Well. That's that, then...

Spent a couple hours with the Product Recovery CD, and repaired my installation a little. Immediately notable effects: logging in to the ISP was near-instant, rather than a drag of about 8 minutes. Well, near-immediately notable. One also noticed that on immediate attempt to log in, the modem was not detected, and that an attempted joggling of cords brought about a memory dump and restart. But after that it was all good.

*sigh*

If this were a client's machine, I might have just gone for the easy and known good "Save all the files you care about to your backup here, and let's reinstall!" But I like my system, thanks much, as much as I am intending to reinstall soon.

Plus, it would have been a son of a bitch to save everything.

*sigh*

Am I really cut out for hacking?

On the other hand...

... we're back to some old problems, having gotten rid of a few critical updates in the repair process. svchost.exe just went out again, with two errors. Installing updates now.

When you're Admin, you're up until 2 with the baby computer...

...or at least it feels that way. I think I crashed out by a little after 1. Woke up finally around 6:30. Dragged to school. Fortunately Barnes was later.

(I really must dig up "Later than Chandler" sometime. It's funny. Chandler was a student perpetually late to one particular poetry class I was in, because of his schedule. The poem is an explanation of why I was later one day.)

I left Tigereye talking to the service pack. One can only hope that she decided to do something good with it. Oh, if only we could train cats as sysadmins.

*looks suspiciously at note_to_cat*

In lab, which is why I'm updating. I don't know when Tigereye's going to be back in service. I don't know if the drivers for the DSL modem on XP are going to get here -- the guy on the phone said 2 to 3 business days, which I suspect means, like, Friday or Monday.

I called up to see if they had drivers for that on XP. The guy said that yes, they did, and they would have to send the CD to me, because there was not a place that it could be downloaded online. He said that in any case, he'd probably have to be doing the sending, because it did not sound like I would be able to get online. (This, after I vented at him.) I described the lead-up symptoms, and asked him if it was anything he could think of, besides the "side effect from spyware/removal of same" that I'd guessed. He said that that's what he would have guessed too, along with the possibly flaky USB hub. (Sheesh. That USB hub.)

Then I got transferred (by request) to someone to help me connect dial-up. I rather firmly said that I would not be using the MSN anything to dial up, because I thought that I had removed that shit from my computer after the last time I was forced to use it. The guy gave me setup instructions and a local number to try. Then I had to be swapped over to the password people, because as we don't use the MSN account for anything, we don't remember the password, because we never log in, and they couldn't touch the Qwest passwords, it had to be someone else to do it.

So then I changed the password (randomly assigned unpronouncable one, whee) and went back to the dial-up support to talk me through it.

Of course, after I got off the phone, the dial-up didn't dial right, and I was pissy, and instead of calling back (I was getting fed up by this time) I started hacking at the system to get the DSL modem working on Tigereye again.

I uninstalled the drivers for the thing, reinstalled them, and that seemed to have made things a little better, but still slow. I called Darkside to vent and be comforted. (Fic writers, take note: a good form of hurt/comfort for heavy computer characters is to have their system hurt. Spock physically assaulted? Not good for a Sexual Healing fic. Spock's computer assaulted? Sexual Healing ahoy!)

Much comforted, I bounced around the Temple for a while. Then I learned that a) I could not log in and do many things on the web (still), and the other computers were without internet service.

Garr.

So I hauled out the Dell Product Recovery CD, and I proceeded to try several methods of attempted repair, some of them better than others. By midnight, I had something approximating a good job done (it really does help when you remember the admin password...) (...even if you're not going to use it...) ...and booted 'er up...

Only to find that not only was the 'net not on as far as the other computers were concerned, but also that svchost.exe kept dying on me. Hmm. Doesn't that sound a little familiar?

I tried downloading a service pack, but I had to keep restarting, based on the continued death of svchost.exe -- we shall see what happens today. I'll have to do a lot of it tonight, though -- I'm going to be working and need a pre-work nap after all the sleep I didn't get last night.

Home Again.

Looks like the service pack installed correctly. I had a svchost.exe failure glaring at me when I got home, but the installation went well. I am to hope that I am to get no more of those errors.

The cat was very helpful.

I hope my roommates will find jobs soon so that I may update my glasses (the last service pack was installed in 2000) and get a DSL router, because it's looking like we're needing one, and needing it badly.

Still with the application errors...

Garr.

Sooner or later.

I'll be getting a nap soon, though, else I won't be fit for work.

walking Tuesday

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23rd post meme (hmm...)

Instructions:
Find 23rd post.
Find 5th sentence.
Post in LJ.

"One of my old friends from high school told me that my worst problem was trying to find the pattern, the plot, to my life."

That entry's a really interesting one. It's the one with the infamous Mountain Dew incident (well, that one, at least).

This is actually my actual 23rd entry in LJ, even though there are other entries before it on the calendar. Those entries are notes on events, or backdated from other forms of journal.

Graaah.

'Net connection still not sharing.

Maybe I should ball call Hell Dell.

Head do things.

My brain's a weird place. Most people don't go there, especially not on vacation.

Naomi is entering the wonderful world of the teenage. God. This is going to make school & job that much more interesting, especially if Naomi's the one getting the job. Maybe this time around we'll have clearer skin, though.

You see, as Motley puts it, most people have their inner child manifest when they're doing art and the like. My inner child is ... eek, she says she's 12 ... and she manifests when we're head-down geeking and not coming out 'cause we're too busy.

Now. Take a teenager, sleep-dep the body she's in, and have her work on something entirely frustrating (trying to get the 'net connection to share over the LAN, specifically, when we can't figure out what's wrong). Oh, and add in some pressure to get it done from roommates going insane from withdrawl symptoms, and a time constraint of "try and get it done before we hafta leave for work." Result? Angry, nearly-tearful teen stomping out the door announcing how much she hates computers (she loves them, and would be heartbroken if she were without Tigereye) and nearly forgetting her lunch, and creating a scene.

Now, just remember that it's my body all this is happening with...

Birthdays...

Evidently I was the only one to wish my big bro a happy birthday today. I only remembered because Semagic reminded me.

I would have invited him over, but he had to get up in the morning.