Monday, August 01, 2005

Shoptime

I am so fed up. I took my computer to the shop in July 13. I got it back a few days ago, and I am still having problems. I know, I should buy a Mac, but that is not going to happen.

As soon as I started it up when I got it home from the shop, I got an error message, "The system has recovered from a serious error." Well, was that an editorial comment, or was there something else wrong? I was so downhearted when I saw that message, that I didn't do anything else on the computer for 24 hours. I just let it sit there and see if it would quit working again.

When I finally got up my courage to start using my desktop computer again, I started off by installing Trend PC-cillin Internet Security 2005. After it was installed, I set up the DSL hookup so that I could download updates. That appeared to go along smoothly.

I was curious about how much room it took up on the C drive, so then I defragmented the harddrive. I think that messed up something because after that I started having problems. I think I know what I did wrong. I didn't restart the computer after I installed Trend. Now I am trying to uninstall it using Add-Remove programs in the Control Panel and re-install it, and I get an error message "Fatal error during installation". So I inserted the CD (I am so glad I bought this on CD and didn't download it from the Internet or I would be up a creek without a paddle.) and clicked on "Install". The program asked me if I wanted to uninstall it, I clicked yes, and "Setup has successfully Uninstalled Trend Micro PC-cillin Internet Security 2005. Click Finish to exit Setup." Now I will restart me computer!

The harddrive was making louder clicks than I had heard from my previous harddrives. Today the repair person said that the noise was in the normal range. That's good.

While I was working on the computer, I saw a folder that said, "Program Files" on the E drive. I thought, "That's peculiar." I don't remember having a Program Files folder on my E drive, my data drive. So I clicked on it to see what it was. That was the beginning of the troubles. The hourglass appeared and appeared and appeared. After it became evident that nothing else was going to happen, I pushed the reset button.

From that point on, I couldn't get the computer to work properly. After rebooting, I got a blue screen that informed me:

Checkin file system on E;
One of your disks needs to be checked for consistency. You may cancel the disk check, but it is strongly recommended that you continue. (You are given a few seconds to decide.)
Windows will now check the disk.
Volume Serial Number is 1000-1000
Windows is verifying files and folders

The first time this process hung at 65%. I pressed reset.

It would start to load Windows, the first two screens of text would go by, the Windows splash screen would appear, and then it would go dark, and nothing would happen. I waited what I thought was long enough and then pushed reset. After a couple of tries, I got the blue screen checking for consistency again. This time it hung at 7%. After that it would try and try to load, but it sounded like it was in a loop. Finally it made it to the main screen, but then my E drive was not recognized by the computer. Well, drat! Now I will have to take it back to the repair shop again! I have no way of fixing this.

When the repair person hooked the E drive up to another computer, up came the blue screen asking to check for consistency. After it completed it check, everything appears to running okay again.

I don't see why the E drive had anything to do with me not rebooting the computer after installing the virus checker, but apparently it did. I will never understand how computers work or what makes them crash, but I certainly have more experience with it than the average person.

I got my computer home and started setting it up, and then the computer wouldn't recognize the mouse. I would get a balloon telling that it found new hardware, but then nothing. I tried plugging the USB connection into different places, and still nothing. After rebooting the computer a couple of times, the mouse started working. Oh, brother... I don't have time for this.