As our story begins, Garrett has decided that the time has come to upgrade the aging parts in his desktop computer …

So ya, I just bought a new processor (which required that I also purchase a new motherboard and thus a new graphics card). And so, my installation of XP balked when it saw all this new stuff. (I think the main problems were that [1] it couldn’t run the new ACPI, and [2] it didn’t know what to do with a 64-bit processor, since I upgraded from an AMD Athlon XP to an Athlon 64.)

Thus, I had to wipe my Windows partition and reinstall. (Yes, I tried the repair options, and they didn’t really work.) So I suppose it goes without saying that I’d now have to activate this fresh install of XP.

Since my only net connection was wifi (which doesn’t exactly work well with a fresh install of non-SP2 XP), I had to call the toll-free activation number.
And now it is necessary that I provide a little flashback…

About a month before, I reinstalled XP just to freshen it up a bit, since some little things here and there weren’t quite working they way they used to.

Anyway, back to present time, I called to activate. I read the installation ID to their computer, and … it VERIFIED it instantly, even though it had only been a month since I last activated it! (See, the way things used to work, their system supposedly would allow you to activate it, no questions asked, if it had been at least 4 months since the last activation of that copy of XP — although it never worked that smoothly for me.)

So, now that I got Windows installed, I needed to install SP2 from my handy-dandy SP2 CD. But not minutes after it would extract the installation files, the installation could not continue because its files were corrupt for some reason. And this also happened the 2 subsequent times I tried it again. So I’ve decided I should replace my hard drive now, while I can still read the data on it, before it’s completely gone. And that means I may need to reactivate XP on the new HD, so I’ll let you know if it goes just as smoothly.

I’m sure it’s obvious, but this theme just barely works. I’m actively working on it, though.

Excited? I am!

(see the old site)