I mean, seriously, dammit.
So I decided that the easiest solution was to just say the hell with Win 7. Between the bad memory causing Hearts of Iron 3 to crash constantly and not being able to see Misaki necessitating a tedious workaround, I figured screw it, let’s just roll back to XP; I’ll wait for the new computer to use Win 7, and the bad memory won’t be visible to XP. (I thought I had it when I noticed one of the sticks wasn’t firmly seated, and fixed that. No luck, though.) And by roll back, I mean “re-install”. If only life were so simple…
So I whipped out the disks (plural) and went to it. Plural, because my copy of XP is an upgrade, and I have to put in an older version first to validate that yes, I can install it. Of course, I long ago discarded all the older cd’s in a fit of random orderliness. Or a random fit of orderliness. Whatever. Fortunately, I found an emergency backup disk for a computer I no longer own. I found it in the trash, that is, as I had not an hour before, decided to throw it away. So I got it back, and went to work. To make sure I had a clean drive with no prior OS in the way, I deleted the C: drive’s partition and recreated it, then went to format the new partition.
Error, unable to format drive. Drive may be faulty.
Errrrrrwhat? Retry for quick format. Same result. I had no problems before — during my screwing up by the numbers, I had already loaded Win7, deleted it, reloaded XP, deleted it, and reloaded Win7. So WTF? Ok, lets test this crap… I grabbed Win7 and started to reinstall it. No problems, it was able to format the drive, so I pulled the Win7 disc at that point and I went back to it with XP. Just for giggles, I tried again, and it still couldn’t format the drive. So, ok the hell with it, I told it to install, and it merrily went ahead and did so.
Until it got to 8%, that is, and claimed it couldn’t read one of the files. Hennnnnhwhatnow? I pulled the CD and look at it closely, then polish a few spots off. No good. I look at it really closely, this time with my glasses. Dozens of tiny scratches on the bottom. Apparently during the back and forth, I’d gotten careless. Wonderful. Just effing wonderful. I told it to go ahead and skip the file. And then it hit another one it couldn’t read, and a third, and a fourth. It should come as no surprise that the install failed.
Fine, wonderful, I go back to Win 7, at least it isn’t scratched up. And then it fails to install.
HolywhatthefuckisgoingonhereBatman? Seriously. W? T? F?
Ohhhhhhhhhhkaaaaaaaaaaaaay then. I use my D: drive for the boot, and install XP there. Absolutely No Problem. The disc is fine, so my drive C: may really be fubared after all. So D:, here I come, except that apparently it’s got an old installation on it (where did that come from?), so now the system thinks I’m dual booting again and stops for a bit on the selection menu. Every single time I boot. Sigh. So I grabbed the disc with the motherboard drivers, and it does its number, but for some reason, the sound chip isn’t satisfied, and even though I have sound, it keeps demanding drivers, and XP’s “Found New Hardware” wizard keeps triggering. I finally got that shut off, and re-downloaded the video drivers. However, they must be the wrong revision, as dualview refuses to work. Oh come on, I haven’t had a single video problem with any of the other installations, but now this goes haywire?
Oh well, at least I’ve got connectivity with Misaki again.
Except….. I don’t for some reason. The LAN drivers are all loaded, and I can use the internet, but I can’t see any computer on the local network but my own. /headdesk
I go sort Magic: The Gathering cards for about 30 minutes.
So finally I start to download some of my games from Steam, and also Rift from TRION. Which I didn’t really want, but since I got 3 free days thanks to TRION getting hacked, and the thieves getting about half my credit card number, my birthdate, and the expiration date of the card, I figured what the hell. I mean really 3 free days of game time and a bonus to my coin loot is just an amazing apology for potentially totally fucking up my credit rating, don’tcha think? This is why I always check off the option to save my credit card information on the seller’s server, but when it’s an MMORPG, they don’t even give you that option so they can auto-renew. Bastards. Convenience has a price.
Of course, Rift’s installer promptly fails, because I haven’t updated XP with all the patches yet. Fine, fine, OK, I’ll INSTALL THE DAMN PATCHES ALREADY!!! And not only does that work, it also fixes the network problem and I can see Misaki now. Oh, yay, something finally works. I could just sh*t, I’m so damn happy. Still no dualview on my other monitor, but I might have downloaded the wrong driver… maybe I have revision 2? Must have guessed right last time, would have been nice if I’d saved it…. somewhere besides the C: drive. Which, by the way, still has a partial installation on it that I can’t remove, as does D:.
Fuck it, the damn thing works and I can start emptying hard drives on Misaki to make more room. I’ll declare victory, and never touch any piece of technology more complicated than a calculator again. Four-function, at that. I have NOT been having a good time with electronics lately.
UPDATE: And the problem with the dualview is that I had dislodged the cable when I pulled the computer out to get a look at the motherboard and graphics cards, so I’d get the right drivers. Heh. Where’s my calculator?
