The Vlog

The worst…

February 9th, 2008 Posted in Random

Had been having a few ‘Blue screen of death’ issues with my ‘OEM’ version of XP lately. Didn’t pay too much heed to it. It’s Windows afterall. We all grew up worshipping those blue screens. Incidentally, it just so happened that HP had to tell me about a BIOS update for my Compaq lappy while this was happening.

As usual, I woke up, did my early tasks from home, and started the BIOS upgrade.

Sector 17 installed, Sector 18…..19…….21…..22…..POOF…there comes the blue screen of death again. The worst has happened. My BIOS was installed half way, and my ssytem hung. I thought it was the end of it all.

But it was only the beginning.

It so happened, that, either the BIOS successfully installed, or my system managed with the old BIOS. I restarted, successfully into windows. I thought it was all over.

Till my 7th click.

There comes the blue screen again.

Another mandatory restart, more hope, but 5 clicks this time, and another blue screen.

Aaaarghhh.

The same sequence continued for the remainder of the day. Passed the lappy to Ravi (who admins all in office) and picked up an Acer to continue working. But I was missing my Laptop.

After I finished most my work, tried again. This time tried to do a ‘Compaq PC restore’, which basically restores my lappy to the original form. The system shut down, restarted into restore mode, with the Compaq logo et all, and there you go, ANOTHER blue screen of death.

The same procedure went on for atleast another 20 times till I gave up. Either XP gave me a blue screen of death or the PC restore screen hung on me.

We then took out the RAM and cleaned it,and started up. Worked well. Seemed to be working in perfect condition. TILL we tried to complete the BIOS update.

Started the HP update, the program started, 19—20—21—22…POOF…Blue screens again!

This was the last. No more. Not by choice. The BIOS was corrupted. Nothing we can do now.

I had officially spent all the day trying to fix a f&^$%ed up XP system. Wasted my time thoroughly.

To top it all, the night before, I probably slept in the wierdest posture - since I woke with a stinging back ache. Followed me the whole day. Even while I tried to fix the lappy.

And following that, I had Citibank calling me to try and secure a credit card payment. One which I had already paid, but was rejected due to some minor issue with the cheque. I have been paying religiously since the last 7 months, but the last delayed payment made them twitch. The only reason the last payment was late was because I was on vacation in the US.

There goes my card, It’s now blocked. Bye Bye Citibank, I don’t need a bank like yours, HSBC treats me like God. You have one more month to please me.

To top that off, I learn that my car’s security system is F&^$%ed. The lock button no longer locks the car. It just beeps.

AAARRGHHH.

I would’ve done something drastic if it wasn’t for HP to come to the rescue.

My laptop is actually 1.5 years old. Warranty was for a year. I paid for a 3 year extention. Now apparently they might have to replace the Laptop.

Believe me, It’s the only thing that kept me sane so far.