Domhani Bairdéir [OOC]
- Thread starter Maidhc O Casain
- Start date
arkansasdave
First Post
It's Okay!
I forgive you Mr. Mike
I forgive you Mr. Mike
Seriously, what's wrong with it?
Maidhc O Casain
Na Bith Mo Riocht Tá!
You know me - I can't resist the urge to tinker. I always think I can make it run better or faster.
I got tired of all the extraneous crap they put on commercially packaged laptops, and decided the best way to get rid of it was to use the 'System Restore' disk to put it back in it's original condition. Once that's done, you can use the computer to make a disk that just has Vista on it, no other stuff. The plan was to use that disk to reformat the hard drive and install just the Operating System. Unfortunately, the System Restore disk seems to be faulty. I get most of the way through the restore, and then get an time out error. Of course, without my laptop, I also don't have the programs to access my notes or character sheets (or anything else, really, except the notes I've made with pen and paper), so until I get the laptop up and running again I can only post minimal stuff.
I'm planning on spending a couple of hours on the phone with Tech Support tonight - maybe I'll have everything re-installed by tomorrow night.
I got tired of all the extraneous crap they put on commercially packaged laptops, and decided the best way to get rid of it was to use the 'System Restore' disk to put it back in it's original condition. Once that's done, you can use the computer to make a disk that just has Vista on it, no other stuff. The plan was to use that disk to reformat the hard drive and install just the Operating System. Unfortunately, the System Restore disk seems to be faulty. I get most of the way through the restore, and then get an time out error. Of course, without my laptop, I also don't have the programs to access my notes or character sheets (or anything else, really, except the notes I've made with pen and paper), so until I get the laptop up and running again I can only post minimal stuff.
I'm planning on spending a couple of hours on the phone with Tech Support tonight - maybe I'll have everything re-installed by tomorrow night.
Scotley
Hero
Hey, can you get back to the last known good configuration by just trying to boot without the restore disk? It may take a couple of boots. I'm not sure the proceedure with vista, but windows by default takes regular snapshots of the system. You can just keep going back until you get to the one that works. For less radical cleaning it may be just as effective in the long run to download a copy of CCleaner. Its free and very good at getting rid of crap. In fact the original name of the program was Crap Cleaner, but as it got more popular I guess they decided to go with a little cleaner name. Pun intended. Anyway, it deletes everything you don't need, can uninstall programs you don't want and do basic registry cleaning.
Maidhc O Casain
Na Bith Mo Riocht Tá!
The first thing the restore disk does is format the system drive, so there's actually nothing left to go back to at this point. The frustrating thing is that the OS loads and boots up - it's during the installation of all the other 'crap' that the timeout occurs. Normally that would be a good thing, but from that point on the only thing it will boot to is a request to start the System Restore, whether the SR disk is in the drive or not.
I talked to the techies yesterday for about 10 minutes, and they opened a case for me but said they would need to walk me through the procedure (which apparantly is going to involve taking one of the memory chips out of the computer, among other things) when I could actually do the work with them on the phone. That's my plan for tonight.
Hope my cell phone and bluetooth battery are up to it . . .
I talked to the techies yesterday for about 10 minutes, and they opened a case for me but said they would need to walk me through the procedure (which apparantly is going to involve taking one of the memory chips out of the computer, among other things) when I could actually do the work with them on the phone. That's my plan for tonight.
Hope my cell phone and bluetooth battery are up to it . . .
Maidhc O Casain
Na Bith Mo Riocht Tá!
Nah. The laptop has two hard drives. I install programs on the system drive (since most of them write to the registry it's marginally but not noticeably faster and it keeps them all on one drive), and keep data files on the other. I regularly backup the data drive to a portable hard drive as well.
But, the files I need are either in Office 2007 or Acrobat 8, neither of which is available for my desktop.
I'm about to place that call to the techies at HP, so hopefully I'll get it all straightened out soon (likely not completely by tonight, as just running the System Restore disk seems to be a two or three hour operation).
But, the files I need are either in Office 2007 or Acrobat 8, neither of which is available for my desktop.
I'm about to place that call to the techies at HP, so hopefully I'll get it all straightened out soon (likely not completely by tonight, as just running the System Restore disk seems to be a two or three hour operation).
Maidhc O Casain
Na Bith Mo Riocht Tá!
Latest news on the laptop front:
After talking to the Techies 5 times, and being asked the same questions EVERY SINGLE TIME, even though I'D ALREADY ANSWERED THEM FIVE TIMES AND EACH AND EVERY PERSON SAID THEY WERE MAKING NOTES OF OUR CONVERSATION AND THAT THE CONVERSATIONS WERE BEING RECORDED, and trying the System Recovery Disks I made and two sets they made for me, and being without my computer for A WEEK, I was told today that I need to send the computer in for them to do a Recovery at their facility. They're overnighting me a box which will overnight the computer to them, and they'll overnight it back to me, but the work time is SEVEN TO NINE DAYS!!!!!!!
I'm a little frustrated.
So, at this point I'm hoping to have the computer back in time to have some sort of adventure detailed for the lake session. I have all the ideas, but I'm missing some vital notes on NPCs, not to mention my mapping program (and my maps), and some of the rule books that I only have as PDFs. I'm definitely still planning to go - the list of things that would make me miss this getaway is VERY short and does NOT include lack of an adventure - but if I don't have a lot of adventure made out we'll either be winging it (not a good idea for me in a face to face game) or finding other stuff to do at the lake once we run out of adventure.
After talking to the Techies 5 times, and being asked the same questions EVERY SINGLE TIME, even though I'D ALREADY ANSWERED THEM FIVE TIMES AND EACH AND EVERY PERSON SAID THEY WERE MAKING NOTES OF OUR CONVERSATION AND THAT THE CONVERSATIONS WERE BEING RECORDED, and trying the System Recovery Disks I made and two sets they made for me, and being without my computer for A WEEK, I was told today that I need to send the computer in for them to do a Recovery at their facility. They're overnighting me a box which will overnight the computer to them, and they'll overnight it back to me, but the work time is SEVEN TO NINE DAYS!!!!!!!
I'm a little frustrated.
So, at this point I'm hoping to have the computer back in time to have some sort of adventure detailed for the lake session. I have all the ideas, but I'm missing some vital notes on NPCs, not to mention my mapping program (and my maps), and some of the rule books that I only have as PDFs. I'm definitely still planning to go - the list of things that would make me miss this getaway is VERY short and does NOT include lack of an adventure - but if I don't have a lot of adventure made out we'll either be winging it (not a good idea for me in a face to face game) or finding other stuff to do at the lake once we run out of adventure.
