Below is how far I got on a post about me fucking up my computer before I realized nobody cares. Anyway, fucked up computer and internet problems are why there's no post today. I'll get a new post up tomorrow and resume weekly Wednesday posting next week. And just to include a quote from dad, "FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK." (You have to imagine me jumping up and down like a two year-old screaming that to get the whole effect.)
======
I don't know dick about computers. The only thing I know is that armed with enough patience and obsessiveness you can figure out any goddamn thing with google. So of course when AT&T fucked up my phone and internet service last Friday, effectively cutting me off from my only source of knowledge and insight, I took it upon myself to try a complex change to my home desktop.
A few words about my computer. I bought the cheapest new computer I could find about 7 months ago. I doesn't have bad specs to my eyes, 2GHz Pentium Duo processor, 1Gb RAM, but it did come with Vista as the OS. Vista requires GREAT specs to run modestly well. Even after following every tip on the internet for improving the performance of Vista it still sucked up too much processing power to allow me to smoothly use the vector and bitmap imaging editors I like. This pissed me off and I wanted to try going back to XP.
Here's the problem: I knew Lenovo didn't include drivers for XP on my computer. I wasn't sure I wanted to risk dumping Vista in favor of an outdated OS, and I wasn't sure I had the skillset to pull off the change and end up with a functioning machine.
After consulting the hive mind I decided that a dual boot system, while slightly more complex, was probably the safer way to go, because in the end I'd at least have Vista to fall back on. I've been wanting to do this for months, but was always a little scared to try it. I've even had my hard disk partitioned this whole time but was just too scared to pull the trigger.
Well, when AT&T collapsed I decided the thing to do was attempt to set up my dual boot without the benefit of an active internet connection in case things went bad. To quote my dad, "Me fucky uppy."
I successfully loaded XP and it worked, sort of. I couldn't get it to recognize my DSL modem. Not to big a deal since the internet was dead to me anyway. I rebooted hoping to get back into Vista. No dice. Never got the option I was looking for on the boot screen.
I load the Vista recovery disc that came with my computer and reboot. Let's see, the instructions say to select repair system when the disc loads, huh, okay don't see that option. I'll just hit next and
OVERWRITE MY ENTIRE SETUP ELIMINATING ALL THE SOFTWARE I HAD INSTALLED SINCE PURCHASING THIS POS.
Okay, no big deal, I'll just get all that software back when the internet connection is up again.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
2 comments:
Sounds remarkably similar to my recent ordeal. More and more I'm getting to the point where I just don't want to do stuff I'm not qualified to do. Working on cars, fixing computers, refinishing carbon fiber canoes, you name it. I want to do what I do and hire the rest of it out. The main reason I want to do that is the aggravation of ignorance, fucking it up on the first few tries and ending up costing yourself more in time and money than you wouldhave saved by doing it yourself in the first place. Computer and car stuff is especially annoying because you are dealing with instructions written by engineers. It really is a different language. You can't follow the literal meaning of anything. Drives me nuts. I feel your pain.
I feel you too. I long ago resolved to avoid these types of problems, regardless of money. That said, I did change my water pump on my Jeep last year.
Totally agree w/ Ojo's take.
Post a Comment