'Bricked' Computer

Every month, my computer automatically updates itself. I normally recommend this, since the virus writers are constantly improving their methods for getting past firewalls and enrolling computers into botnets, and the new security updates try to stay one step ahead of the virus writers (with limited success).

On Wednesday night, my computer automatically updated itself. When the automatic update finished Thursday morning and re-started my computer, I got a black screen with nothing but the message 'bus error.' Restarting didn't work. Nothing worked. My computer was 'bricked.'

My original guess was that my hard drive had some minor corruption which was not a problem before the update, but the new security tools, finding the corruption, prevented my computer from booting. Attempts to check the hard drive for errors found none.

Finally, I managed to boot from a CD, ran a download program and downloaded the complete update, then applied it again.

My computer booted.

The problem was neither my hard drive nor the new, extra security in the update, but partly Etisalat, which corrupted the update during automatic update. The other party at fault was my OS provider, whose automatic update does not check the update for corruption before installation. (My download program does have an error check which can tell if the download is corrupted, and this could easily be incorporated into the automatic update, but it isn't.)

Anyway, after two days of agony, I am now back online.

I still recommend installing all the new security updates, but I may no longer use the automatic update feature, and instead install the updates manually.