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Thread ID: 76476	2007-02-02 05:33:00	Pc Company Applicant material?	Morgenmuffel (187)	PC World Chat

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
521866	2007-02-02 05:33:00	Ok this is just a need to vent some frustration Pc Company Applicant material? I nominate me Well It has officially taken me 5 days to install window 2K on a machine for my kids A bit of Background I am the type that saves things for a rainy day so have got a few unwanted components lying around Anyway the kids told me a message was coming up, and had been coming up for a couple of weeks but they had just been ignoring it and hadn't bothered to read it The message was one of those "Your harddrive is about to die horribly" As the kids machine was getting a bit slow i decided to give them my server machine to use (800Mhz as opposed to their 450mhz machine) Tried to clone the old harddrive ( I won't even mention what happened there) suffice to say it didn't work So had the bright idea of formatting the server harddrive and install a new operating system then installing the kids harddrive as a slave and copying the relevant info across Now the server stopped recognising both harddrives, disconnecting either of the harddrives and the other one would be recognised after piddling around with the jumpers for a while got them to work Now to start installing the operating system, it can't format the server harddrive because setup thinks it's faulty, ok replace the harddrive same thing try a third harddrive Eureka, Start setup setup is copying files to harddrive setup cannot find such and such a file, reboot try again same problem, try new win 2k cd same problem swap out cd rom drive setup gets a bit further try yet another CDrom drive set up gets slightly further again, then big Dark blue screen of death, Search the message on google, someone reckons turn off usb support, try that and get even further then dark blue screen of death again search message on google, says may need bios upgrade, spend half of day entering every bit of text from motherboard into google before noticing on boot screen there are bios revision numbers at the bottom of the page enter these into google takes me to page which has about 30 similar yet not the same finally notice tiny bit of text on the motherboard which turns out to be board number get Bios upgrade downloaded Try to make boot floppy & faulty floppy disks later one works, insert said floppy disk into the server machine and reboot, find server floppy drive doesn't seem to work, gently remove server floppy and bounce at a gentle yet high velocity of concrete block wall, feel slightly better Try a new floppy drive, it works first pop, dizzy with joy I do the bios upgrade it works i dance round the room singing "it's alive it's alive" in my best transylvanian accent, reboot the machine the install begins then crashes, so I decide to remove ram sticks (well i had already removed most of my hair) remove the first stick of Ram reboot The install runs as smooth as silk And everybody lived happily ever after Well almost, I have a horrible feeling the graphics card is dieing and I am really regretting throwing out the CDrom drives and the Harddrives without testing them in a working machine as they had all worked previously So you all reckon I have served my apprenticeship for the the PC company	Morgenmuffel (187)
521867	2007-02-02 05:49:00	Well fish the drives back out of the bin. You should have posted on here while you were still getting install errors - we would have told you to test the RAM....saved you a lot of messing about..... Well you know for next time..	pctek (84)
521868	2007-02-02 06:06:00	Thanks for that, Nigel. It gave me my best laugh for the day. (Always good to know you're not the only one who... )	Laura (43)
521869	2007-02-02 06:17:00	Well fish the drives back out of the bin. eermm they went to the big computer in the sky on monday, i was in one of those moods where everything that didn't work hit the rubbish bin, I know i should have asked here, but i just couldn't string together a coherent sentence at the time regarding this problem besides the Ram ? hard drive and Cdrom had all functioned flawlessly in the server Anyway what is a reasonable price for an old graphics card i looked on trademe for a 16 -32 mb graphics card and they range quite ridiculously in price Anyway i feel a lot better now I have had a vent, have decided against a career change to PC assembly	Morgenmuffel (187)
521870	2007-02-03 02:31:00	and just when i thought it was over the PC wouldn't boot this morning, replaced the AGP card with a 4Mb PCI graphics card and it runs again sweet as a nut bah humbug, get me an abacus	Morgenmuffel (187)
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