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Still on dialup
Mar. 14th, 2011 09:56 pmBut maybe back to more or less normal tomorrow.
Pulled out the old system disk for Gary's machine, with note on it saying it had Win XP SP3 as of Aug. 2009 on it. Popped it in as C: drive and it booted. Needs some drivers installed and then a ton of Windows Update probably, which will run overnight. After that our LAN and internet access will be working again.
The "failed" drive is demoted to secondary status. Windows still wants to CHKDSK it every time it starts, and hangs in the CHKDSK. No errors, but it just sits there doing nothing in phase 2 of the scan. Oddly, if you skip the scan, then the disk is readable and appears to be functionally normal with all the data in place, but of course there's no way to verify the readability of every one of those thousands of files. In theory, though, he can back up any files he still needs from there and we can try reformatting. I've got a feeling it will fail the reformat, but it has a five year warranty and is only 18 months old.
Meantime he has all his necessary school stuff on the laptop anyway, and most of a backup of the other stuff was already in place on a USB external drive that can be loaded to the laptop. The painful bit will be reconnecting his Thunderbird e-mail files to a reinstalled Thunderbird. No matter how many times I do this, it's a process fraught with errors and confusion. The way it works seems to change every time they update Thunderbird. Or maybe I should say, the way it doesn't work.
Finally got started on the peep thing. Built the backdrop and the witch's castle (such as it is, crammed into a shoebox.) Now I have to dress the figures: Elphaba needs a hat, Dorothy needs an apron, Chisterly needs monkey wings (bat wings, actually,) and then the Cowardly Lion, who'll need quite a costuming deal even after building him from a rabbit peep and half of another. It would be fun to do this as serious art, but I don't have time. So it's being thrown together the way any kid does it on the night before the project is due. ;p
Pulled out the old system disk for Gary's machine, with note on it saying it had Win XP SP3 as of Aug. 2009 on it. Popped it in as C: drive and it booted. Needs some drivers installed and then a ton of Windows Update probably, which will run overnight. After that our LAN and internet access will be working again.
The "failed" drive is demoted to secondary status. Windows still wants to CHKDSK it every time it starts, and hangs in the CHKDSK. No errors, but it just sits there doing nothing in phase 2 of the scan. Oddly, if you skip the scan, then the disk is readable and appears to be functionally normal with all the data in place, but of course there's no way to verify the readability of every one of those thousands of files. In theory, though, he can back up any files he still needs from there and we can try reformatting. I've got a feeling it will fail the reformat, but it has a five year warranty and is only 18 months old.
Meantime he has all his necessary school stuff on the laptop anyway, and most of a backup of the other stuff was already in place on a USB external drive that can be loaded to the laptop. The painful bit will be reconnecting his Thunderbird e-mail files to a reinstalled Thunderbird. No matter how many times I do this, it's a process fraught with errors and confusion. The way it works seems to change every time they update Thunderbird. Or maybe I should say, the way it doesn't work.
Finally got started on the peep thing. Built the backdrop and the witch's castle (such as it is, crammed into a shoebox.) Now I have to dress the figures: Elphaba needs a hat, Dorothy needs an apron, Chisterly needs monkey wings (bat wings, actually,) and then the Cowardly Lion, who'll need quite a costuming deal even after building him from a rabbit peep and half of another. It would be fun to do this as serious art, but I don't have time. So it's being thrown together the way any kid does it on the night before the project is due. ;p
