Well, at least the election is over so I can grouse about other things for a while.
The job search continues, there are a lot of people who want Linux/Java out there, so I thought I'd repartition my hard disk and install Ubuntu. I had an older version of Partition Magic (hereafter "PM"), v.6, so I installed it and ran. It warned me, right up front, that that particular version had known issues with the NTFS file system on my drive. Well, after digging around a while longer through my CD ROM collection, I found v.8 (which is "current", apparently, even though it is 5 years old). SO, uninstall v.6, install v.8, and run. No warning. Great, they fixed the issue... (can you see this coming?)
I set three tasks for PM: 1. Resize my primary partion smaller. 2. Create a "Boot Magic" partition (a program that comes with PM, apparently allowing for easier navigation between boot partitions). 3. Create a Linux partition.
To apply these changes, the system reboots, then PM goes through the gyrations it thinks it needs. After ten minutes or so of resizing the first partition, it detected Error 1518: File Attribute doesn't fit, and it wants to abort. Well, OK I guess, something I read said that if things were aborted, you'd be restored to the original state. Not!
Subsequent reboots were met with the BSOD. OK, next step is to boot off the PM CD ROM - if you do that, you get a couple of options, one of them is to run the PM program. Sounds like a plan, so I select that. Get a warning message (from PM) telling me that one of the cylinder ending numbers is incorrect, should PM fix it? Yeah, I guess, since PM was probably the one who changed it in the first place (I had somehow forgotten to run my "GoChangeTheEndingCylinderToARandomNumber.exe" utility before starting this whole operation).
PM loaded after that, but showed that the primary partition was the original size (ie, pre-"fix"), and there didn't appear to be a whole lot more options available. OK, if something got fixed, perhaps we're good to go, so reboot. BSOD. Dang.
Options, we have options. Something on the Symantec site said boot to DOS and run CHKDSK. OK, fine. Done - except I need a different word there, perhaps "doing" fits better, it started off pretty well, but once it hit around 27% complete, it started crawling. I got online on a different computer. Symantec has 24x7 chat support - cool, let's try that. The suggestion I got was to let chkdsk run, then re-install windows. Whatever. This was about 1:30 in the morning, so I went to bed. chkdsk had completed by the time I got up.
This is a Dell desltop computer I purchased several years back, it didn't come with a for-real Windows disk (though there is a "genuine Microsoft" sticker on the side of the machine with the OS serial number); instead, I've got something called "Reinstallation CD Windows XP Pro..." etc. So I stick that in, boot from the CD, and it works for a little while, then aborts because it can't find the EULA.txt file. Perfect.
I've got another Windows XP disk, so I decide to reboot and try that. It putters around for a while, then tells me it's looking for the ASMS file, and also tells me where it's looking. Not having memorized the directory structure of the CD, I popped the disk out, and put it into another computer. Sure enough, the directory is right where it's supposed to be.
I don't have a clue, I guess. I'm probably six hours invested in this exercise so far. I just got back from Fry's with a new hard drive, I guess we'll try installing the XP OS onto that. The computer's rebooting right now (real time blogging!!), let's see...
Found XP Pro. It knows it's supposed to be installing Windows XP Pro. It's doing promising looking little changes on the screen...
But I still wouldn't give you two cents for the so-named "Magic" utilities.
