I must try and get one of those T-shirts…and a boob-job.

Carrying on from yesterday’s post; I’m pleased to report that, despite setbacks, the operation is complete and a total reinstall has been achieved, including all third-party software and files that I’d backed up on the other computer in whatever format.

To be honest the backed-up files were copies of backups of backups that were getting a bit old and stale – A whole new system was called for anyway, which hadn’t actually been done fully since I built the original computer in March 2007. The original computer had a hardware malfunction relating to the BIOS, and I had the motherboard replaced under warranty; installing a backup of the original system straight to it. That software has crashed and been repaired twice since. To be honest it was like a patchwork quilt – So I’ve done the right thing in starting again.

I encountered BSOD‘s soon after reinstalling Windows XP and SP3. I had added a few pieces of third-party software at this stage, but I was unable to account for the stop errors nevertheless. At this point I make a strong recommendation for Ad Aware 2008 from Lavasoft; which was the only program able to find a hidden virus and another piece of malware which somehow mysteriously got onto the system and caused the crashes.

I built this machine; so I’m rather familiar with it. It uses an Asus M2VTVM motherboard which appears to be rather finnicky about software compared to my other machine which runs very stably under virtually all conditions with a Shuttle motherboard.

As you have read from the previous article; the operation was made somewhat difficult by, and a total reinstall was virtually forced by, a catalogue of errors and dysfunctions both on the part of Windows as well as to a certain extent on my part. These lengthened the operation somewhat, causing me to dedicate the entire weekend towards getting the machine running again, which has reduced the amount of time I would otherwise have spent on this blog.

Nevertheless the show must go on; and I’ve endeavoured to bring something rather than nothing to you despite this minor catastrophe right on top of the illness which put me out of action for a while a week before. Hopefully with a bit of luck normal operations will be resumed forthwith.

Have you ever had a hard-drive clap out on you? What was your experience?