priceless

  • sony vaio docking station: $500
  • having compusa take three months and not fix my laptop: $75 (would have been $250, but they only were able to back up my data)
  • having authorized sony repairpersons dork around futilely with my laptop: $400 or more
  • shipping to and from the facility: $50
  • irritation at having them partition a mere 20 GB into two different drives: $100
  • finding out that my friend has the exact sony vaio docking station for my laptop, enabling me to fix it myself FOR FREE (and not having to pay any of the above charges) in one short sweet afternoon: priceless

it lives again! i reformatted the hard drive so now it's just one partition, brought it up to service pack 2, installed all the software on it, and got it configured with all my utilities. didn't have to pay sullen desktop support techs, didn't have to argue with sony tech support, didn't have to deal with someone on the helpless desk whose first language clearly isn't english and who obviously doesn't like women either. w00t! i am doing the serious major happy dance.