Goddamn it's good to be back online after being without a pc since 11th Feb...
It all started with me wanting to print something out. The printer wouldn't work. So I reinstalled, still no luck, reinstalled using XP's drivers instead of the official Epson ones. Still no joy. Then XP wouldn't even see the printer.
After trying to get that working XP suddenly couldn't see the gfx card. I could see the bog standard jerky VGA adapter which was bearable.
Then the modem went (NIC connected ) ... along with all the USB devices (card reader, dictaphone).
So I though screw it, complete reinstall. Backed up everything needed onto 4 DVD's (single layer) and reinstalled XP.
First two phases went fine, but when it was supposed to finally boot up into XP it hung during the loading. Always at the same part (right after the keyboard check and screen flicker).
Then I noticed during boot that we had an "unknown flash type" right before trying to boot from CD/HD etc.
Tried another HD anyways and got the same result. Tried booting from Morphix CD. Worked a charm, but still no USB or NIC.
Trying to boot from floppy didn't work. Even the boot up floppy seek failed to find the floppy, yet it worked under Morphix.
My bro in law finally found a BIOS for my mobo so we tried that and the flash utility said it wasn't compatible.
Really pissed off by this stage (Saturday night). Left it alone all of Sunday and checked a few things on Monday. No change, nothing worked. Went to my bro in law's house Monday (14th) night and ordered a new mobo.
Me and Sioux double and triple checked all the switch card numbers and details. Everything went fine. Delivery due on Friday.
Friday came and went... no board. My bro in law checked my emails on Friday night... not a sausage... not an email either :-P
He mailed them from my addy asking about it. Monday (21st) night still hadn't heard back. Shona (sis and wife of bro in law) phoned me with the customer services number, order number, account number and even the mobo number.
Phoned them on Tuesday afternoon (only open 9-5 mon-fri). Couldn't authorise the card on Thursday. Okay, with Sioux being at uni and needing her card to get money I couldn't give her the details again.
Phoned on again Thursday (phoned the same woman again - she gave me her direct number) and went over the details. The expiry date was wrong. Got that changed. Should have the mobo within a couple of days (I'll believe it when I see it).
Tuesday (today) afternoon. 3pm. In the middle of playing Final Fantasy X (god I missed the PC :-P) the doorbell went. DHL courier. Almost fainted! :-P
Got the mobo/cpu/ram. Switched off the PS2 and ran upstairs with the package. Got it all installed.
Started reinstalling WindowsXP again. 3 hours later (after installing all the gfx/sound/modem/otherstupiddrivers/etc) I'm finally online :-D
Currently updating AVG, but I need to reboot shortly.
So...
What've I missed? Any good threads I should read up on since Friday 11th? Any good (or should that be bad?)groaners? Any real news on the Amiga front?
Oh, and has OS4 been released yet?
*me runs :-P
