Blech...

Okay... one thing is for sure. Whatever route I take to expand my employability, it will involve as little hardware as possible.

So, while vacationing with the lovely kightp, I found this incredible bargain... a 100 gigabyte hard drive for $100 (and, better yet, in a state with no sales tax!). IBM Deskstar; a decent brand, as far as I know, and a price 1,000 times better than the price I paid in 1995 for 200 megs. (200 megs for 200 dollars, and I was impressed!)

Minor problem: Windows 2000 doesn't have a "clone" feature. (XP does, which is nice.) I thought I could maybe beat that, though I wasn't sure. I XCOPY-ed all of my stuff from one drive to the other. "HECKR" are the initials; always remember them for Win98 and lower machines. "xcopy /h /e /c /k /r" will copy all files and directories (even empty directories), including system and hidden files, and will retain all flags for files. You get a perfect copy of your hard drive, essentially.

Well, it doesn't work for. I suspected it wouldn't, but now I'm sure. Worse, Windows2000 didn't even recognize that there was already a Windows installation present.

No problem... I'll make a few changes, and suddenly my system will stop booting normally.

Er, wait a minute, that's not how that sentence was supposed to end. These were normal changes...

Okay, I knew my system was a bit wonky about the IDE controllers. I can't have both a CD-ROM and a CD R/RW at the same time, for example. This... this is weird. I'll spare you the technical details. Suffice to say, after about 24 hours of working and waiting (I work 12 hour shifts, so two full work days with the machine by my side), I have the old drive working, backups made of all the critical data (Except Agent, Warcraft, and Diablo backups - all of which reside under "Program Files", which doesn't get added to backups because 99% of the files there will be restored by reinstalling the programs) and I'm ready to troubleshoot why the 100 gig drive won't boot normally. I *MIGHT* have it figured out... but I won't know until I try, and today, I decided I'd taken my system to work long enough this workweek, so I'll find out tonight.

I think/hope it's the motherboard making things wonky, because, first, I can get the motherboard replaced, and second, I know that once I de-wonky-fy it, it'll be stable, lord and lady willing and the creek don't rise.

Blech...

Okay... one thing is for sure. Whatever route I take to expand my employability, it will involve as little hardware as possible.

So, while vacationing with the lovely kightp, I found this incredible bargain... a 100 gigabyte hard drive for $100 (and, better yet, in a state with no sales tax!). IBM Deskstar; a decent brand, as far as I know, and a price 1,000 times better than the price I paid in 1995 for 200 megs. (200 megs for 200 dollars, and I was impressed!)

Minor problem: Windows 2000 doesn't have a "clone" feature. (XP does, which is nice.) I thought I could maybe beat that, though I wasn't sure. I XCOPY-ed all of my stuff from one drive to the other. "HECKR" are the initials; always remember them for Win98 and lower machines. "xcopy /h /e /c /k /r" will copy all files and directories (even empty directories), including system and hidden files, and will retain all flags for files. You get a perfect copy of your hard drive, essentially.

Well, it doesn't work for. I suspected it wouldn't, but now I'm sure. Worse, Windows2000 didn't even recognize that there was already a Windows installation present.

No problem... I'll make a few changes, and suddenly my system will stop booting normally.

Er, wait a minute, that's not how that sentence was supposed to end. These were normal changes...

Okay, I knew my system was a bit wonky about the IDE controllers. I can't have both a CD-ROM and a CD R/RW at the same time, for example. This... this is weird. I'll spare you the technical details. Suffice to say, after about 24 hours of working and waiting (I work 12 hour shifts, so two full work days with the machine by my side), I have the old drive working, backups made of all the critical data (Except Agent, Warcraft, and Diablo backups - all of which reside under "Program Files", which doesn't get added to backups because 99% of the files there will be restored by reinstalling the programs) and I'm ready to troubleshoot why the 100 gig drive won't boot normally. I *MIGHT* have it figured out... but I won't know until I try, and today, I decided I'd taken my system to work long enough this workweek, so I'll find out tonight.

I think/hope it's the motherboard making things wonky, because, first, I can get the motherboard replaced, and second, I know that once I de-wonky-fy it, it'll be stable, lord and lady willing and the creek don't rise.