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.