More XP Fun and Games

Yes, folks. Once again this intrepid IT "professional" (really, I am!!) thinks he can outsmart Microsoft and upgrade his brand new Dell 8400 (3.2 Ghz, 800 Mhz FSB, 1 GB@533 Mhz RAM, HT, 160 GB HDD, and if you don't know what all those buzzwords mean, don't worry--they don't mean that much), from XP Home to XP Pro.

Ahem. Kids, don't try this at home. Dads--this man is a professional. He is paid to do stupid things like this.

Suffice it to say that I have finally succeeded, but not without much gnashing of teeth, cursing out loud, and sending an email off to Dell tech support to help troubleshoot a BSD (Blue Screen of Death) I received during the upgrade install. A BSD, of all things!! Turns out you have to remove the damn modem (huh?!?) to (re)install Windows--why? Don't ask me. But, even after that, the Windows install told me it couldn't find a hard disk installed in my system! Yes, that's right! We are bingo for two, here.

So, I went to the Dell site and downloaded the SATA disk device drivers for my particular machine (I guess Windows doesn't come pre-loaded with drivers for these "new" HDD devices). Well, the drivers were inside an EXE that wrote the drivers to a diskette. Of course, don't you know my new system doesn't have a diskette drive (OK, foolish attempt to save $50, almost as foolish as trying to save $100 by not getting the operating system version I really needed). But, turns out I have a USB diskette drive that came with my company laptop, and lo and behold! it works when plug into my new Dell. The boy is 1-for-3, the slump may be over.

Well, after several aborted attempts to resume the install (all I got was a black screen with a white mouse pointer), or repair the install (same result), (if you're keeping score, that makes me 1-for-5, right at the Mendoza line) I finally decide to blow away the HDD and "start over" from scratch. Keep your fingers crossed, because, bubba, if this don't work you're going to have to send that disk drive off to Dell and have them bring you a new one. This time, it will have the proper operating system version on it. (Yeah, I was really stupid.)

Well, starting over and doing a "from scratch" install finally worked. Who knows what was wrong. Turns out I did need the disk drivers (all you weenies out there with SATA drives, take note). So now I'm sitting here listening to my MP3 collection (2500 songs, or so) and typing this blog entry on my old computer, while I'm reinstalling all that nice, neat Dell pre-installed software. Once that's done, I'm going to have to cannibalize an 802.11g network adapter off one of our other computers so I can connect this new beast to the Internet. And then things will really get weird. But at least I have SP2, so there will only be a few hacks to compromise my system.

*sigh* So little to do, so much time ... strike that. Reverse it. Well, this is RLA (the RLA in RLAEnterprises.net) signing off with his blood pressure now somewhat restored to its normal equillibrium.