There’s something I need to do, something so important I have to do it… but just thinking about doing it scares me so… and I’ve been delaying it, procrastinating about it since last week yet. I guess I have this ‘computer anxiety disease’ most non-techies are going through. Nothing too technical actually, I just need to format our desktop computer’s hard drive and install programs on it. Buttt.. just thinking about that format thingy is making me uneasy… ugh, what if I do it on the wrong partition??? What if some system devices won’t work?
Our desktop computer has been acting weird lately. Ever since we arrived from our Cebu trip, it’s been giving us this strange behaviour. Initially, it won’t turn on when the power button is pressed and sometimes it did. I checked out all the connections and they’re all secure. Now it’s acting badly, it just restarts on start up, so I can’t go to the Windows XP login anymore. Our computer has two operating systems (Win98 and XP) installed on it, and during start up, it goes to the OS choices menu (my mom uses Win98 for her structural analysis software). Anyway, the computer behaves weirdly when you choose XP, it just restarts, but when you choose Win98, it does fine. I decided that the XP drive is the one with the problem, so I took the installation disk to repair it, but it gave me more problems instead – the computer just restarts halfway during the installation and this process repeats endlessly… I cancelled this annoying repetition and I got this dreadful blue screen instead:
yikes…the dreadful screen of death!
I took a pic of it, it’s a lot faster instead of writing down the error infos, so I can send to one of my online consultants, the Prague Connection (my sis’ hubby). Sigh. And to think that years ago, I used to do a LOT of techie stuff when we had our internet café – open up those CPU cases, check connections or plug some devices or cards, create partitions, format drives, install programs and did some troubleshooting. I guess it was survival instinct that got me through – we didn’t have any technical staff to assist us during those times. I just browsed and researched on the internet when computer problems came up, but mostly I asked help online from the pros – my bro and the Prague Connection. Anyway, after some techie talks (arghhh…) with my sis’ hubby and following instructions, doing something on the CMOS setup, failed attempts of repairing XP and all other techie stuff… the only solution we came up is to format the drive and install a new clean XP OS on it.
I decided to do it next week. That would give me more time to gather up enough courage to actually do it. In the meantime, I’ll just enjoy my weekend over at the newly opened SM City-Bacolod. 🙂
I dreaded formatting the hard drive when I used to use my Windows OS. I always had to make sure I had burned copies of my files or transferred them over to an external hard drive. I ended up having too many backup CDs. It can be stressful. Good luck!
Another SM? those things are all over the place. There might be an SM California one day. hehe
hu hu hu hu, so sorry, am too ignorant for that. i always call my son who is a few houses away to do all the shooting…anyway, good luck!
Ugh! The dreaded blue screen of death! That’s the problem sometimes with using two OS on one computer… hope you’ll have it fixed over the weekend,
Nge! Im always too comfortable to do computer set ups or trouble shootings. I’d rather ask somebody to do it for me. Im so afraid i might do the wrong thing, so let others do the job.
That blue screen gives me a de-ja-vu! That same thing happened to my computer last year. I tried hard fixing it myself, nagmagaling hindi naman na-solve, hehe. I guess u better seek the help of a technician, which I did. Good luck Carey! 😉
Wil: yes, I would definitely make backup copies of the files….just to be safe! it sure is stressful.
well, I’ve been waiting for SM to finally open here in our city. We need more malls actually, since most of our shopping spots are still few and not so big, and didn’t offer much variety for us.
Sexy mom: Good for you! you have your techie son Angelo to do the troubleshooting… me, I’m the one my Mom calls when she needs help, sometimes I can manage but for those heavy techie stuff, i ask help from the pros.
Snglguy: yeahhh…. the death of the computer! i think you’re right about probs with having two OS, but my Mom needs win98 for her structural software. So we can’t get rid of win98 for now.
Curacha: hehe… as long as you have someone to call for help, it’s better to be safe.
Karmee: getting a blue screen can really drive me nuts! it always makes my heart beat faster and my fingers clammy. thanks for the advice… I think I can do it naman, I’ve done a lot of these stuff before. maybe, I just need to think more positively. 🙂
Hi carey! argh. blue screen. traumatic yan eh.. hehe.. btw, kahawig mo ung tita ko.. 😀
Cai: marami nga akong kahawig! pati nga yung friend ko working sa internet cafe, kahawig ko raw yung suki nyang customer. he he…
I was curious about the url that appeared on the bluescreen you just posted. So I did a tiny-bit of checking and I found this article
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,1205151,00.asp
You can see there that the site WAS owned by microsoft. It mentioned there though, that such message is linked in Win 2K and you are using XP. I’m also a bit curious about your bios tho.
Just a couple of questions: Your XP and 98 is on the same drive or you have separate drives for each?
And you were repairing the drive (chkdsk) or repairing the XP installation when this dreaded blue screen appeared?
John: Thankssss so much for the comment and for dropping by. 🙂
XP and 98 OS are on the same physical hard disk but on different partitions. Drive C for 98 and drive D for XP.
I was doing the XP installation, it was on the part where the devices are installed when the monitor suddenly restarts and continues in a loop, and when I cancelled the process, I got the blue screen.
anyway, the computer is doing fine now, you can read here http://www.ideasnpink.com/2007/03/20/another-blue-screen/ in my latest post what caused the error.