Thread: Windows Rant followed by installation question

  1. #1
    Pursuing knowledge confuted's Avatar
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    Angry Windows Rant followed by installation question

    Holy mother of God!

    I hate Microsoft. I hate Windows. I want to hit them both. With a hammer.

    Why couldn't the hot-shot programmers at Microsoft stick a little "somethin-somethin" in the installation screens that tells you that the install WILL take the rest of your natural life, and perhaps a little longer? Unless it was in that license agreement I didn't read, at no time until WAY after it was too late to turn back did it warn me that it would take several hours. And why the heck can't I turn back and come back to the install later, like after it is done formatting the partition? Shouldn't that be an option? I hate it. I hate it with a passion. The Linux setup doesn't take that long. It is nice and quick. Why does Microsoft have to suck so much? Better yet, why can't I be one of the mindless drones that doesn't try to install operating systems? Why can't I live a happy life in my ignorance? Darn it all. I wonder how many people die each year waiting for Windows to install. I bet it's more than zero. Wouldn't it be horrible to die trying to install something that sucked as much as Windows? Grrr!

    That's the end of the rant. Tomorrow, I guess I need to figure out how to get the data off my other hard drive and onto the new one. I think I need suggestions here... here's the scenario.

    Previously, I had a hard drive with Windows XP. Then I installed another hard drive, and installed Redhat 8.0 on there. I needed to dual boot, so GRUB was installed on the XP drive. Everything worked great.

    It was time for an upgrade to the Linux hard drive, and time for a reformat of the Windows one. I wanted to make sure that I had a working hard drive with all of my Windows stuff on it, just incase something went wrong with installing Windows and whatnot. Here's my goal:

    80 GB HD (new) with a fresh WinXP install as primary boot - with some of the data that's currently on the other 80 GB drive
    80 GB HD (old), formatted (after data is transfered), with Redhat 8 installed.

    Here's what I have right now:
    80 GB HD (new) with a fresh install of WinXP. This hard drive is currently not connected to anything.
    80 GB HD (old) with all my data and WinXP. It also has the GRUB bootloader thing installed on it.
    1.2 GB HD (really old) with RH 8 on it. I don't care about anything on this hard drive, but if I disconnect it and leave the old 80GB connected, I can't boot my computer. I also can't boot if this is the only drive connected.

    I can boot if the new, and just the new drive is connected. I can boot if the two other drives are connected. I haven't tried with the two 80 GB... will I have a problem, since WinXP is installed on both of them, and because of GRUB on the old drive? What do I do? I need my data, and I *REALLY* don't want to back it up on CD.

    Gah, this was a long post. Sorry about that.
    Away.

  2. #2
    Registered User slaveofthenet's Avatar
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    A couple of hours? Installing XP on a formatted hard drive ussually takes me 30-40 minutes. I ussually just go read or watch some tv while the install process is going on, checking back every so often when I need to configure something. The real pain, in my opinion, is transferring all of the files back onto the hard drive after I format, mp3s, games, visual studio .net(7 cds, takes longer than the XP install).
    Detailed understanding of language features - even of all features of a language - cannot compensate for lack of an overall view of the language and the fundamental techniques for using it. - Bjarne Stroustrup

  3. #3
    Pursuing knowledge confuted's Avatar
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    It wasn't formatted.
    Away.

  4. #4
    Registered User TravisS's Avatar
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    Well there you go

    A full format on a 60 Gig drive can take around 30-45 minutes.

  5. #5
    Pursuing knowledge confuted's Avatar
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    I got it guys. *thanks God* It worked when I connected the two 80 GB HDs and moved the jumpers appropriately.
    Away.

  6. #6
    &TH of undefined behavior Fordy's Avatar
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    Deja vu?

    My computer in work finally died a death today at 10AM. Major annoyance, but after an hour playing with it to try get it to work (could only get safemode up, and couldnt solve the problem) I gave up and decided it was time to upgrade anyway

    The only problem I had was that the computer had lots of info on the drive I needed (accounts stuff, documents and my wonderous collection of humerous emails)

    Luckily I had 2 things at home which made the job easy - a spare pc and an external hard drive. Thanks to those I managed to get the system fully up with all the apps in about 4 hours - not bad really as I managed to copy all my data to the ext drive by installing the bad disk on my spare pc, replace the bad drive and reinstall, copy the data off my ext drive, and get all my apps configured ready for monday.

    So now I get to work on an XP box again - thank god.

  7. #7
    Much older and wiser Fountain's Avatar
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    Originally posted by blackrat364
    It wasn't formatted.

    Yup, I have reinstalled XP numerous times.

    ALWAYS the same-38 minutes.
    Such is life.

  8. #8
    i want wookie cookies the Wookie's Avatar
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    took me around 20 minutes on my computer, was up and running in about 40.

  9. #9
    I lurk
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    Don't feel bad. Win2k took 7 hours one time (on an old 166mhz machine)

  10. #10
    I hate the iwndows installer so plane and blue, its rather depressing if you ask me. The only OS I like to install is Suse b/c it has a solitaire game you can play while you wait

  11. #11
    Redundantly Redundant RoD's Avatar
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    on average windows xp, from the time i boot down till the time the install is 100% done and im on desktop again, my 500MHZ dell takes 30-35 minutes, without me paying much attention (for hitting ok and such).

    Wanna talk bout a long ass install, who else here uses .net omfg takes longer than xp....

  12. #12
    l'Anziano DavidP's Avatar
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    it has a solitaire game you can play while you wait
    dude thats awesome...when i make an OS i am definitely putting games in my installer....of course...thats IF i make an OS...which i probably wont...
    My Website

    "Circular logic is good because it is."

  13. #13
    Yeah, even after Suse was done installing I just sat there playing solitaire. I might go install Suse again tonight just so I can enjoy that game. But then again I need to check out Knoppix-STD (look it up) tonight b/c it is pretty kewl for testing security.

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