I'm a genius if it is true that a guy learns from his mistakes. I've sure done a lot of learning. On the other hand, if a person is an idiot for not following his own advice, I'm an idiot.

Idiot or genius, you can learn from my pitiful performance during a recent computer misfortune at home. I broke almost every commandment I've preached.

Here's what happened: I was happily killing hydras as I played my favorite computer game. Next thing you know, I was staring at the dreaded blue screen of death --- a suitable name for any video game disaster. But this was no game. It was a warning from Windows of a dangerous error that brought my PC to a dead stop.

At first I didn't worry. Stuff happens, even stuff this drastic. Even the text of the error message notes that by saying to just restart the PC if the error isn't one that is frequently encountered. It wasn't a frequent problem, so I did restart. Or tried to. The blue screen of death greeted me again.

Now, here's what you should do if that happens to you. In most cases, it'll fix the problem:

Use the Windows installation CD to restart the computer. You'll eventually get to a screen that offers the opportunity to press the "r" key to get to the Windows Recovery console. Once there, you can type this command: chkdsk/p

I've used this technique before with great success. Errors on the hard disk are located and fixed and you're up and running again.

Not this time.

The new error message, paraphrased, was that I had one or more unrecoverable errors on my hard disk. I had an unmountable boot disk. That sounds like a medical condition, but it just means Windows can't use the hard disk to start the machine.

Next I opened up the computer to make sure a connection to the hard disk hadn't come loose. All the cables were just fine. My computer was not.

Remember how I've advised you to avoid panic in these situations? I had to shield the innards of my computer from tiny drops of sweat from my bald head. The sweat mixed with my blood after I cut my finger on a sharp bit of aluminum inside the case. Things were getting ugly fast. At that point, I would have had to calm down to reach a panic level.

Then I finally made my first correct deduction: My hard disk was history.

Unfortunately so were my family pictures; the novel that stalled at 64 pages; my e-mail correspondence; even my late Aunt Vera's recipe for Southern fried chicken.

Well, what about the backup copy of all my data? I have often told you that's just common sense. You don't have to be very smart to realize that backups are a necessity. You have to be amazingly dumb to realize that backups are a necessity but still not make them.

There wasn't a complete backup. Some of my pictures were also stored on my wife's computer. The 64-page novel existed as a printed copy. But much of what I had stored away on that hard disk was gone forever. I didn't have an adequate backup copy.

So, early on a Sunday morning, I drove to the one computer store in my area that is open early on a Sunday morning. I bought a new hard disk. My computer uses a hard disk technology called SATA, so sensibly enough I bought a SATA disk.

Installing the new disk was easy --- and I've done this dozens of times in my long life. I slid the new disk in, attached two cables and was ready to use the software that came with the disk to make it usable.

Nada. Nothing. The software couldn't find my new disk.

Now I really was in a panic.

If you're an observant person, you have noticed I haven't mentioned reading manuals or checking information from the manufacturer's Web site (after all, I have more than one computer) up to this point. I've told you this a thousand times: Read the manual, check with the manufacturer's Web site.

But I didn't do any of that.

Once I did, I learned that fixing my problem was as simple as changing one tiny switch on the hard disk. It was listed high up in the troubleshooting section on the manufacturer's Web site.

Sure enough, that fixed the problem. Things are pretty much back to normal at home. My cut finger is healing nicely. My new SATA hard disk finally works.

Me? I'm SATA but wiser.