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geek scheisse: unrewarding sysadmin work
Dec. 9th, 2003 04:07 amI started fixing this computer last week. It belongs to a kind coworker. I've upgraded it considerably (from celeron 400 to P3 450 MHz, 128 to 512 mb ram, new power supply). I thought all I had left was plugging in the hard drive and getting it going.
The system didn't recognize the hard drive, but it recognized other spare drives I had. So I bought a new drive, assuming the old one was fried by whatever took out the power supply, and plugged it in. Still no dice.
I took the step of upgrading the BIOS. This led to major progress: the BIOS recognized both drives and proved this was a 32-gb limit issue. So I figured I'd copy everything to the new drive and consider the matter solved. The new drive wouldn't boot.
So I had to boot from the old drive. That worked, but it showed a lot of problems. The drive had been compressed, which wasn't necessary and seemed to be the root of a lot of problems. Then it crashed in the middle of decompression. Gah.
I had wanted to give back this computer tomorrow. Instead, I'm up two hours more than I'd planned and I suspect another couple nights of work await me. I still plan to move everything to the larger drive, but I refuse to hand back a fubar computer to a coworker. That's not kosher, dangit.
Speaking of kosher: The Hebrew Hammer was funny. It's nice seeing the kid that got beat up in Dazed & Confused grow up and get going.
Uhhh... I don't like XP Pro. It's more stable than XP Home, but it's still too shiny for its own good. Its defrag program is still too slow and it likes to update with "1%" for a long time, then suddenly say 27%, then 28%, then stop running numbers until 55%. When I finish with this machine, it's going to be a real accomplishment.
Unrelated: my mother is trying to retire even earlier. I hate to see her lose cash on the adventure, but I bet it'll only be a small sum. She got tired of waiting for the rest of her life to start. I don't blame her. There are only a couple things keeping her in Utica. Her sanity is worth the early escape. I think a couple years away from upstate New York will improve her demeanor.
So will a purge of the house. I love my folks, but they've turned their house into a shrine for relatives we know nothing about. There's furniture they can't use, books no one will read, and papers... oh wait, those are mine. I should visit and toss some shit. My matrilineage is pack-rattish to the point of death. I work against those tendencies but wind up with plenty.
Speakinf of which: I have a lot of spare ISA cards and crap. Anyone in need? I'm thinking of running a table at the Flea in April.
-get it all out out out err nah bring that back no wait out, Dante
The system didn't recognize the hard drive, but it recognized other spare drives I had. So I bought a new drive, assuming the old one was fried by whatever took out the power supply, and plugged it in. Still no dice.
I took the step of upgrading the BIOS. This led to major progress: the BIOS recognized both drives and proved this was a 32-gb limit issue. So I figured I'd copy everything to the new drive and consider the matter solved. The new drive wouldn't boot.
So I had to boot from the old drive. That worked, but it showed a lot of problems. The drive had been compressed, which wasn't necessary and seemed to be the root of a lot of problems. Then it crashed in the middle of decompression. Gah.
I had wanted to give back this computer tomorrow. Instead, I'm up two hours more than I'd planned and I suspect another couple nights of work await me. I still plan to move everything to the larger drive, but I refuse to hand back a fubar computer to a coworker. That's not kosher, dangit.
Speaking of kosher: The Hebrew Hammer was funny. It's nice seeing the kid that got beat up in Dazed & Confused grow up and get going.
Uhhh... I don't like XP Pro. It's more stable than XP Home, but it's still too shiny for its own good. Its defrag program is still too slow and it likes to update with "1%" for a long time, then suddenly say 27%, then 28%, then stop running numbers until 55%. When I finish with this machine, it's going to be a real accomplishment.
Unrelated: my mother is trying to retire even earlier. I hate to see her lose cash on the adventure, but I bet it'll only be a small sum. She got tired of waiting for the rest of her life to start. I don't blame her. There are only a couple things keeping her in Utica. Her sanity is worth the early escape. I think a couple years away from upstate New York will improve her demeanor.
So will a purge of the house. I love my folks, but they've turned their house into a shrine for relatives we know nothing about. There's furniture they can't use, books no one will read, and papers... oh wait, those are mine. I should visit and toss some shit. My matrilineage is pack-rattish to the point of death. I work against those tendencies but wind up with plenty.
Speakinf of which: I have a lot of spare ISA cards and crap. Anyone in need? I'm thinking of running a table at the Flea in April.
-get it all out out out err nah bring that back no wait out, Dante
