The story so far...
The graphics card showed up.
(A day early, I might add)
I installed everything and did my best not to get my hopes up, which was the right move, as upon the activation of my PC, I discovered that it would only boot to the BIOS.
Over and over again.
This told me that it was, in fact, NOT the graphics card that was the problem. As upsetting as that realization was, it did get me to upgrade my graphics card, which needed an upgrade anyway. And considering that I managed to snag a $500+ graphics card for about $360 I feel like that played out pretty well!
Yo, shout out to the fucking liar on some tech forum that said it was the graphics card! ("Solved" my ass...)
So, if it wasn't the graphics card, then what was it?
Well, after hours of searching, salvation would come in the form of a YouTube Short, that had barely any views, displaying my exact problem. After sifting through the comments, all begging for a reason why this was happening, I found one that had a response, with an answer and several people confirming.
The SSD (Solid State Drive) had failed.
Something infinitely worse than the graphics card failing.
See, if it had just been the graphics card that would have been fine. It would have been a simple matter of replacing a part. But, that SSD had my data on it. And if that's gone I'll be so fucking upset...
I don't even care about the majority of the data on it. If I lost the projects I was working on, that'd be very upsetting. But, if there's one thing, above all else, that would tear me apart if I lost it, it would be my Color Palette that I've spent half a year building.
But it's not all bad!
For starters, the SSD failing came at a pretty good time! Considering that one with more space is (or was) on sale!
So that's nice!
Second, I have enough sense to have an external hard drive to back things up on. It was set on a weekly schedule to back up files, but knowing Windows it might not have done this, so I don't have my hopes up... However, I might be able to salvage some of the data from the old SSD! I just have to figure out how to do so.
Finally, there's this!
The last thing I worked on before all this happened! While it doesn't contain the entirety of my Color Palette, I might be able to backwards engineer it in the event that I can't retrieve the file containing it!
I'm just lucky that I bothered to ask my sister her opinion on it! (Even though she never give me said opinion and instead opted to send me dozens of pictures of my dog nephew...)
So, that's where things are at!
To anyone who bothered to read this, I hope things are going better for you than they are for me!
Beatumpop
Good luck man, that sucks so much though it's nice seeing you staying positive through all of this, I feel i'd stay grumpy forever haha
MalFromed
Well, well, well, if it isn't the source of my little fiasco! >:[
Ha, I kid! There is a reason for this little joke, but I'll get to it in a second!
Yeah, some people accuse me of being a pessimist for simply acknowledging a bad situation, but I like to find solutions if I can, and part of that is recognizing when things are bad. My life has been a steady string of setbacks, disappointments, and cruel realities, so if there's ever a silver lining to something, I'll gladly take it!
Now then, that joke. See, the night this all went down, I was washing my hair when it struck me that I never responded to what you said on that one Act of Fromed. Considering how rude this was (given circumstances you'll understand in a second), I resolved to respond to it once my shower was finished. And then, literally the second I sat down, this all started. The timing could not have been better/worse!
With that small novel out of the way, I would like to say:
Thank You!
For what? Well, this goes back to that Act of Fromed. You complimented the colors I used in that piece, colors from part of my color palette that I had considered a failure and, at that point, had given up on. See, I have a motto: "So long as one person likes what you did, it was worth doing." You motivated me to go back and give it the care and attention it needed! Now I can easily say that there's a lot more nuance and life to that color palette than what I've been using! That would not have happened if you had not said anything.
So again: Thank You!
That said, I can't simply say thank you and move on! I'm going to have to add you to my list! List? The list of people I'm making art for (I've been meaning to make something for you for a while now anyway)! Just know my list is pretty lengthy at the moment, so it's going to be a while till I can get to ya!