For the Love of the PC

Ah well. As I've said. Its either cash registers, or something else, to get this PC to work. I'm glad to say that I am now writing this blog again from my home PC. As for the solution, read on:

I've finally made a list of possible problems for installation at the start of the day:
1. Something wrong with my memory already; need to get memory.
2. Bad sectors in the hard drive are affecting the installation process and causing the blue screen to appear; Need to get new HD.
3. BIOS is not compatible with the Windows XP installation. Need to get an updated BIOS from the motherboard manufacturer and flash the memory. I've never tried this before, and this point leaves me with a fluttery feeling of anticipation. I hope I get to do this. It'll give me an excuse to get a new system.
4. Need to get a working XP cd. One that works. The scratches must be causing the problem.

All except 1 of the options will have me taking money out of my pocket. I'm not exactly thrilled to do this. On the other hand, while the only one option that doesn't need money, excited the heck out of me, I also had to face the fact that if and when I screw this up (flashing the BIOS isnt really the hot thing to do to a motherboard. It could render the whole system useless) I'd end up having to get a new system. Directly or indirectly, I'd have to shelve out money if it doesn't work or something goes wrong.

By lunchtime, I rationalized that I needed to get a new hard drive. It will be a matter of time when those bad sectors from my old hard drive spreads across, and besides, I've been regularly running out of disk space for the past.. oh, I dont know, year? Out goes the money. I got a Maxtor 80GB 7200 IDE-133 8Mb drive. Thing is, I think I should've checked first how much 120GB cost before getting this one. I mean, if the price different is just by a bit, why not just get the 120GB rather than the 80GB one? Its really too bad I didn't think about this though. Well, tha HD is now paid for.

I also shelled out for a unbastastardized copy of the OS.

Once back home, I tried the new CD on the old HD.

Oh. Seems that it works now. The problem was just the CD. Aw shucks. No more prom flashing.

Sucks.

Well that's how I've gotten around to rebuilding the whole thing up. Its back to surfing and monitor staring business again.