In order to use more modern software I decided to upgrade my home PC to windows XP from win98. I bought the software and read the instructions in and on the box before starting. Nowhere on the instructions that come with the upgrade package does it tell you to disconect all external devices like hard drives and printers.

I was humming along in my upgrade up until the point where XP wishes to utilize some files it supposedly saved to the harddrive, but actually saved them to my external harddrive. However during the installation process, XP does not recognize the external drive nor the CD player. So I called customer service. I would like to say they were helpful but that was the most miserable experience I have ever had. The time I spent holding could have been better spent surfing the web for solutions.

I reached back into my memory in the good old days of DOS and managed to messup and reset the bios to its original configuration. A friend just happen to have the same pc as mine and had the original imaging disk. I used it to reformat the harddrive and start over. Once I had win98 reinstalled, I was able to do a full install of XP.

Overall the process took about 4 days before all was up and running well. There is no real speed improvement but at least I will be able to do my taxes, update my graphic software, and maybe get a couple more years out my ancient PC (circa 1999) .

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 21st, 2006 at 11:54 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.