proba tive org archived entry

Every time I touch this system I end up starting (almost) from scratch again. Mr. Hoye asked why I was doing this a while back. The reasons haven't changed: I'm trying to set up a lab system for the exploration of the software product we're acquiring.

The only way I have of doing so at this time is to download a trial version from the current vendor's site. The only OS's that are common between us are WinNT, WinXP (sorta) and RedHat. The other folks in this new company have years of experience with the product and told me that to get a look at the code I should download the Linux demo. Yesterday I did just that after finally getting DOS, NT, XP and RH all on my drive. No boot manager, but that was okay - I had diskettes to boot into RH; NT & XP were bootable with the NT boot manager.

Got the demo downloaded and even though it wouldn't run and the available documentation was not helpful, I figured I could at least get a peek at the Java source. Eclipse had been recommended as a potential IDE for us and it's free, so it was downloaded. But of course lack of memory became an issue. That's when I decided to setup Eclipse on XP and copy the source there. Before I did that I thought a boot manager would be a good idea.

This endeavour is fraught with short term handicaps - no funds compounded by a lack of experience with IT administration. Making do with what is at hand means I have to have WinNT to use the version of PartitionMagic that I own and to install XP. To install XP without a CD rom working, one must create 6 (!) floppies just to get to the point that one can use the CD. I discovered this last night when I'd messed up the existing Windows partition, again due to lack of experience and access to manuals. (I now officially hate Windows installation.)

Wanting to have a way to recover in case I messed up the boot manager, I decided it was time to make a Rescue Disk for WinNT. Ha Ha Ha. I checked the Admin Tools installed with NT but there was no mention of a utility to do this. 'Help' didn't have anything to offer either. During the installation it had asked if I wanted to create one but since a Service Pack was also needed, I figured I'd do it a bit later. Later had become now.

I explored the installation CD. Nothing useable there. I decided to restart the installation, and create an RD that way. (IT folks are cringing now.) As I recall, once it became clear that I wasn't going to get that option, I exited the setup. Bad bad bad idea. A web search told me about the RDISK command. No problem. Made an RD while cursing MS for being so freaking stupid as to think RDISK should be a secret. But it was too late as the Sys Admins rolling on the floor can tell you.

My hard drive had been messed with by the aborted re-installation of NT. Up to that point, it had only told me it was putting some files on my drive - but not where. And when I decided to exit Setup, all it told me was that the installation was not completed and I'd have to run Setup again later - but not that my system had been rendered unuseable.

Booted PartitionMagic from diskette and found that the drive was a complete mess. First it repaired a couple of problems automatically. Once it got running, both of the NTFS partitions (NT and XP) were unknown. Couldn't reformat them either.

I've seen the demo of my new product running on XP, so I decided I'd simplify my life for the moment and give up on NT altogether. Removed the two formerly NTFS partitions and tried install XP from CD. Found out why that didn't work and tried to get around making way too many diskettes by booting into ME first. (ME installs from CD but XP doesn't. Sheesh!) When the XP install got running, it tried to put it on the tiny DOS partition where there was pretty obviously not enough room.

Today I am going to get XP up and running. I can just feel it.

UPDATE: I just located all my computer books. Not IT books, but still... I feel a bit more 'equipped' now. Just a smidge.

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