One should never get confident where machinery is concerned

Yesterday it was making promises it clearly had no intention of keeping. 4 days??? Huh! More like twenty.
It's taken to informing me that "the file is no longer there". Lies, all lies. the files are all there, waiting to be copied. the machine is just pretending it can't see them. I'm tempted to offer it binoculars so it can't keep doing this Nelson "I see no files" thing at me.
The only way to sharpen up its perceptions seems to be to disconnect the new drive and reconnect it and then suggest, ever so politely, that it tries again. It's behaving like a small, square, obstinate child. As long as I keep holding its hand and copy/pasting folders one by one it keeps doing it. If I suggest that it might like to copy/paste four or five files or maybe a whole folder full of folders full of files it suddenly says Oh look! a chicken! Or at any rate "I see no ships I mean files"
Heaven save me from semi educated computers.
Well in order to stay close to it and keep connecting and disconnecting, I've resorted to doing housework. I've cleaned windows, done the rest of the kitchen and dashed upstairs with washing. I've nearly copied all of January 2007's photos onto the new drive.
The dog has been tied up outside all day since I can't be doing with pathetic dog faces as well as obstinate computer messages.
Oops! In 2 minutes 10 seconds I need to be back, holding it's hand.
Did I mention it's been a glorious April day?

It may be time to see my helpful computer man again. Can he find out how to make this system work sensibly I wonder? Is it worth 30 quid to find out?

Later you may get a pic of what I saw when I'd cleaned the windows (not as interesting as anything the Butler might have seen I'm afraid)
Meanwhile, it occurs that Picasa isn't being used by the bits of the machine that are doing the copying. So, slowly, (cos it's not too good at multi-tasking if the truth were known) I can send you a picture.
1 minute and 35 seconds to the next copy/paste.
More later - maybe :)

10 days and 14 hours

until the computer has finished copying all of H drive to the new hard drive.

Oh, now it's 7 days and 3 hours - oops, 4 days and 20 hours- -oops - 5 days and 20 hours -
oh no, just a mere 4 days and 18 hours - 23 hours - 17 hours - 20 hours - 18 hours.
I wonder sometimes if this machine really knows what it's doing or if it's just trying to confuse me. Both maybe :) It seems to be getting through roughly one hour every five minutes now it's settled down to a steady rate of - whatever it thinks it's doing. This works out at about 9 hours!*
So some time tomorrow I may have all my pics duplicated on two hard drives. Meanwhile, I am getting a lesson in the wisdom of 'doing a bit of it now' instead of 'doing it all at once, some other time when it's more convenient'.
A good lesson. (please don't mention stitches in time - I still hate sewing. some time I'm going to get to grips with my sewing machine and spend time making, mending and generally being adventurous with left over clothes. Which reminds me, Elder Sister and I discussed clothes we couldn't quite bear to throw away even though we can't wear them either any more. She beat me on skirts over silk shirts by a good margin** :)

Meanwhile, over on the other machine, Norton has nearly run out so I'm seriously considering getting AVG instead. Which has the huge virtue of being free and also (I'm told) doesn't slow the computer down so much.
So I've saved the uninstall instructions and looked up AVG and bookmarked it all ready to embark :) But is it a good idea to have both computers doing large and mysterious things, very slowly, at the same time?

Hmm. I think I'll go and hang the washing up. That's something I can understand easily.
Of curse, while the machine is doing its thing - or not doing it (still stuck at 4 hours 13 minutes) I can't access any pictures. Let's hope it does a quick spurt.

*except that now it seems to have got stuck on 4 hours 13 minutes. Oh well. At this rate, Norton will have run out before this machine has finished so I'll have to do both things at once anyway.
**Which is to say, she has more unwearable skirts in her cupboards than I have unwearable silk shirts in mine :)