Computer Nightmare

What a nightmare the past two days have been (this is 3 pages long). Saturday Marina asked me to look at her computer and figure out why Skype was not logging in. I didn’t have time to play around with the computer that long, but it was long enough to remind me that she also asked me several weeks ago about excessively long boot times.

Sunday I get up around noon and start searching the internet for clues as to fixing her computer around 1pm. The Skype problem came up quickly in Google; apparently there is a problem with the update procedure of the new version on some installs. There were two ways to fix this, both of which were easy. As for the long, 5+ minutes at welcome screen, start-up, there was a lack of anything substantial. Someone mentioned that it might be the boot files being fragmented, and that running Microsoft’s boot file defragmenter might help. I figured it was worth a try.

Event Timing:

• Marina’s apartment, 2pm, remove Skype user account and restart computer. No result with Skype. Realize Norton Internet Security could be the problem at start-up since it provides and “Error starting Norton” after entering windows.
• 2:20pm, remove Skype completely, restart.
• 2:30pm, (Now the fun begins) Use Windows add/remove to remove Norton. “Can not uninstall this program. See www.symantec.com/uninstall”
• 2:40pm, Visit website, download Symantec uninstall program, run program through web interface, restart computer.
• 2:50pm, Norton not removed from computer. Try Windows add/remove again. Try deleting folders manually “Permission denied”
• 3:00pm, Try using MS-Dos to remove Norton. (For those who don’t know MS-Dos is about the most powerful thing when working with files especially to get rid of them since it works below Window's pretty face.) Delete command doesn’t work for directory with files in it. Start searching internet for Dos commands since I’m not old enough to really have ever used Dos much.
• At this point I loose track of time and become absorbed in what I am doing like the good old high school days.
• Deltree command doesn’t work and don’t know why
• Determine even MS-Dos can’t remove Norton
• Search for solution on internet
• Someone says deleting Registry Keys allows you to delete Norton folders
• Download RegSeeker to remove registry keys. I actually did this for Skype above and it worked great.
• Note: Registry Keys are about as basic as any built in user interface gets on windows. Therefore the potential for harm is very large, and it is not recommended that the average person play with them. Seeing as I’ve played with them many times I felt comfortable playing again.
• Use RegSeeker to delete all keys with the word Symantec or Norton in them, and create a backup file of all the keys to be deleted. Plus I scanned the list to verify that they were all only Symantec and Norton keys.
• Here’s where my lack of doing this for several years killed me. I neglect at this point to make a copy of all of Marina’s files to some other media. This should not have been necessary. Plus she’s had the computer two months, which means there couldn’t be anything that important on it.
• Restart computer
• “Windows is missing needed files in C:\Windows\sytem\...” “Insert Windows CD and hit r” (All of this is of course in Portugese)
• Stare dumbfounded at the screen. What the hell just happened? I just removed Norton files and Windows will not start? Someone hit me with a 2x4 upside the head please.
• Fine, need Windows CD. Hah! No one has one because everyone includes a recovery and restore partition on the hard drive. Thus no way to let windows take the few files it needs from a CD.
• Run around the building asking everyone for a Windows CD.
• Wake Pambos up, yes it’s like 3:30 in the afternoon and he’s sleeping.
• Ask his opinion.
• Go back to Marina’s.
• Find out that her computer has a recovery on boot with F11, but a caution on HP website says files in the My Documents folder may be moved or deleted. This defeats the purpose of what they call the Non-Destructive mode that leaves you files in tact. My guess is that since My Documents is a Windows allocated folder it may get replaced. Great, now what?
• Present options to Marina. “No, I have important programs from my university” (I find out later this was a poor translation and she really just has a project file that she is working on, which she can start over if lost)
• Fine, skip restore and try something else. Need Windows CD…
• 4pm, too early to call Bill on a Sunday morning.
• Go to my apartment and wait an hour.
• Call Bill, talk to Kathleen and the kids. (The only fun part in this ordeal)
• Over the next six hours Bill and I try transferring a copy of Windows over Google Talk, which fails half way through the 5 hour transfer. Then we try giving Bill remote access to my computer to directly transfer the file to my hard drive. I try configuring my computer and giving him the needed information. I connect directly to the dsl modem and give him that IP address. No good. Use www.whatismyip.com to figure out IP. Something crazy. Still doesn’t work. I can only ping the number I gave Bill. Bill traces our chat connection and gets stopped at Fastweb.it Great.
• This ends in Defeat.
• Discuss problem with Pambos some more and decide to wait for Marina’s mom to come with Windows CD on Wednesday.
• Midnight. Stop working on computer. That’s 11 hours on day one.

Monday

• 2:30, Complain to Mark after class about how stupid it is that Symantec apparently linked their program to Windows boot files. Talk about how at home this would be easier to deal with because someone would have an external notebook hard drive that I could plug Marina’s hard drive into to get the files.
• 7:30pm, arrive home and see what Pambos has figured out. “Wait for Marina’s mother”
• 8:00pm tell him what I told mark about external hard drive. Pambos, “I have one, opening the case might void the warranty.”
• What? You have one? Hard drives are generally user replaceable and can be pulled without voiding warranty.
• I got to HP’s website and start chatting with one of their technical support guys. He confirms that we can pull the hard drive to plug it into an external casing to back-up files. Keep in mind I explained the situation to him.
• Pambos starts opening his external hard drive.
• Shit, has a built in adapter. Oh, wait it comes off.
• Pull Marina’s hard drive. What’s this weird hard drive ending? It comes off too. What the hell is this?
• So apparently HP has decided to use proprietary hard drives that do not have standard notebook hard drive connectors. Therefore this solution is busted.
• Put stuff back together.
• Try booting Marina’s computer. “Operating System not Found”
• What?
• Reboot, same thing.
• Open up hard drive compartment. Plugged in correctly.
• Boot, same thing.
• Boot to settings menu.
• Run hard drive check
• Check ok
• Hear hard drive spinning during test.
• Boot, same thing.
• DAMN IT!!!!!!!!! Now what the Fuck?
• At this point it is 8:45 and I am meeting Artemis and her friends from Cypress at 9pm. I need to shave and change, so I leave the problem for later.
• I come home at 1am and go to bed.

Tuesday

• I wake up at 6am and get out of bed at 7:30.
• Pambos is getting ready for class. Pambos, “I was up all night with that fucking computer!” What? Why?
• After finishing a download of Windows, Pambos was unable to get the cd to install. He then downloaded the hard drive manufacture software to diagnose the drive. Their software said the boot sector and partition tables were gone from the drive. He then went on to use the software to do things that I understand in theory, but have never done, and frankly no one should ever have to do. Boot sectors don’t go missing usually.

He left for class while windows was installing on the drive. I want to contact HP, but the internet is not working. So I decided to write this long and for most people boring post because I need to rant about the unbelievable nature of what started out as trying to get Windows to boot faster. Symantec has bad coding, and HP is not only using proprietary parts, which I expect of Sony not them, and some part of the setup causes the boot sector to be erased. I hope this thing works today when Pambos gets back from class otherwise Marina will have my computer for the next few days while we wait for a new HP hard drive to arrive complements of Pambos’s and my wallet.

This reminds me of why I stopped working on computers.