Yea, so, for anyone who didn't see: http://freewebspace.net/forums/showthread.php?t=2206062
Basically, my laptop decided to BSOD me, repeatedly. So I was naturally frustrated beyond all hell. I had some files on there that I wouldn't particularly like losing, and I didn't have decent backups of them.
So I embarked on a journey, I managed to find a solution to my issue, and it required that I have my install cd. Well great, Compaq/HP is retarded and refuses to give an install cd..only their useless recovery cd (and I had to push for that last time I messed up my computer - normally it's just a crappy partition). So I downloaded an XP 9-in-one cd and burnt it (thank god I have a spare box running linux). Following the steps to load registry settings from the repair backup folder (after spending ~2-4 hours diagnosing the damn problem and figuring it was the registry GG on error messages Microsoft..seriously). Anyway, doing that allowed Windows to actually boot, which meant it confirmed the registry settings being messed up.
So now on to step 2, windows booted...but it looked like ----...it was using basic, very basic, settings. So I had to grab a more recent system restore..I did..and I copied it over and restarted...boom BSOD. So I figured, the one I had copied was broken as well, ok, time to grab a different...no dice.
Now, at this point, I had already backed up my files to my external hard drive, so I decided, screw it, I'll just reinstall. I really didn't have much more of an option..going through and finding which restore point would work manually would probably cause more of a headache than reinstalling.
So I went to reinstall, ran the recovery option there first, no dice of course, so I go to reinstall. All is well with the world I guess.
Windows boots up..and..it's very basic, I then realize, that since I didn't use the HP recovery disk, none of the drivers were installed. Which was a problem...since one of those drivers was the wireless driver, and another..was the RJ45 driver (nForce networking). So I was SOL on grabbing them from the internet on the laptop. So I went to my linux box and downloaded the wireless and nforce networking drivers from HP, and decided to burn them to a CD-RW. Problem: For some reason windows wouldn't open it. Tried plugging my external drive to the linux box: it wouldn't mount..
But who would I be without a USB Thumbdrive? So I got the drivers over, and started installing everything.
Now I'm in the process of reinstalling/copying files back to my laptop and configuring it to work the way I want it again.
The upside to this is that I have been needing to clean up my laptop, it's been running fairly slowly recently, and needed this badly. And as a plus, I was able to partition the drive properly (the HP recovery sets its own partitions..basically reformats the drive and copies its structure over)
So now I have a 25GB Windows partition, 55GB media partition (for music and etc) which is currently being formatted in windows right now and roughly 10GB left unpartitioned so I can set it up to run linux. Before I was unable to get it working, but hopefully now I can, since I have the partitions set up prior to.
So it wasn't exactly how I planned my weekend...but it's fairly productive anyhow I suppose. At least I didn't lose any files, just some color in my hair and what little sanity I had left...
Basically, my laptop decided to BSOD me, repeatedly. So I was naturally frustrated beyond all hell. I had some files on there that I wouldn't particularly like losing, and I didn't have decent backups of them.
So I embarked on a journey, I managed to find a solution to my issue, and it required that I have my install cd. Well great, Compaq/HP is retarded and refuses to give an install cd..only their useless recovery cd (and I had to push for that last time I messed up my computer - normally it's just a crappy partition). So I downloaded an XP 9-in-one cd and burnt it (thank god I have a spare box running linux). Following the steps to load registry settings from the repair backup folder (after spending ~2-4 hours diagnosing the damn problem and figuring it was the registry GG on error messages Microsoft..seriously). Anyway, doing that allowed Windows to actually boot, which meant it confirmed the registry settings being messed up.
So now on to step 2, windows booted...but it looked like ----...it was using basic, very basic, settings. So I had to grab a more recent system restore..I did..and I copied it over and restarted...boom BSOD. So I figured, the one I had copied was broken as well, ok, time to grab a different...no dice.
Now, at this point, I had already backed up my files to my external hard drive, so I decided, screw it, I'll just reinstall. I really didn't have much more of an option..going through and finding which restore point would work manually would probably cause more of a headache than reinstalling.
So I went to reinstall, ran the recovery option there first, no dice of course, so I go to reinstall. All is well with the world I guess.
Windows boots up..and..it's very basic, I then realize, that since I didn't use the HP recovery disk, none of the drivers were installed. Which was a problem...since one of those drivers was the wireless driver, and another..was the RJ45 driver (nForce networking). So I was SOL on grabbing them from the internet on the laptop. So I went to my linux box and downloaded the wireless and nforce networking drivers from HP, and decided to burn them to a CD-RW. Problem: For some reason windows wouldn't open it. Tried plugging my external drive to the linux box: it wouldn't mount..
But who would I be without a USB Thumbdrive? So I got the drivers over, and started installing everything.
Now I'm in the process of reinstalling/copying files back to my laptop and configuring it to work the way I want it again.
The upside to this is that I have been needing to clean up my laptop, it's been running fairly slowly recently, and needed this badly. And as a plus, I was able to partition the drive properly (the HP recovery sets its own partitions..basically reformats the drive and copies its structure over)
So now I have a 25GB Windows partition, 55GB media partition (for music and etc) which is currently being formatted in windows right now and roughly 10GB left unpartitioned so I can set it up to run linux. Before I was unable to get it working, but hopefully now I can, since I have the partitions set up prior to.
So it wasn't exactly how I planned my weekend...but it's fairly productive anyhow I suppose. At least I didn't lose any files, just some color in my hair and what little sanity I had left...