Hi, my name is Charles. I live in Tennessee, but I grew up all over the US. Photography has been a strong obsession for a long time, an obsession I'm happy to have. It is one of the best ways I have to communicate. Â
 I consider myself to be a Tennessee native who had the misfortune to be born in Detroit. My family, going back for generations, are from Tennessee. Dad was in the Navy, so I grew up all over the country. He used to save his vacation time and take 60 days off every two years. We would take long, sweeping trips across the country, spend a couple of weeks with family in Tennessee, and return by a different route to see more sights. He left the Navy and we returned to Tennessee when I was 14, and I spent my High School years at Midway High School, just south of Kingston. Most of my family are centered in Chattanooga but I spent a lot of time all over East Tennessee. After a stint in the Air Force in Denver, I wandered the West for awhile, then came back, married and spent nearly 20 years in Polk County. I put down roots there, something I had never done before. After my divorce, I moved to Kentucky ten years ago. And I still miss my home in Polk County.
 Kentucky is a beautiful state, and I got serious about photography after moving here. After looking so closely at this part of the state, I think of it this way; if you removed the vegetation it would look like southern Utah, with it's great sandstone mesas, cliffs, arches and canyons. I love the wonderful old forests here, but if you want to reveal it's rocky heart you have to work at it.  Oh, and I like dogs.
Update: As of August 2011, I have moved back to Tennessee. It's great to be back!
Comments (9)
Rob2753
If only your PSU has blown I am sure your pictures will be on the hard drive, always a good idea to back up to a USB external drive just in case I have lost a few in the past by not backing up as often as I should, now my backup is automated :) Fingers crossed for you
TECHNISTRATIONS
As PHD EE I concur with Rob2753... generally a Power Supply is a fast fix and a most common issue... PS issues almost always come down to only an exhausted HV Capacitor at the component level... same wsteful ditch for so many monitors as well... replace the HV Capacitor(s) next to the Flyback Tranformer and a monitor will go another ten years on average... One good idea for you is to go ahead and replace the CMOS coin cell battery while you have your case open if your system is over five years old or older... Good-luck!
ronmolina
Hate it when that happens!
Mark-David-Rogers
I know that sight all too well, through the years the side of the tower off, upgrading, repairing and god knows what, the down part of digital art is this part when the computers doesn't want to play ball. Hopefully once you fit the new power supply things should be okay, can be a good idea to get a second one and put images on that one so if the boot drive gets corrupted or fails you have a back-up on another drive.. or the very least a second partition... but the external drive option is a good one or maybe a NAS which are fairly cheap these days. I quite like those module power supplies where you just connect up the cables you need without having to find space to house those you don't require, never did get one as they are more expensive and a branded quality PS is more important higher wattage the better so it's not just enough but more than enough to power all. CMOS battery cell can become weak and you lose all your bios settings, you can check that easily.. when you boot-up.. taking it out to replace will lose them so you will need to restore those settings.. good idea to keep a note of the settings bios section in the motherboards manual makes it easy. These days many motherboards have backup bios so two lots so if one fails the other one takes over. Hope all works out.
sharky_
Hope you find it... Aloha
durleybeachbum
All quite beyond me!
whaleman
The above advice is all quite good! We have some knowlegeable members here! If your troubles are deeper you may need to remove the hard drive and mount it into another computer in order to make a back-up on a separate remote hard drive that connects via USB. It is all pretty easy. Just don't get pressured into doing anything drastic like a system restore before making a back-up!
prutzworks
I call this a nightmare good luck with fixing!
tennesseecowgirl
I just replace my hard drive and then was told I needed to replace the power supply too, and now I am up and running again YAY good luck recovering your photos I hope you saved them off your computer as well.