(no subject)
Been messing with computers for the past few days. It's a little tedious at this point. Though, I think I got my parents' machine cleaned up and good to do. If not, I know what I need to do in order to do a full wipe and reinstall. I realize where I goofed up when I tried to partition the last time. Really a second grade mistake, which is usually the case.
Rod's computer is all kinds of buggered as well. He had some kind of virus thanks to Joe looking at various *ahem* sites. So we've been trying to get his machine up and running again the past two days as well. The problem seems to be that the computer has some sort of proprietary drivers or something. It's a machine he picked up from Rent a Center, or Aaron's or whatever the hell they are calling themselves now. He OWNS the machine, as well as a license. But his product key doesn't work, and the store won't give him the system recovery disc. So he has to call Dell, and work something out. XP is not auto-detecting his LAN connection, nor was it recognizing my USB hard drive. Also, we were not able to change the monitor settings on the damn machine either. So there is something else going on involving the system drivers, or perhaps some form of lockout that was put in place by Dell, or the place he got it from. I recall that he wasn't able to change OS setting or anything while he was leasing/renting the thing... so perhaps there is some kind of controls to unlock in that regard. Kind of irritating if you ask me. Everything... EVERYTHING with that computer and OS should have been plug and play. I guess we'll find out.
So, diagnosing problems, and installing software is what I have done all weekend. I wish that I could have gotten out a little more, or at least been able to hang out with RJ outside of trying to repair his machine. Maybe next weekend I can go to the Ren-Faire. Maybe.
Rod's computer is all kinds of buggered as well. He had some kind of virus thanks to Joe looking at various *ahem* sites. So we've been trying to get his machine up and running again the past two days as well. The problem seems to be that the computer has some sort of proprietary drivers or something. It's a machine he picked up from Rent a Center, or Aaron's or whatever the hell they are calling themselves now. He OWNS the machine, as well as a license. But his product key doesn't work, and the store won't give him the system recovery disc. So he has to call Dell, and work something out. XP is not auto-detecting his LAN connection, nor was it recognizing my USB hard drive. Also, we were not able to change the monitor settings on the damn machine either. So there is something else going on involving the system drivers, or perhaps some form of lockout that was put in place by Dell, or the place he got it from. I recall that he wasn't able to change OS setting or anything while he was leasing/renting the thing... so perhaps there is some kind of controls to unlock in that regard. Kind of irritating if you ask me. Everything... EVERYTHING with that computer and OS should have been plug and play. I guess we'll find out.
So, diagnosing problems, and installing software is what I have done all weekend. I wish that I could have gotten out a little more, or at least been able to hang out with RJ outside of trying to repair his machine. Maybe next weekend I can go to the Ren-Faire. Maybe.