So today starts with a backup of most of my stuff from my main Windows 2000 machine onto the Linux box. This takes forever (hours).
I get some shopping done while it’s doing.
Then back and I pop the new harddisk in. Another wait as the drives get formatted (70Gb in DOS… where I’m guessing ATA/DMA and the like are out of the window). Well that works ok. Boot disk, FDISK and then a 98 install on the first drive (oldest first, so that NTLDR doesn’t get too confused).
No problems, so I get a few minor bits running, graphics and modem. I’ll need to sort out sound and other stuff later. I use 98 for game playing, and CD Writing.
So then on to install 2000, and then the two service packs. As you might remember every time I’ve tried them in the past they’ve stuffed up 2000 so well I can’t get in, and a reinstall is all I can do. This time however, both work fine. I think the secret then is to do them on a fresh install, and not on a used install (which sort of makes them a pain in the arse). Anyhow with that working I get on with recovering 2000. That’s when I make my first mistake. Deleting my backups. Ooops (I now realise that rm -rf really means it, even if you chmod’d it -rwx for everyone).
Luckily for me the really important stuff is backed up many times (2 CDs, and 3 harddisks). I lose some of the pictures I’ve taken over the past months since I got that digital camera. Again the best have appeared on my webpages, so they’re safe. I also loose all the stuff I’ve downloaded over the months (around 1Gb of it !?!?!… on a 56K modem). A lot of it is trivial rubbish, stuff I don’t really care about. But some of it was quite handy, and will now need searching and downloading again.
So by 4pm I’m semi-back. A web connection, mail and a few other basic apps on, and a lot of downloading to do (winamp, digiguide, PGP, Mercury etc. etc.). I’ve spent most of the day coaxing this thing along. There’s gaping chunks of time that I’m not needed, but every few minutes something that needs attention. So I’ve been watching films most of the day while this has been going on.
And the day ends with me satisfied that I’ll be doing more of this downloading lark for a long long time to come.
I am happy though that other than some lost stuff everything went smoothly. Samba lets me in from both 2000 and 98, 2000 is SP’d and works, and I’ve got a setup enough to do most daily stuff (like this).

Posted by Phil on October 27, 2001 12:00 PM | Categories: Misc