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Well, the new comp is up and running fairly well. Got all the files I need on it. Been lazy about setting the rest up, but the transfer's done.
New HDD on old laptop works fine. Which is good because I found that I'd somehow neglected to transfer some files from it to the new comp.
I also found out that Ghost is useless. I think the first 28 CD set was fine. It's just that the program within Ghost which is supposed to be able to read things off of that image doesn't actually work. I checked the image integrity of the second set (the 22 CD one), but Ghost explorer says it can't load it. It asks for the penultimate CD, says it can't read it, and then just gives me whatever was on the first CD.
I suppose if I needed to, I could try to restore the entire image. I have enough free space on the HDD. Other than that, though, I've basically wasted 50 CDs (not to mention all the previous backups and the money to buy the stupid program in the first place.
Oh, and Norton won't support it. I could buy the upgrade ($50 from them, but $30 from Amazon's zshops, and they pointed out a $20 rebate), but reviews say the new version is even worse than what I've already got.
Gonna have to have a talk with the friend (an MIT CS graduate) who reccomened it.
Meantime, the old comp still needs a lot of work. It won't recognize the wireless card, even after I manually installed the drivers. Gonna have to reinstall a lot of stuff (which I thought was supposed to have happened automatically when I used the reinstaller CD). That's assuming I can. It (the HDD, motherboard, or speakers... I'm not sure) has taken to making some disconcerting popping noises. Like what happens when you have a loose wire sending brief random surges to a speaker. Hitting mute doesn't help.
I'll probably have to have another service call done. But the tech doesn't seem to like me. He was helpful and friendly enough the first time (when he replaced the screen, which took about 10 minutes). He's the one who told me to get them to call him back to fix the FDD and HDD. But when he came back to do the FDD (which took about 2 minutes), he complained about how long the previous call had been and seemed bitter when he (thanks to my carelessness) spotted the shiney new comp. I'm not sure, but I think he might have been expecting a tip. Not sure if that's appropriate for a 5-minute warentee service call.
His problem(s).
I'm just wondering whether it's worth it to keep working on the thing. I don't need anything more off of it, and it seems like it's just one thing breaking after another.
OTOH, I've got another few months on the warentee, and if I can get it into working condition, it'll still be reasonably good. 30 gig drive, 1.7 ghz processor, DVD/CD-RW, Win XP... Could be pretty useful to someone out there, I'm sure. Seems a shame to waste that potential.
Guess I'll poke around a bit more, see if I can get the OS into workable shape, see how bad the "popping" is, talk to Dell support, and see what I can work out. When I get the time and motivation...
We'll see how it goes.
New HDD on old laptop works fine. Which is good because I found that I'd somehow neglected to transfer some files from it to the new comp.
I also found out that Ghost is useless. I think the first 28 CD set was fine. It's just that the program within Ghost which is supposed to be able to read things off of that image doesn't actually work. I checked the image integrity of the second set (the 22 CD one), but Ghost explorer says it can't load it. It asks for the penultimate CD, says it can't read it, and then just gives me whatever was on the first CD.
I suppose if I needed to, I could try to restore the entire image. I have enough free space on the HDD. Other than that, though, I've basically wasted 50 CDs (not to mention all the previous backups and the money to buy the stupid program in the first place.
Oh, and Norton won't support it. I could buy the upgrade ($50 from them, but $30 from Amazon's zshops, and they pointed out a $20 rebate), but reviews say the new version is even worse than what I've already got.
Gonna have to have a talk with the friend (an MIT CS graduate) who reccomened it.
Meantime, the old comp still needs a lot of work. It won't recognize the wireless card, even after I manually installed the drivers. Gonna have to reinstall a lot of stuff (which I thought was supposed to have happened automatically when I used the reinstaller CD). That's assuming I can. It (the HDD, motherboard, or speakers... I'm not sure) has taken to making some disconcerting popping noises. Like what happens when you have a loose wire sending brief random surges to a speaker. Hitting mute doesn't help.
I'll probably have to have another service call done. But the tech doesn't seem to like me. He was helpful and friendly enough the first time (when he replaced the screen, which took about 10 minutes). He's the one who told me to get them to call him back to fix the FDD and HDD. But when he came back to do the FDD (which took about 2 minutes), he complained about how long the previous call had been and seemed bitter when he (thanks to my carelessness) spotted the shiney new comp. I'm not sure, but I think he might have been expecting a tip. Not sure if that's appropriate for a 5-minute warentee service call.
His problem(s).
I'm just wondering whether it's worth it to keep working on the thing. I don't need anything more off of it, and it seems like it's just one thing breaking after another.
OTOH, I've got another few months on the warentee, and if I can get it into working condition, it'll still be reasonably good. 30 gig drive, 1.7 ghz processor, DVD/CD-RW, Win XP... Could be pretty useful to someone out there, I'm sure. Seems a shame to waste that potential.
Guess I'll poke around a bit more, see if I can get the OS into workable shape, see how bad the "popping" is, talk to Dell support, and see what I can work out. When I get the time and motivation...
We'll see how it goes.