Upgrades from Hell : Windows ME!

For reasons that are becoming academic, I went out to the computer fair today to buy a disk drive "because they are cheaper than the shops".

Turned out not to be the case. I got an IBM 5400rpm 20GB drive for $229. I could have got the same thing with much less hassle from http://www.cougar.com.au for $224. C'est la vie. Apparently due to some flooding of a Seagate supplier, IDE hard disk prices are on the way up.

Anyway, I got the drive, even though I didn't really need it. Went and had a haircut and beard-trim (!) and then came home and proceeded to backup my existing 6GB C-drive onto the new 20Gb drive. I had fdisked the drive to be a 5GB primary, and 15GB extended. Once all the files were copied across, I change the drive to be an IDE master, removed the power cable from the old IDE drive, and switched on the system.

The IDE indicator light stayed orange all the time, which was weird. Apparently leaving the IDE data cable plugged into a drive which has no power connector, isn't recommended. Nobody told me that before :)

Anyhow, I have Windows ME (it was a gift) and my old system hasn't been cleanly installed since I got my computer in 1998. So I figured it was time. I ran the installation, and it failed to copy the files!

Ok, turn off, unplug the IDE cable from the old drive, and then try the installation again. The file copy process went without a hitch, but after spending 5 minutes 'detecting plug and play devices' the install reboots itself, and then it came up with 'Windows Protection Error -- you need to restart your computer'. Did this, and the computer tried to boot into Windows, but just sat there like a lump.

Rebooted "your computer encountered problems -- safe mode?" sure I say

whir whir, safe mode comes up, with a stern reprimand "cannot detect new hardware in safe mode, please reboot and do NOT select safe mode" -- reboot, hang.

So go into safe mode and read the readme on the recovery disk -- followed all the steps and no banana.

Final step was 'try to install Windows ME again from scratch'. So I formatted C: and tried to reinstall. Exactly the same process -- copy the files, do the plug and play detection, reboot, die in arse.

Again, I could get into safe mode, but couldn't change anything because Safe Mode specifically stops you doing that. Sheesh.

Tried to run the troubleshooter script, and it crashed and burned in a number of horrible ways, 'page not found', 'script error', blah blah blah.

So after four hours of fucking around I unplugged the new drive, plugged the old drive back in, and fired up Windows 98, and here I am.

Microsoft's site says something about safe mode and checking the RunFirst and RunFirstEx keys in the registry, so I guess I'll waste even more time tomorrow having a look.

Unlike other Upgrades from Hell, this one was not a success. I didn't get to install Windows ME and have had to concede defeat.

Sheesh.

It makes me want to run Linux just to thumb my nose at Mickeysoft, but Linux doesn't run Voyager: Elite Force, or Homeworld:Cataclysm.

:-/

ADDENDUM: I eventually found out why the install would crash -- my SCSI card would stuff up Windows detection process. Same thing happened with Windows ME AND Windows 2000 in my new machine!

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