on the dead computer front. I've been able to boot the G4 into disk mode, which means that other computers will treat it as an external Firewire disk. I've borrowed my mother-in-law's MacBook Pro and have been copying files.

Only problem is that eventually the G4's disk grinds to a halt again. But I've managed to get a few things.

Another bit of marginally good news is that I did have a backup from last November. That's not as bad as it sounds; I bought my ThinkPad in March, so except for my Perforce depot, that backup is really only about four months old. (It doesn't cover my iTunes library, but that's okay.)

There are still things that are hopelessly gone, but it's not as much of a disaster as I had first feared. Whew.

I'm contemplating buying a new Mac mini to replace the G4. I know that I said I'd never buy another Mac, but it's the least-hassle option.

Update 6:30PM: I'm no longer contemplating, I've done it. The data transfer is ongoing. It's slow, because I can only transfer a few MB at a time before the drive starts grinding again. My Perforce depot is the only thing left that I feel like I have to get back, and I can't find it. (It's in /usr/local/perforce, or something like that, and I can't figure out how to get to it. I will prevail.)