On the Kotatsu

Recently I've been muddling my way around the IT department. My wife's good old Windows 98 computer has only been able to boot in safe mode for quite some time, and now that school is over I am able to attack the problem with gusto. I quite enjoy tackling these kinds of problems, back in the day I used to do it for PROMAT Engineering. Aaahh, nostalgic reminiscing always makes a situation more palatable.
I tried to find the reason why windoze would not boot and next decided to do a reinstall of windows. After that adventure came to naught, I resorted to restoring the machine to its original state from the original manufacturer's CDs. Things were going quite well... until the harddrive started to make noises that I am quite sure hard drives are not supposed to make. I hastily powered down, and on the next bootup my good buddy, (we had by now spent enough quality time together to become good buddies) the computer, informed me that there were no hard drives anymore and could I please do something about it. Well I couldn't let him down. I disconnected all vitals and laid him down on the operating kotatsu. I opened him up and removed the offending old dead internal organ and inserted an older working harddrive I had lying around. You are probably thinking at this juncture "that is no way to treat a good buddy!" and well that was exactly his reaction. As I tried to restore him to health he cacked and and informed me that this new harddrive was much too small and could I please do something about it. I tried a few things but in the end decided to head to the organ bank and shell out for a new harddrive. I returned home and inserted said new harddrive (roughly eighty times the size of the original) (something you do for a good buddy) but he was still mad at me over the first insertion. It's still too small he wined. We got into a bit of a kerfuffel at this point and words were exchanged. I lost my patience and he remained insolent and uncooperative. After a good nights sleep, we started afresh. I was able to cajole him into accepting the new organ, and restore him to health. Sounds like a happy ending, but meanwhile back at my own desk my old buddy the laptop was becoming jealous of my new buddy, not enough quality time and all I suppose. He too began wining. I hastened to his attention and quickly turned off the data drive, disconnected and laid it on the operating kotatsu. After going in and proceeding with the initial exploratory surgery, I found loose diodes that had fallen off the circuit board floating around in the drive enclosure. When it rains it pours and relationships always need a genuine effort.