Computer Projects

It is that time of year again. We always seem to upgrade or update our PCs right around now, and this year was no different.

The case that housed my desk top PC was a little old, the front headphone jack didn't work and I was also ready for a change of look. So, I picked up a new case on sale this week, and Brian and I planned to spend a few hours on Saturday just transferring cases before installing Windows 7.

What was going to be a half-day project turned into a one and a half day project in the end, and I still have concerns.

First of all, the case transplant took a little longer than planned, but we didn't really run into any issues. It just took time. And when it was done, it ran great.

[caption id="attachment_1484" align="alignnone" width="464" caption="Me swapping PC cases, still in my pajamas..."][/caption]

We then decided to install Windows 7 so I could have a dual-boot with Vista. Well, that's when we encountered tons of trouble. A usually trouble-free OS, the problems here were hard-ware related. My original  hard drive is most-likely corrupt, as I now remember I had trouble with it last week. So, I couldn't write any new data to it.

After lots of trial and error, I decided to just nip down the road to buy a new hard drive. This turned into a 3.5 hour errand requiring I go a bit further than just down the road. Thankfully, I got a good deal on a new TB drive, and picked up a cheap motherboard for Brian's old pc.

We finally (FINALLY!) got the new OS installed on the new drive, but the pc did crash and give me the blue screen of death twice during the install.

Today we focussed on getting the system to recognise Vista, still on a separate (and corrupt) HD and dual boot. We finally managed to get the machine to dual-boot only  by running the OS disk and choosing to repair my computer. By this time it was 11:00 a.m. on Sunday morning!

With the big projects done, we took a break for a run. Coming home, we both got back into the computers: me, to start installing all my software, and Brian to swap out his motherboards before also upgrading his OS.

My concern remains however because my computer totally crashed again today, and I know it is hardware related. However, the only new hardware I've installed is the new disk drive...

I'm choosing to ignore the problem for now, because the alternative (another full day or more spent installing and customizing on yet another new hard drive) is not palatable at all!