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System Hell.
I've spent the last 3 hours or so working on trying to do a repair install of windows on my system. This is because the rootkit fiasco of a few days ago resulted in a number of trashed .dll files. Now, my system seems to be working fine, but I'd sleep better if I reinstalled them.
Now, the problem with that is that I went and converted my system drives over to AHCI, which means I'm getting the maximum performance out of them, but that the windows boot disk doesn't recognize them.
I have the necessary driver files on a USB drive, but it turns out that the windows boot cd can only load them from floppy. So, I made myself a floppy. Only it turns out that I'm missing an oemsetup.txt file that windows uses to identify which driver to load (rather than, you know, asking me).
So, now I've downloaded a program from Intel that can build me a suitable floppy image. Luckily I have some old floppies laying around. Unluckily they're OLD floppies. Its taken several attempts to find one that I can reformat without bad sectors.
Of course, the RIGHT way to solve this problem is to build a Windows Slipstream CD with all of the necessary drivers on it, but being able to boot my existing CD is a necessary first step.
And for those Linux folks who are saying 'this never happens under Linux', I could tell you the story of the Dependency Hell I got into trying to run ClamAV off of the latest Knoppix DVD...
I think the moral of the story is that it doesn't matter what O/S you use, things are always harder than they seem.
Now, the problem with that is that I went and converted my system drives over to AHCI, which means I'm getting the maximum performance out of them, but that the windows boot disk doesn't recognize them.
I have the necessary driver files on a USB drive, but it turns out that the windows boot cd can only load them from floppy. So, I made myself a floppy. Only it turns out that I'm missing an oemsetup.txt file that windows uses to identify which driver to load (rather than, you know, asking me).
So, now I've downloaded a program from Intel that can build me a suitable floppy image. Luckily I have some old floppies laying around. Unluckily they're OLD floppies. Its taken several attempts to find one that I can reformat without bad sectors.
Of course, the RIGHT way to solve this problem is to build a Windows Slipstream CD with all of the necessary drivers on it, but being able to boot my existing CD is a necessary first step.
And for those Linux folks who are saying 'this never happens under Linux', I could tell you the story of the Dependency Hell I got into trying to run ClamAV off of the latest Knoppix DVD...
I think the moral of the story is that it doesn't matter what O/S you use, things are always harder than they seem.