Well, fuck

[legalmoose]

Killed my computer last night. Woo-hoo! Was installing a new camera and it's locked up the system upon OS load. Something's conflicting and not letting the OS fully boot now. Pretty background screen, noise, no start bar, no programs, no nothing to play with. Safe mode doesn't work, either, and I somehow doubt I have a restore disk for Win 98.

Joy.

So, I think the plan is going to be to get a new HD, install my copy of Win98, slave in the old disk and rescue the data I need (can we say "Quicken files"? can we say "Eudora settings and emails"?), then perhaps upgrade to XP. I'm not sold yet on XP but I suspect it's probably needed given all the "fixes" that MS tends to build into their newest OS that isn't supported in a legacy OS (this was why I finally upgraded from 95 to 98 - USB just didn't work properly under 95). I can do the upgrade version as I have a full (no OS needed) version of Win 98 from which to upgrade. Whee.

And this always tends to happen right when I'm about to go out of town. New rule: only install new hardware when the stores (and tech support lines) will be open in case you need to get some other part or assistance to keep it from killing your machine. Oh, and backup all needed data to CD on the new CD-RW drive as well (that was in the works for when I returned).

Who knew one simple camera would be such a pain in the ass? ;-)

Comments

[pinkfish.livejournal.com]

So that explains why we didn't see you online last night.

I wasn't sold on XP either, until I had one thrust upon me (almost literally! Somewhere I have an LJ entry about it, but I am too lazy to find it). I have to say, skeptical as I was, now that I have it, I feel that MS finally got an operating system right. After nearly two decades, right?

Good luck with your fix.

XP

[legalmoose]

Yet another expense. *le sigh*

Oh well, it's only money, right? ;-)

Upgrade should go fine. I'll back up files and what not to CD before I do the XP upgrade. Did do CNet review searches on XP, compared editions, etc. I had heard it was much, much more stable, so look forward to that (I despise how my Win98 would crash every other day).

Anyway.

Re: XP

[spudpuppy.livejournal.com]

Yes, XP is more stable, because it's based on the NT kernel. But it still has it's own set of "issues".

As for the different flavors, unless you need to connect to a domain, use a computer with 2 processors, or want to use remote desktop, then you can go with the Home version. Pro has everything that Home has, plus those extras.

And I can believe a camera would take down a system. I installed a new scanner on my Win2K machine at work. I have to unplug it, every time I boot the machine or else it locks up. Once it's booted, I can plug it in with no problems.

Good luck.

Re: XP

[legalmoose]

The fun test will be to see if my printer (old HP 5L) locks up XP like it did 98. I finally uninstalled it (I never use it) when it locked it up for the umpteenth time.

Re: XP

[spudpuppy.livejournal.com]

Don't know about a 5L, but a 6P works fine. And they use almost the same drivers.

Re: XP

[littlecrazycub.livejournal.com]

I use the 5L at my desk at work. Works perfectly fine. ;)

And if you wanted to be a crooked politician, you could always download XP. =o)

Re: XP

[legalmoose]

Ha! Right. No thanks, I prefer to keep my security clearance. ;-)

Re: XP

[pinkfish.livejournal.com]

I have a USB cam that conflicted with my network card. Only one of them would work at a time, until you uninstalled the network card, reinstalled the cam driver, and reinstalled the network card. As long as you did it in this order, they were fine.

That was Win 2K.

I used a Win95 machine for about two weeks once. I couldn't understand how anyone ever used that system; many of the services just didn't work, and the thing would crash whenever someone sneezed.

XP is pretty good about drivers and networking; it is the most plug-and-play operating system I have used.