30 Dec 2007

The crash

I knew it was Inevitable - that it was going to happen one day but when it did, it caught me by surprise. Yes! My eBay computer (so called because it was bought on eBay) suddenly crashed in the morning yesterday. Now to think of it, it's quite surprising that it didn't crash earlier.

Spent a couple of hours making repeated attempts to restart it and later to recover the files inside. The OS simply wouldn't load up. Fortunately I had saved all the important stuff on my storage device and online on IDrive. I probably should have waited for my friend Kyrzul (who's an IT professional) to come back from London but I was impatient and I made a big mistake.

I have an original XP Professional installation disk and quickly loaded it up on my computer, formatting the whole hard disk in the process. It was only after I installed it that I remembered about the Windows activation issue and their stupid "One license, one computer". And there it was, a bubble telling me that I only have 30 days to activate my copy of the operating system. Gives myself a kick on the back side.

I assumed that with the release of Windows Vista, the price of XP would have fallen drastically but no. A "Windows Genuine Advantage Kit" (for Windows XP Professional) would cost me £95.47. Now I am in a dilemma whether to buy the kit or get a pirated copy. I have to admit that the later option is proving to be really tempting. I will also try talking to their customer service and see what they say.

Hoping for the best, I spent most of the day installing the drivers and all my favourite software including Firefox, AVG anti virus, Zone alarm, Irfanview and loads of others, mostly freeware.

Will keep you guys updated.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ohh... feeling sorry for you. Hope you can recover your problem. And please write after 30 about your operating system :)

Dilip Mutum said...

Thanks for the comment. 27 days left till activation.

Anonymous said...

SO we have to wait 27 days more to hear update from you:) I also feel sad for you. I can understand your problem because I was also a sufferer of this problem.

Bookwormz said...

why did the whole thing crash first of all?

Anonymous said...

Rani: It had been troubling me for quite sometime. However, I think the last crash was caused by my son repeatedly punching the computer button.