Slowly Being Awake.

Why do misremembered song persist in running through my head?

... He's like a moose in the fudge and then his is the fudgeness...

Anywho, today was one of those days when I did NOT want to get out of my nice warm bed. But, I have lots of stuff I plan to do today, so I might as well get on with it. Reading my morning e-mail and LJ took forever because taxlady's computer is currently in pieces on the dining-room table, awaiting a replacement hard disk that I have and the new RAM that will be bought for it today.

In the meantime, of course, taxlady is using my machine to keep in touch with clients, read her e-mail and check on LJ. This makes it difficult for either of us to get anything done. Luckily it should all be sorted out by tonight.

So now I need to finish reading my comics and then finish swapping hardware pieces so that we can recover our dining table. I should also manage to install XP on the wife's machine while she's away visiting a client. That way at least I can minimize her downtime.

System: FUBAR

So, today my goal was simple: Put the CD and floppy drives back in my old PC, along with taxlady's old hard disk, thus clearing space to work on her machine. Install a larger hard disk in her machine and start installing Windows XP, in anticipation of her returning from her meeting with some more RAM.

Well, she returned 7 hours after I started and I was still cursing the old PC. I can't get the HD, CD and both floppies all working at the same time, although I suspect its a Bios configuration problem. Okay, so I find places to stash the pieces of my old machine, so I can install the RAM in taxlady's. A hour of contortions and swearing later, I have the RAM in and ... nothing. Her machine won't boot, it won't beep, it won't do anything. I can't even get the fan run. There's power in the outlet, and the power cord is good. I've checked all of the connections 3 times, and it all looks good. I even put the original RAM back in to see if that was the problem. No dice. At this point, I have TWO dead machines, and I'm out of ideas. Well, almost. The power supply in my old pc might be ATX compatible. If it is, I can use it for a test, but I rather suspect it isn't.

What I need is someone who knows hardware better than me, and can make a free housecall...