Ok... back in ann arbor for awhile oledi. probably should have blogged in more detail about my St Louis trip but my computer is severely screwed and i just can't use it the way i want it. So let me just start to give a detail history account of my computer.
it was bought by my dad in taiwan in early 2002. thus, it operates on chinese traditional ME and runs on PIII-850. It was given to me and brought over to US thru markadamang when i was desperately trying to get a computer that can hook me up onto internet using the ethernet of the UofM. the option of buying a LAN card is out otta the window coz my PCMCIA drive of my old laptop is consider to be broken just like the rest of tat poor baby.
after installing XP onto that baby. i found to my horror tat it can onli run at the speed of 300MHZ coz the engine was designed for ME and not XP. but i am use to 300mhz speed oledi so it was perfectly alrite. and it was all these while other than the fact that i can't send out files thru icq and msn coz it take foreva (but it is just coz the config was not suitable for the stupid westquad server coz the same config was perfect when i moved into baits this september).
the freaking problem started when i try to use the virus buster disk provided by the UofM to fight the WORM. guess i should have trusted myself and my computer more. i have been regularly updating my system and scanning it for virus to keep it safe and stable. but i just can't resist the temptation of giving my baby the MOST protection it need. so i decide to use TAT freaking disk and it totally wrecked my computer. after using tat disk which declare tat my computer is totally safe from all tat crap... it now takes FOREVER to boot up. so from the time i press the power ON button to the time it reaches the WELCOME to winXP tat screen, it takes around 30 minutes 3 out of 5 times i boot up. and it just plain sux. it is running like a 386 goddamit. and i just can't freaking stand it. this is not how my baby should be behaving and i am just plain sick and frustrated as i can ever be.
then came the gurus. ppl started bombarding me and nagging at me at the wonder of how reformatting my drive is gonna help. nag nag nag. ok fine, maybe they have their good intentions. i mean so many ppl are just flooding me with that SAME FREAKING sentence on either MSN, ICQ or AIM "please go format your drive lah mister, you will thank me for keep telling you to do this after it is done..." oh man... you noe how troublesome it is to do this crap shit when you dun have a CD burner? yeah, sure, can of course send to ppl and ask ppl to burn for you, but when you are asking ppl to do it for you, it means you can't do it the way you want it to be. you need to work on THEIR time and everything. it is just frustrating. but behaving just the way a nice guy would. i just keep telling these ppl that i am working on it even though i fucking hate it when ppl keep trying to tell me what to do and keep nagging and nagging and naggin. it sux... really sux.
but then again, i am really running out of patience both on my computer and on these ppl's advices. (ok... won't call it nagging anymore coz it is just plain rude. i assume they are saying it for the best of my interest and i should not be so mean and ungrateful for their assistance.) i decide to reformat. i took a more active stance and i got all the stuff i needed to reformat my drive. remember, every step tat i take to do requires about 1 or 2 hour for my computer to process it so here we go on the operations i let my poor baby went thru.
when i first install my XP, it was under FAT32. which was the same system the ME was installed under. under the advice of ppl, i decide to install the XP this time round under NTFS. which later proved to be a bad choice. coz later i realised that my computer did not format my drive at all, and merely installed XP under NTFS environment and under a new user name while the old portion of the HD is still there and i can't access those files oledi. this is bad. really bad. coz now i have onli like 2 GB of my total HD space to work with. so i decide to do more to it.
i figured after hours and hours of trying to enable myself to boot from my disk instead of HD. after tat is done, i decide to cancel the partition which i use to have and combine the HD into one lump 20GB space. so tat means i have to unpartition everything and make the HD into a raw space. ok... this is yet another mess i created unknowingly about is probably unavoidable coz by doing this, it wiped out ALL the disk information there is on the HD and when i try to reformat my HD using the XP cd, it says tat my HD is corrupted and not online and tat information required is gone. so, i try to repeat the reformatting process about 3 more times before sitting down and plan a new strategy to it.
i brought out all the disks tat was given to me with the laptop from my dad. it includes a driver CD, rescue CD for ME and a certain ASUSDVD2002 which i have no idea wat it is all about. ok. so now the plan is to redo everything from the very beginning. i will install ME and put the computer back to the way it was when it first came to me and i will install XP from there. sounds brilliant rite?! the Taiwantank once again puts its brilliant and ingenius problem solving ability to good use and to tell the truth, i am still at this pt in time very proud of wat i did and it COULD have worked just the way i wanted it to if not for this blardy thing call the CD KEY. yesh... brilliang beautiful. after taking like 2 hours to do a recovery work, it enteres a setup menu of ME asking me to key in username, screen resolution preference and of course, the 25 digit product CD key. er... and where is tat suppose to be? no, i do not have CD KEY and in an act of ultra desperation, i made a call to ASUS in taiwan to ask where the hell i am suppose to find tat baby coz the phonenumber for ASUS in USA given with the rest of the userkit is no longer in service. and after an hour of so, the conclusion i received from this non-english speaker in the english assistance department (who REFUSE to speak english with me even though he can't freaking speak english properly and he can't freaking understand me despite me speaking REALLY slowly and chew on all my words in my best ang mo accent which even my mom would have been proud to hear me tok tat way...) the conclusion was tat i do not need a CD key. and WOW... how brilliant is tat answer? but yet i am staring at the beautiful screen tat tells me tat i need to use a CD key and i have no other option to sidestep or get past it other than giving it tat 25 numbers which i was reassured that i do not need. hmm... fun fun fun... so ok... i key in rubbish and it says it was wrong and my computer got shut down by itself. i did it twice and got the same response the same number of times. beautiful.
so the tank sat there, smashed those useless manuals around in the room and chew madly at my ramen and came up with yet another brilliant strategy. which was YET again VERY brilliant but still failed to work due to yet another small tiny problem. ok... here is how it is suppose to work. since i can't fully install my ME, at least it is installed. so i shall force my way thru and continue with my plan. so i boot up again thru my cdrom with my xp cd inside and from the option. i brilliantly chose to FIRST convert the FAT32 system to NTFS first!!! this is really brilliant to avoid wat happened in the very beginning and obviously i remembered all the lessons i have learned, except for one. i must have grown so used to my computer being so goddamn slow that i forgot it is still running like 386 and tat it could crash ANYTIME. and just as fate would have it, after the convertion and installing XP under the NTFS environement (all these while, the taiwantank is just filled with joy and self pride at his achievement in defeating the machine after such long struggle and at the bright and successful future tat Agent Smith would call as INEVITABLE.) the computer came to the start of XP, with all its fancy music intro (which was lagging big time but was something the tank did not take heart to coz he was happily bouncing around in his room and throwing confetti around n such and cooking for himself yet another bowl of ramen to celebrate!!) and then went into the system setup page. well, this is where it hangs. it frozes. it went dead. IT WON'T FUCKING RESPOND!!! ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH... the tank was going totally insane and berseck at this pt in time. the ramen noodle was ready and it never tasted so disgusting. the tank has yet again been defeated by the blardy machine and this time round the defeat felt extra painful coz victory was brutally stolen away rite under the tank's nose. it sux... really sux and the tank was close to tears... the tank at this pt in time was totally pissed and angry with the horrible machine and is just really really really really pissed. and i mean pissed.
but he amazingly pressed on. ok... i am trying to make all these things sound really light hearted and fun to read... but i am just suffering from internal injury really bad. i am ready to blow my top off but on wat? on the stupid laptop tat just won't respond? or on those ppl tat only tried to help? but the tank is just pissed and internal bleeding like shit. and i mean really really shit. i have exhausted all options. i have tried all combinations and way of using watever resources i have on my hands and still it won't work and still the computer is running so slow. but yesh, i pressed on and restart my computer again. ok... and it did not go back to the unfinished set up page. and so my name is the administrator. the system is still totally unconfig and i had to manually config those things and bear with the super slow speed tat i am just too goddamn frustrated with to bother and scream now. i just sat there like a dejected asshole and amazingly still trying to think of ways to salvage the situation. oh, and brilliantly, kelvin msged me asking me to bring my computer to epol to get it done and get his help coz epol would noe how to do it better. ok... epol is not gonna be of any help coz he will be working on this issue with as much resources as i had. and i have genuinely tried all methods of solving and approaching this issue tat one could possibly do with the amount of resouces i have on hand and no to mention also that i dun wanna drag epol into these frustrating one hour super slow cycles. and yesh... i was gay close to making kelvin the sorry scapegoat of all my misery thus far and i guess i was sensible enuff not to kill him (coz tat would dirty my hands will all his alcohol filled blood and all tat alcohol will be just too cold for me in this kind of cold freezing weather... heehee) and just told him not to mention any more on the computer issue. but of course this buddy here dun understand the intensity of things and keep pressing on the issue and i had to diver his attention to the bball game later today to make him stop tokking about it. i pray for his life tat he dun mention and keep pressing on this issue when we meet later today. it is not gonna be pretty and will be pushing my level of tolerance and patience to new great level. *take deep breathe*
do rite now, my computer is still running super slow and may not work any time (coz during one of my bootup sessions, it says that it cannot detect my HD and cannot move on...) and i have done watever i can to salvage the situation. so wat is the future plan? rite now i am really have enough with this thing oledi. so with exam coming up, i will be spending more time in media union and library to study anywae and away from the computer/room to prevent reignition of my flame of anger as much as i can. and after my finals, since the internet connection will be gone anywae, i will send it to have it serviced to check on my HD, my ram and my processor. coz there is no way tat the problem can be fixed thru reformatting and tackling it from the software's method. the problem is with the hardware and its basic programmings. i may not be a computer genius, but after struggling and fighting with this issue for so long, this is as much as i have realised. yesh. and i have done as much as i can to give a detail account of my frustration thus far and the misery tat i went thru. if reading all these is bad enough, imagine having to live thru it and stare at the blardy monitor all these whiles. it is not fun and i am just numb and trying really hard to shut these outta my system. and yesh. tat is the official stance i have on this issue and pls stop bugging me for both my and more importantly YOUR dear life and mentally wellbeing. coz i have had just about enuff. if you wanna do more to this issue, you are more than welcome to take my laptop home and work on it and not bugging me and telling me wat i should do. coz i ahve done all i could to do it and i am not willing to spend any extra energy on it. yesh... thank you for your kind patience to read thusfar and your generous understanding. xie xie.
posted by David at 12/02/2003 02:17:00 PM