For you computer-minded folk, I have a question:

I have two hard drives on my computer, my old salvaged one as IDE and my new SATA one. Both of them have a bootable OS, but I use the SATA one as my main OS. The BIOS preferentially assigns an IDE hard drive to C and the SATA one to D. Somehow my computer lost connection with the IDE drive, and apparently the BIOS stores boot information on it. I wasn't able to boot to any OS even with the the SATA drive detected and working.

How the heck do I fix THAT? And by fix, I mean transfer all bootable information to the (newer, faster, serial) SATA drive?

This one is for computer people out there, because I'm stumped:

A system in the house crashed, and due to incompetence (not mine) I was forced to completely reinstall Windows.

Post-reinstall, neither wired nor wireless connections are properly obtaining IP addresses from DHCP. Other computers can connect both wired and wireless to the router, and manually assigning IP settings compatible to the router enables a connection (if with slow communications between router and computer, which doesn't bother internet surfing but plays hell with WoW).

I've updated both ethernet card and wireless drivers to the latest versions I could find. I know the problem is somewhere on the computer, but I have no idea what it is or how to fix it. Can anyone offer any suggestions?

Edit: I ran a WinSock repair utility which apparently identified a bad file and replaced it, which got DHCP working (at least for the moment). I suppose my question now is: How did so much go wrong on a re-install? The entire Windows Update utility was bad too, I had to refresh it through arcane means I don't understand. And I HATE not understanding.

I suppose part of the problem is that Lenovo sent a CD with *original Windows XP* with the system. No service packs. Nothing. I had to completely upgrade with a SP2-build disc to get the damn USB support to get the wireless modem working to manually assign the IP address to get connectivity to download the updates to repair the system... Man. Why am I not getting paid for this?

Well, it's official: My computer is irrevocably damaged, completely beyond salvation.

Something is wrong in the hardware, and that something is a something that results in repair installations crashing midaway through Windows fixes. The result is a lunking, luching nightmare of a machine that's missing half its dlls, can't read off its CD drives or the other hard drive... I can go on, and on.

The point is it's a lost cause. There is nothing I can do to repair this machine. Frankly, I'm lucky to be able to get online at all.

So. Time to go deeper into debt, if I can. I wanted a new computer, but I wanted to be able to AFFORD it before I purchased it.


This is life. No matter how hard you try, you just get beaten and beaten and always fail at everything, till you die.

DEP-disabling test: Failed.

Driver rollback test: Failed.

Clearly, there is no power on earth that will solve my computer problems short of a clean Windows install and a new graphics card.

Argh.

So my internet connection is not quite dead, but moving with all the alacrity and determination of a zombie well-fed on human flesh. It has, in fact, dropped below speeds that designated speed-testing websites are able to register.

Verizon of course is to blame, for the simple obvious fact that it WORKED, then it DIDN'T, with no changes being made to anything under my control. Of course, they won't cop to it; tech support fed me the usual lines of "reboot, even though you did it repeatedly!" and then claims they can neither help me nor escalate their ticket because their line-testing tool is down. In other words, bullshit of the highest caliber. Verizon works just great when they work, and in fairness they do work the vast majority of the time, but when they drop the ball, you can't make them pick it up with anything less than world-shaking effort.

So yay, I get to spend tomorrow on the phone fighting with them. This is not how I wanted to spend my last day mostly-off before I go into a punishing stretch before my vacation.

So however I slice it, somewhere in the path from software to monitor there's a problem I just can't get rid of. My computer is BSoDing every time I try to exert the graphics card at all. WHERE the flaw is I don't know, but I do know the drivers are as updated as they can be. Guess it's time to beg for a new hard drive for my birthday, and reformat-reinstall on the old one once I get it. Sigh.

Actually it'd probably be better to reinstall Windows on the new one, it'd probably be faster...

Computer update:

I got a nice new error message today: STOP: 0X0000008E, apparently caused by win32k.sys.

Now, I'm having trouble pinning this one down, especially since it didn't come with an identifying phrase, but as near as I can tell... it blames the memory again.

Am I right?

Computer update:

After getting a driver-based stop error, I managed to successfully update my graphics card drivers. (I had tried this once before and the most recent update had been unable to detect compatible hardware. Today it did.)

After the update, deliberately attempting to reproduce a stop error returned a 7F stop code. This puts the blame back to my memory. So nothing gained.

Sigh...

Any computer people want to interpret this one?

DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
STOP 0X000000D1


I mean, aside from "Dude, your computer is screwed." I know that already.

Computer Problems Update:

I popped the hood on NV and did some minor work. Removed the modem, checked the seating of all the cards. Swapped the memory popsitions and reseated them. Cleaned off the heatsink.

I ran as many system diagnostics as I could and didn't come up with anything.

Turning off the automatic restart got me a stop error code: 0x0000007F. As near as I can tell this means something in my hardware is screwed.

Sigh.

...Help?

My computer is behaving miserably: any time I put any significant processor load on it, it crashes and reboots. It'll open programs and handle normal tasks readily enough, but if I try to use it for games, for example, or even converting audio file formats, the crash happens. The error reports keep blaming drivers, but I can't possibly imagine how device drivers are affecting so many different things, most of which they have nothing to do with. I initially thought it was heat, and it may still be... I'm checking temperature readouts now. I know my heatsink fan is working, as are the chassis and power supply fans (despite my utility's insistence), but according to benchmarks my processor should be functional up to 80C at least.

I'm really at a loss here. Heeeelp.


UPDATE: According to my probe utility, the CPU temperature was 66C when my computer cut out again -- which is supposed to be well within the parameters of the chip. I'm stumped.

Well, I recovered the system from the ethernet card drivers disappearing, and updated the video drivers, but I'm still getting crashes, BSODs, and Stop errors.

Not good.

Tonight has not been a good night.

The Sims 2 has decided it won't run on my computer, for reasons I can't even begin guess at. It just arbitrarily crashes after a short period of uptime, losing everything I've tried to do in it. On the other hand, one of my PS2 memory cards has disappeared into the void, completely inexplicably. I absolutely cannot find it... which is odd, since it never left this square-foot-wide section of bookshelf-top. Which I can only assume means it's gone for good.

I'm so tired of having shit piled on me.

So last night Verizon killed my DSL. Again. When I called the billing office this morning, they told me (essentially) that it was for no good reason. In all honesty, I'm shocked that they got it back up and running without screwing up. Likely it'll go down again sometime this weekend.

I've worked out almost all the kinks on my car donation, which will hopefully prevent the police from showing up and towing it, thus costing me a fortune I can't afford. Hopefully it should be gone by Tuesday. (So what will go wrong? Bets?) I just have to hope my credit union really DOES provide a notary service, or I'm gonna be doing some frantic running before work today.

I need to make a new dental appointment soon. While I'm doing okay overall, I need to have my crown adjusted, and a light layer of material applied to one tooth that has had its enamel worn away. Also, I have learned I need to cut back on the Icebreakers Sours. This sucks. I love them. (But they erode enamel, see problem.)

I'm beat. Life is just grinding me down to a pile of dust.

So... DSL.

They sent me a new modem, all nifty and black and happy. But they didn't send me a new install disc. My old install disc? Doesn't have that modem.

So I call tech support.

Long story short, my DSL doesn't work.

So... I get to call tomorrow morning, after 12 hours of work, a dentist visit, and an oil change.

This ought to be good.

Does, as well we all know.

My DSL order botched massively. We're talking natural-one bad here. I won't go into the gory details. Suffice to say it's amazing.

However, I do have a person who will be actually calling me back tomorrow, in order to verify for certain that my order is put in properly. She has also agreed to expedite my service-ready date (meaning it'll be 3-5 days, ideally, rather than 7-10), give me new equipment, and wing a free month of service on as well. So HOPEfully this means that the end of the nightmare is in sight.

Meanwhile, I have this nifty temporary dial-up account. Which I will also be utilizing for free, hooray! So that makes things marginally more tolerable. I'm running very slow in everything, of course, but... I lived with dial-up for a couple years once I got out of college, I can probably deal for a little while.

My body is... not reacting normally to sleep deprivation, or sleep in general. I am not sure what to make of that.

No word yet on my DSL. I will give a call when I have some minutes free.

Meanwhile, with my plans yesterday falling through completely, my social bar is a big fat empty red. It's almost painful to glance over LJ at work. "Hey, look at all the stuff you're missing!"

And I have to survive another week of this? Shoot me now.

My DSL connection is irreperably corrupt. This means that I have to reorder it entirely. From the beginning, like new.

Note they didn't TELL me this until I called them and demanded to know, even though they had contact information for me.

I can't reorder until Monday, when the sales office opens. I'm going to give them no end of grief for this in the efforts to make them bump me to the head of the line, but it could be weeks before my DSL is up and running again.

Sigh.

The isolation from people is driving me nuts. All I've been able to do is sit around, read, play the Sims... it's driving me crazy, absolutely crazy. I mis my friends!

No DSL yet, and no real clue when it's going to be up. According to tech support, there's no reason it SHOULDN'T be. I have a trouble ticket open, and I'm awaiting resolution of it. Which I suspect will not make it all better, but we'll see.

I'll be back eventually. I hope you remember me when I show up again.

(Feel free to call me, you know. All I have to do when I'm not at work is sit around sad and lonely, after all!)

My phone line and DSL will be fixed tomorrow or Thursday, theoretically.