This should come as a surprise to absolutely no one that knows me:
100.5 points. Beat that, punks.
100.5 points. Beat that, punks.
11.04.2003
11.03.2003
I try to be proactive. I really do.
My trusty old computer has been a bit twitchy lately, occasionally rebooting for no reason, slow to start, etc. A couple weeks ago, I came home from work, poked the start button and wandered off. Walking up a few minutes later, I saw a black DOS screen, lots of yammering white text, and vague comments to the idea that my computer could no longer find my operating system. After banging on a few keys like a chimp, I agreed that yes, the computer was telling the truth. For lack of anything better to do, I rebooted. And the second time around, everything started up fine.
So with a nagging sense of impending doom, I decided to head the problem off at the pass this weekend. I headed to the local Frye's, picked up an 80 gig hard drive, and sat down Saturday afternoon to copy my C: drive to the new drive.
Those of you who thought my Shuttle-X was a cute and compact little computer? Here's a tip: not so good for the maintenance. See, part of what makes the Shuttle boxes so small and compact and cute is that everything is wedged very carefully in that little space in a very specific order. And changing anything means unwedging in a very specific order. And changing anything multiple times while you swap drives around? That's just a pain in the ass.
Ass-pains aside, I managed to muck a few things up (jumpers. I always forget the jumpers) but in the end, got the drives in place, with the appropriate masters and slaves. Booted up, and planned, per the instructions - to mirror my old C: drive to my new.
No operating system.
Silly, of course, because my operating system was right there. On my old C drive. Sitting there. I knew it was there - hell, it had just been working 30 minutes ago.
So I tried booting from my Windows CD.
Said CD promptly informed me there was a problem with Windows and reinstalls must happen, but there was no space on the drive for the reinstall, so to be helpful, Windows could go ahead and erase and reformat my C drive for me.
At this point, I went and cleaned the bathroom very VERY thoroughly to avoid flinging my computer and drives through the front windows.
Once my aggressions were cured with lots of Soft Scrub and clean tile, I tried a few more options and then threw in the towel. Because I was so focused on being proactive about copying the whole drive, I'd neglected to save anything on CD. Because I am a hopeless slob, I have no idea where most of the CDs are for any software on my computer. Because I had no other choice, I now have a screamingly fast new C drive, roughly three working programs on the machine, and my old C drive sitting in a sack on the desk, where hopefully it will exude its contents to the new drive through mere proximity.
See what happens when I try to be proactive?
My trusty old computer has been a bit twitchy lately, occasionally rebooting for no reason, slow to start, etc. A couple weeks ago, I came home from work, poked the start button and wandered off. Walking up a few minutes later, I saw a black DOS screen, lots of yammering white text, and vague comments to the idea that my computer could no longer find my operating system. After banging on a few keys like a chimp, I agreed that yes, the computer was telling the truth. For lack of anything better to do, I rebooted. And the second time around, everything started up fine.
So with a nagging sense of impending doom, I decided to head the problem off at the pass this weekend. I headed to the local Frye's, picked up an 80 gig hard drive, and sat down Saturday afternoon to copy my C: drive to the new drive.
Those of you who thought my Shuttle-X was a cute and compact little computer? Here's a tip: not so good for the maintenance. See, part of what makes the Shuttle boxes so small and compact and cute is that everything is wedged very carefully in that little space in a very specific order. And changing anything means unwedging in a very specific order. And changing anything multiple times while you swap drives around? That's just a pain in the ass.
Ass-pains aside, I managed to muck a few things up (jumpers. I always forget the jumpers) but in the end, got the drives in place, with the appropriate masters and slaves. Booted up, and planned, per the instructions - to mirror my old C: drive to my new.
No operating system.
Silly, of course, because my operating system was right there. On my old C drive. Sitting there. I knew it was there - hell, it had just been working 30 minutes ago.
So I tried booting from my Windows CD.
Said CD promptly informed me there was a problem with Windows and reinstalls must happen, but there was no space on the drive for the reinstall, so to be helpful, Windows could go ahead and erase and reformat my C drive for me.
At this point, I went and cleaned the bathroom very VERY thoroughly to avoid flinging my computer and drives through the front windows.
Once my aggressions were cured with lots of Soft Scrub and clean tile, I tried a few more options and then threw in the towel. Because I was so focused on being proactive about copying the whole drive, I'd neglected to save anything on CD. Because I am a hopeless slob, I have no idea where most of the CDs are for any software on my computer. Because I had no other choice, I now have a screamingly fast new C drive, roughly three working programs on the machine, and my old C drive sitting in a sack on the desk, where hopefully it will exude its contents to the new drive through mere proximity.
See what happens when I try to be proactive?
