The hard disk in my new IBM X40 started misbehaving around 2am last night. Some time earlier it was making rather loud noises. And then two commands (ps and smartctl) locked up the machine and I have to used sysrq magic keys to reboot it. It’s too soon for the harddisk to fail because the notebook was bought in October last year, so it’s about 5 months only. My original plan was to buy a new harddisk, transfer data from the failing one to the new one as much as possible, and then take the failed one to an IBM repair center for a replacement. But the sad news is I could not find a 40GB 1.8″ harddisk (which the IBM X40 can only use, it can’t use the 2.5″ ones) in Beijing’s Zhongguancun（中关村）! Zhongguancun to Beijing is what the Golden computer center to Hong Kong, you go there for any kind of computer hardware and parts. For all the shops I asked which sold 1.8″ harddisk, they only had 20GB. Once again, it proves that if you want to play with the newest electronic toys, your best bet is to try your luck in Hong Kong 😐

So bear with me if I’m a bit slow in replying your emails or such, I think I’ll not be back to full force until I can work on my notebook again.