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hiatus

posted by [personal profile] maelorin at 11:48pm on 11/06/2006 under , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
I have been offline for a week or so, due to the untimely complication in the rebuilding of my computer.

I bought my serenity a spanking new black box to reside within.

Everything was going swimmingly, until cpu(old) failed to fit into the new arrangement.

Along with black box, i had also invested in new black keyboard. with keys that work, and everything. plus some new black speakers - with nice subwoofer for under-the-desk and so on. So far, so good.

cpu(old) failed the transfer process by failing to fit into new motherboard. OK.

So, a few days later I order cpu(new). New motherboard being not-quite new enough to accept the spanking new dual core cpuxen, I paid the same for a single brain variety.

Oh, and a floppy drive. black of course. So that I could update the BIOS on my new (now increasingly less new) motherboard so that it could accept cpu(new). housemate™ [[livejournal.com profile] quuux] downloaded the relevant BIOS image, and installed a floppy drive on his machine to get me sorted there.

The whole process went well, until Microsoft's DRM "Genuine Advantage" killed my system. The old hardware hash didn't match and instead of checking with me, I got the BSoD. A whole screen full of BSoD. And refused to budge. Setup disc was no help. Attempts to reinstall were thwarted. I left one running overnight to get up and see that 12 hours had advanced install by 1%.

So, we download a KNOPPIX CD image, and boot with that. Which can read, but cannot write to NTFS partitions - so I can't delete the dud WinXP
and install over it. By now, frustration was high.

I went for the format-and-install-again option.

Now begins the fun with Microsoft's DRM "Genuine Advantage" programme.
Mood:: 'frustrated' frustrated
location: Adelaide, Australia
Music:: Josh Abrahams - Addicted to Bass
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There are 12 comments on this entry. (Reply.)
 

(no subject)

posted by [identity profile] xtine-38.livejournal.com at 04:52pm on 11/06/2006
Humm...perhaps it is time to leave the dark side Microsoft and come to Mac :-)

I have become the voice of doom at work -- when I start talking about the need to replace a piece of equipment, it has about 2 weeks left to live. We now have 2 new Windows notebooks after the death of two ancient big old dinos running 98 *shudder* and a new cable modem and wireless G router.

It would be so much easier if my boss would accept what I say about the computer rather than waiting for it to die. (oh, don't worry about the backup...), no this modems is fine, we don't need a faster router...

She is a bit of a technophobe who I can send into a total panic by talking about upgrades. That said, she gets upset that she cant get these very complex documents to print faster over the network...

So after everything went kablooie and I went nuts trying to fix stuff that I have long forgotten how to deal with in 98...we finally have upgraded. But, she insisted on buying way overpriced dell machines with a mail in repair protection plan. Then again, it is not my money.

Yay for new hardware!!!1
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maelorin: (Default)

(no subject)

posted by [personal profile] maelorin at 06:17am on 15/06/2006
Having just spent a months income getting the Intelbox working, I'm in no position to consider further purchases ... :(
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(no subject)

posted by [identity profile] verdigriis.livejournal.com at 04:20am on 13/06/2006
Is your version of Windows an OEM? If that's the case, it is techgnically only licensed for the original computer, which usually means the original motherboard. They will give you a new activation key if you tell them you had to replace the motherboard due to a fault (not because you felt like upgrading).

I'm surprised Genuine Advantage (LOL - what a name) caused a BSOD - it should have just told you that you copy of windows was dodgy.

Having just had a similar problem, I can tell you that changing integral hardware (CPU, motherboard) on an existing installation of Windows doesn't always work - it messes up the HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) and you have to reinstall. Even if you don't have to reinstall, you have to repair before loading it up fully (not after you discover the problem).

Also, I believe Knoppix 5 (I think that's the latest one) will write NTFS as well as read it, and actually has a functioning DVD/CD burning program. But I may be wrong.
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maelorin: (Default)

(no subject)

posted by [personal profile] maelorin at 06:23am on 15/06/2006
Frankly, I have no real idea what caused me to get a BSOD filled with Hex and the helpful message "STOP" followed by more Hex. I was trying to do the repair at the time.

MSGA is preventing me from updating my XP and therefore protecting me - and everyone else - from trojans and such that get past my anti-virus, anti-spam, and firewall programs. And precvents some of my other software from running properly because I'm missing updated DLLs that they rely upon.

Since I cannot locate my 30 character XP "key" after 5 years, I'm expected to buy it again. Months before Vista is expected to be ejected onto us ...
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(no subject)

posted by [identity profile] verdigriis.livejournal.com at 11:07am on 15/06/2006
As far as I'm aware, MSGA doesn't prevent automatic updates from working, it just won't let you go to the site and update manually. There is also an easy crack for circumventing it which you could use to solve your immediate updating problem.

If you have the original CD I imagine you could get a new key for free, but I also imagine that would be a giant hassle, unlike the little trick you can use to avoid it, which is easy and simple. :-)
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maelorin: (Default)

MSGA never used to be this big a pain in the arse ...

posted by [personal profile] maelorin at 11:23am on 15/06/2006
Automatic updates has downloaded a whole swag of "required updates" - they just won't install. I've turned the thing off since it's downloaded SP2 at least five times already. I suspect that if I had managed ot get SP2 to install, I'd have been fine 8(

The "easy crack" you speak of must not be among the many things I've tried - legit and otherwise. And there are a metric shitload of putative workarounds out there. Cracking MSGA was not among my "holiday" entertainment options. I fear I may have to learn more than I cared to about MSWXP just to get the damn thing working.

I may be a tad cautious at the moment - I'd rather not have to rebuild again since I've not yet been able to get this system fully functional with the various apps that I'm used to using semi-regularly :(
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Re: MSGA never used to be this big a pain in the arse ...

posted by [identity profile] verdigriis.livejournal.com at 11:33am on 15/06/2006
Apparently this works http://www.boingboing.net/2005/07/28/microsoft_genuine_ad.html
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maelorin: (Default)

Re: MSGA never used to be this big a pain in the arse ...

posted by [personal profile] maelorin at 11:41am on 15/06/2006
Doesn't work.
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maelorin: (Default)

(no subject)

posted by [personal profile] maelorin at 06:32am on 15/06/2006
KNOPPIX 5 could read the drives, but no writing - not even a copy! was going on :(
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(no subject)

posted by [identity profile] verdigriis.livejournal.com at 11:10am on 15/06/2006
Bugger. I had the same problem (with Knoppix 3). Knoppix looks promising, but it doesn't seem to deliver as a backup OS for modern windows machines.

There is always NTFS DOS, for future reference. Little program that runs DOS on NTFS drives, combine it with a boot floppy and you have all the awesome power of Dos at your command... :-/
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maelorin: (Default)

(no subject)

posted by [personal profile] maelorin at 11:27am on 15/06/2006
KNOPPIX is pretty sweet for a CD/DVD-bootable OS - but MS are retards. (Actually, they know how to make their stuff incompatible enough to be stupidly incomprehensible.)

We had one floppy drive between us - on my PC ... Sometimes I despair for the present. We may not make it to the future.

I'll have to track down NTFS DOS and put it on a floppy for future crises. Thanks :)

I got out of desktop support and systems administration because I found these kinds of problems frustratingly unnecessary ...
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