fsck'd my drive

After a few power failures during a week of storms I rebooted my Ubuntu Linux computer and fsck found some errors. Next time I booted it found (and corrected) even more errors, until, eventually I wasn't able to boot anymore (couldn't find grub).

I have a good backup system* so I wasn't too concerned (although this was my first real test).  I had run smartctl on the first sign of trouble and it didn't give any errors, so it didn't appear to be a hard disk failure. I figure this is an opportunity for me to setup 64bit version of Ubunt and I've also been thinking about dual booting to Windows® because Steam looks like an easy and cheap way to install games.

I put an old version of Windows XP in the drive and... it blue screened.  It just didn't want to install.  I tried two other versions and it also failed.  I then got the Ubuntu disk and it installed with no problems.  I tried Windows again, again it failed to install even though I had reformatted the disk when install Linux.

After much forth and back I decided to reset my BIOS to factory defaults, and low and behold, Windows installed!  Not very nicely, however.  I had no Ethernet, no sound, slow graphics and in only one monitor, but at least it was running.  I then installed 64 bit Ubuntu desktop and proceeded to restore all my files.

Next day I went back to Windows to figure out what was wrong.  It's been years since I've touched Windows and I was at a loss. How can I get the updates if it can't connect to the internet? Then I thought every time we buy some device it comes with a little CD which I normally throw out - I wonder why they do that?  Do people still use CDs, how archaic?

So I put in the CD for my motherboard which I luckily happened to have kept and in installed the drivers for Ethernet and sound and I was back business. Now I have Steam installed and the Torchlight game I bought for $5 bucks.  I'm a little sad that my computer has Windows on it, but such is life.

*Actually, I should have also backed up my package list (i.e. dpkg --get-selections) and my cron list (crontab -l), then it would have been even more painless. I've updated my backup program to dump out this information as well.

Comments

Modern Farming Methods said…
Informative post.
2:08 pm
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