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Two Computer Issues in One Day... and I Fixed Them! (TL;DR!) |
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Long journal entry is looooong. gonk Here it is...
Yesterday, I was with my sis in her room watching the 'I Love the New Millennium' marathon on VH1, and at some point Dad came home with the long-missed Inspiron 1100, also known as The 6th PC. He stated that the computer didn't boot up to Windows XP, and whenever he turned it on, the hard drive made some clicking noise, indicating that the hard drive had failed on him. I had to test the hard disk, but the notebook cooler was adhered to the bottom of the notebook computer, and so well, I might add. gonk So I had my sis help me get it off.
After that I removed the hard drive from The 6th PC, I went to the Dimension 8200 to remove the other notebook hard drive (which was the same brand as the suspect one) and the notebook-to-desktop adapter. The Dimension 8200 was on Standby at that time, too. xp I then returned to the Inspiron 1100 to retrieve the hard drive enclosure and disassembled it. Dad always watches what I do when something is up with his computers, which he was doing at this point. After that I grabbed my Vista HP tablet PC, assembled the rest of the enclosure unit including the suspect hard drive of course, plugged the unit in the surge protector socket, inserted the USB end into the Vista HP computer, and turned it on. The hard drive started clicking, then started to run smoothly until there was a steady green light with the occasional flashing red light, flashing every eight seconds. No indication of... anything. The hard drive definitely had failed. sad
I told him this, and rambled on about failed hard drives, showing him the two failed SATA hard drives in the process, until I ran into the other hard disk that was in the Dimension 8200. I suggested that we use this one instead of buying a new one, although they were cheap nowadays... you know, about 40-60 bucks for a hard drive the with the same capacity. Of course he went along with it. I also told him that it had two Linux partitions, as if he knew Linux. He's technologically challenged. lol He still thinks that Windows 98SE is okay for normal use! rofl Little did I know that I had to tend to another computer's problems.
I left Vista HP alone on the table, battery mode and all while I install the "new" hard drive in the notebook computer. In the process, I replaced the old CD burner with the one Mom broke and I fixed at the time. Before that, he ordered pizza from Hungry Howie's.  I told him about this particular CD drive, and he naturally asked if it still works. I told him that it still works, she just popped it off. rolleyes Anyway, I tested CD booting. It worked, although oddly enough, it worked on the old one as well, since it gave anyone problems using it, even me! It booted the SUSE Linux 10.2 Live DVD fine, but it couldn't boot PartedMagic or even gParted to format the hard drive. That was when I said he needed a Windows XP CD. I practically tore up the basement floor and the first floor, searching for the Windows XP Professional CD, meant for the Inspiron 8100 or Dimension 8200, I forget which; they used the same CD. [Random note: I find it funny that our eMachines computer has two CDs for reinstalling XP. Then again, they're recovery discs.]
I suddenly decided to reassemble Dimension 8200 and power it on to find this message: Grub error 21. stare Like I knew what Grub error 21 was. Looked it up on Vista HP, and knew what it was: Hard disk not found. The only way to resolve this was to go to the Recovery Console, log in as Admin, and type in FIXMBR in the prompt. But to do that, I need the danged Windows XP CD! At some point, Dad went out the house to borrow an upgrade CD, mistakenly called a recovery CD in the conversation he had with someone, probably a friend. He returned with the CD and popped it in. Since it was an upgrade CD, of course it was going to search for a previous version of Windows. rolleyes At the same time, I booted PartedMagic on Dimension 8200 and left it there.
I was still rummaging through boxes of stuff just to find one CD that was in the same location I left it, on the front left surround speaker on the table printed side facing down... and I looked in that stack of CDs three times! I said I was going to tend to the computer downstairs first (D8200). It took me two restarts from login attempts to realize that Microsoft themselves stated there was a bug regarding the Recovery Console: it fails to log you in no matter what password you use. So I downloaded some floppy disk images courtesy of Microsoft themselves. smile But... only one problem. I have a bunch of bad floppy disks along with the good ones, and they are often unreliable. Two instances of Disk #3 failures with slightly different yet same results. Yeah. scream
At the same time, I went to Dad's computer to finish the installation. I inserted the Windows XP Pro disc into the drive and hit enter. It then asked for the Windows XP Home SP1 Upgrade disc. My expression: rolleyes That seemed to be a waste of time only to have a purple-printed disc in for three seconds. Oh well. I did what the prompt told me to and it sent me to the format program. I told it to delete the Linux swap and operating system partitions and confirmed it. The formatting process took so long, I did something else. Run around the room, make more copies of WinXP Startup disks, attempt to use Vista HP, just something else.
After the formatting process was done, it started installing the system, partially. It then prompted me to type the owner's name and organization, so I let him do it. The product key was then entered. More installing. After that, more system setups were set. A 30-day activation notice showed up. At this point, I decided that it was time to install some device drivers, since you can't do a thing about the activation notice unless you had a telephone product key, which we don't have, and we weren't arsed to call a Microsoft number to do such a thing.
Okay, we installed the video drivers first, restarted the computer, and set the resolution to 1024x768. We then installed the network drivers and modem drivers. After that, we activated Windows. We then installed the sound card drivers and the video software. Forgot to install the mouse software until morning. smile Anyway, I was relieved that we were finally done restoring the notebook computer. Thank God.
I then used the CD on the Dimension 8200, went to the Recovery Console, logged on, and typed FIXMBR. Problem solved, now we can use the experimental computer. 4laugh All this took more than six hours, and I missed most of the Millenniuum marathon! emo Well, at least I fixed those PCs. Oh, yeah, and Dad returned the CD to the original owner. 3nodding So that was all for yesterday. Later.
 Ami Sapphire · Mon Jun 30, 2008 @ 10:33pm · 0 Comments |
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