Just to clarify, the big 'M' is,
Microsoft.
Last night the wife's PC broke, something on the mainboard or VGA card burnt out, a sad day to say the least, but it gradually got worse as the evening went on...
First we started with the typical, test each piece of hardware,
- Screen = ok
- Drives = ok
- Cables = ok
- VGA card = not ok
- Mainboard = not ok
After changing the VGA we still didn't get any picture on the monitor, so logically I swapped it for a new VGA card. Same problem, no Bios post screen :-(
As the evening went on, England drew with Sweden (2-2), it was unspeakably hot! and the wife was slowly looking more and more concerned about the possible loss of data on her hard drive.
At this point it seemed like a good idea to check the drive in one of my other machines. After successfully booting from the wife's hard disk we got to the windows login screen, you know the one I'm sure, where you choose the user from a vertical list slightly to the right of the center of the screen.
Immediately after clicking on the username we get a alert box saying that Windows cannot log you on because the product key is not registered to this machine...Initially I thoughts, "
oh s***, here we go", however calmly I click "Remind me later" thinking as I'm not pirating Windows here, nor am I trying to do anything dodgy I'm just wanting to clarify the datas there and possibly get it off the drive so I can run a new install...I would have expected windows to at least allow me to get to the desktop for a limited time or something like that, all it does is log me straight back off again and put me back to the username list again.
I try again. Click the username and this time I enter the product key from the original machine...Surprise surprise I get an error message. Not to worry I thought to myself, grabbed my legal version of XP Home off the shelf and entered it's product key....Yes you guessed it, ERROR!
At this point I was starting to get more and more annoyed with the product key bull...However, after a damn fine cuppa from the wife I called the number on screen and spoke to "Fred" from Microsoft...Sounded like an Indian based help line, as you can imagine I wasn't overly happy about this. Never the less I continued - gave "Fred" all the details he asked for, after all this he said, "
Can you enter your product key in again please Sir" - knowing it wouldn't work I did as requested and as expected, error again. My new found friend "Fred" now suggests I call a "Toll Free Number" (0870 is NOT toll free!!) to get a new product key. This tipped me over the edge, why he couldn't generate a new product key for me I'll never know but I promptly ended the conversation before I said something I would possibly regret.
*Brain wave!* - I rebooted the machine in Safe Mode, hey presto - there's the OS! and all data intact. All I have to do now is reboot in safe mode, move the files into the network share area and copy them off after a reboot. Then we can format this drive and get on with our lives!
Microsoft 0 - 1 Ubuntu
The saga continues this evening when I attempt "Round 2" and take on failing hardware and the big 'M' again!
Wish me luck!
Stay Safe.
