I’ve been surprised at how long my PC has lasted with little-to-no maintenance.  I don’t really use it for anything besides playing games anymore, and I soon intend to replace that function with an Xbox 360.   For the past 6 months or so it’s been hobbling a bit, with one of the disk drives occasionally making odd noises on boot and not being recognized by the BIOS.   Today, that drive finally gave up the ghost..  Unfortunately, it was my main boot drive which contained the “Documents and Settings” folder.  This would be nearly a non-event for me if it were lost, but Corinna might have had some files on there that were important.  I managed to coerce the drive to boot one last time and copied that directory off onto another disk, but I just barely made it under the wire.

For the next few hours, I tried to get my legitimate, purchased, copy of Windows XP to install onto another drive.  I’ve installed from this disk on several occasions and on several machines over the years (including this machine).  For some reason it was being stubborn, though, and would hang on the last “text based” screen before it truly starts the install.  Frustrated, I found a bootleg copy of XP online and then used that disc to install XP, using my legitimate license key.  Now the machine boots and I get to enjoy the fun of bringing a 6 year old OS up to date with patches, etc.  Fortunately I had a copy of SP2 burned to CD for such an occasion.

I know I’ve said this before, but allow me to reiterate:  When this computer needs replacement, it is being replaced with a Mac.  My PowerBook never gives me this much grief, and I simply don’t care to fight with my computer any longer…