Re: for those who missed my Computer Woes story elsewhere
- From: "rwa2play (Lost mode on)" <rwa2play@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2008 08:34:54 -0800 (PST)
On Dec 16, 12:20 am, "teh_bede" <rspwsowntheb...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
For several months, my four-year-old hard drive had sounded like a
coffee grinder.
I'm surprised you even got a audio/visual warning that your HD was
about to kick the bucket. That was an obvious sign that you needed a
new HD ASAP before you got the migraines that follow once your HD
conks out..
One night it crashed, and when I tried to restart it I got
nothing. After I played around with the Boot Sequence it would start with
the XP CD's help, but the Desktop was blank and Windows Explorer wouldn't
open because of a "cyclic redundancy check". I tried multiple software- and
hardware-repair programs, none of which would work "because of restrictions
in effect on this computer". <i>*rolls eyes*</i> I had to CTRL-ALT-DEL to do
anything, and even then many programs and functions wouldn't work.
And Microsoft wonders why Apple pWns them on their Mac commercials.
Being unable to fix WindowsXP, I bought an external hard drive from
Seagate and copied all the files I could get to. I had to use the Recent
folder in the Finder to get to documents; once I was inside a Folder,
sometimes I could drill up or down from there and sometimes not. So I spent
several days copying and pasting, Folder by Folder and often File by File..
The final damage was approximately 500 mp3s (next week, back to the LimeWire
salt mines!), 100 videos, and a few other things. Insert SAD FACE here..
Then I wiped and reformated the old hard disk.
But!!!!! it was too damaged to reformat. So I dug out my even-older
hard disk, which was only 4K but should have still worked. Except that it
didn't, even after another attempted reformatting. I couldn't install XP
because I no longer have the Activation Code (thanx, Katrina!) and couldn't
even install Windows98 for the same reason. Recovery disks and diskettes
didn't help. After some digging around on the web, I discovered that
VP9VV-VJW7Q-MHY6W-JK47R-M2KGJ will work for any W98 disk, so all you CSR Tex
should write that down.
Hmmmmmmmmmmm....very interesting.
However, 98 would only boot into Safe Mode, so I couldn't use the CD
drive or add the new External. The problem was a hardware/software conflict
that required a program called "ndis_fix.exe", so I downloaded that onto an
old floppy diskette. All this W98 education came from Kinko's, where I paid
20 cents per minute to get online. Oh, and I live right between two
Kinko'ses--one is 25 minutes by car in one direction, the other is 25
minutes the other. But now I had the fix, right???
Wrong. The first diskette I tried worked at Kinko's but
self-destructed in my dusty old A-drive. The next day I went back with
another and downloaded two different copies of ndis_fix, one of which didn't
work because it turned out to be for WindowsNT and the other didn't work for
reasons it wouldn't tell me.
Having given up on rescuing either Internal drive, I shopped around and
bought a new one. It installed just fine, but I still couldn't get 98 to
fully install on it, even after playing with the Memory cards and Registry.
XP would install (technically an Upgrade Disk from 98, so I had to bounce
the CD's back and forth a few times) up until the point where the Activation
Code was needed. In despair, I called the Microsoft Help Line.
After 90 minutes on the phone with five different people (only two in
India!),
Shocking~!
I finally proved I wasn't a Pirate and got the right replacement
Code to get XP working. Yay. Then it took several days to reinstall all
the programs I had disks for, get back on the Information Superhighway and
download the rest, and set up the Explorer like I like it. At least I still
had my lists. The final damage was c.200 dollars, 500 songs, all my
Bookmarks, and 2 weeks of getting older.
In conclusion, screw Flanders.
BTDTBTSAWipedMyAssWithIt. :/ I feel for ya brah.
.
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