There’s a reason I do server administration instead of hardware repair. I’m into bits, not atoms. I know that atoms are what make my bits work, but I’m not particularly good with the physical world. I’m hard on clothes, manual transmission gearboxes, and my hands are acidic. Not kidding here – I once managed to erase all the writing from the gear knob of a friend’s car by driving it for 3 hours. Just the sweat on my hand dissolved all the paint. The physical world isn’t my friend, and I can’t make it bend to my will. I had another object lesson in this field today:

I was swapping out hard drives in my Mac Pro, as after my file server upgrade I had a “spare” 750GB drive. While I was in there, I decided it was high time to crack open the DVD drives and clean the lasers, as they’ve been getting worse and worse at importing my wife’s CD collection into iTunes. Considering the machine is 3 years old and has been across the ocean at least twice… yeah. So, armed with a pair of screwdrivers, knowledge from 12 years ago and a bottle of %99.9 pure methanol, I broke one of the drives opened and cleaned the lens on the laser. Surprisingly easy.

Then, I put the machine back together again. Came up just fine, TimeMachine started doing it’s thing, but the DVD drive I’d cleaned was making a funny noise. And of course, it wouldn’t open. It just kept trying and giving up after a few seconds, like the drive door was stuck. Fine. I’d just open her up again, fix the drive with the case open, and then close it back up. When taking the case apart the second time, I was being a little hasty. And managed to tear the drive’s power connector right off the 4 wires that lead back to the power supply. Nice, clean strip job.

Yes, that’s the actual connector, sitting on my desk.

So, the computer goes back together. No reason to get upset, right? A new drive is $30, a molex Y-splitter is a dollar or two, and there’s no point breaking anything else. I get it all wired up, push the power button and…

Nothing.

The LED on the front comes on. The fans wait a little while, and then spin up. But no POST, no chime, no disk activity. Panic sets in. There’s no way I can replace this computer if I’ve destroyed it without canceling my camera order, and still, I’d be up the creek. It occurs to me that the stripped wires are laying aginst the inside of the case, and probably aren’t doing me any favors. I open her up again, put some tape over the bare wires, and with the case still open, push the power button.

And we’re back in business. Huge sigh of relief. I remember at this point: I’m good at bits, not atoms. Spend the money for the new stuff, don’t try to fix the old stuff.