I had just reinstalled my computer after using it for the last 2 yrs. I thought my adventure will be incident free. I should have known better. WinXP is certainly not easy to re-install. You see, I wanted to do a clean format so I did not use the WinXP installation disk. Instead I chose to use formatting as with Win98. Thus begin my journey of discovery.
Day 1. Because WinXp uses NTFS system I was unable to format the hard disk from Windows explorer. I used the Win98 Startup disk to boot the computer to enter DOS mode. Once there, I do a reformat. No go. Format not supported on drive C! Tried all known tricks, still unable to reformat the hard disk!
Day 2. Did an internet search. Answer found. Start with Win98 startup disk without CD-ROM support. Use the fdisk to delete the NTFS partition first, then reformat the hard disk. Restart startup disk with CD-ROM support. Then reinstalled Win98. The next step involved upgrading to WinXP and hence reformatting into the NTFS system. With this done I thought I was home free. Wrong again!
The next immediate thing to do was to set up the internet connection. This was neccessary for Windows upgrade and activation. Tried to install the driver for my ADSL modem. Lo and behold - no ethernet card! My ethernet card had vapourised! Again stuck despite using whatever tried and tested methods I knew.
Day 3. Did another internet search - this time about missing NIC card. Seemed that this is a rather common problem with WinXP. Even video card has gone missing although the monitor was usable! Sadly, there wasn't any good solution to my problem.
Day 4. Bright spark! Opened device manager again. Under ethernet controller, did an uninstall. Then click look for new hardware. Viola! New hardware detected! From then it was a breeze.
Day 5. Found an easier (correct way?) to reinstall WinXP after a clean format (which still require DOS?). After formatting, boot up the computer with WinXP disk. This will directly start WinXP installation and formatting into NTFS system. I suspect there maybe other easier ways.
Disaster struck! Even before I could download my antivirus, I was hit by what I belived to be BHO - from SideFind. Since I had just started fresh, I had decided to do a reformat.
Day 6. Did a reformat. What do you know - you can format the hard disk with WinXP boot disk. Should have known better (red face). This time I reset all the security option to high before I connect to internet. Installed Zone Alarm first. Hopefully I will have some control over what comes in or go out. Needed to change some security and privacy settings before I could download my antivirus software. While downloading and installing my antivirus software, ZoneAlarm had blocked not less than 100 intrusions to my computer!!
Day 7. So far so good. Just don't really understand why I need to use winport when I can surf with LAN.
Day 9. Everything is running smoothly. Lesson to learn: do a search in the internet to learn from other people's experience so as to minimise unnecessary steps and maximise on effort. How I love the internet!
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