Adventures in Computing

When the old HP box hard drive got corrupted a few months ago, I went ahead and re-imaged it to experiment with Ubuntu. When I did, I erased the restore sector. It didn't bother me since I had a copy of XP on CD & I had a backup image of the drive.

I had a lot of fun playing with Ubuntu. I was able to make it do most of my daily computing functions. It was fine for email, surfing the web and doing word processing. I still wanted to reconnect it to the TV and use it as part of my entertainment center. Unfortunately, there have been problems.

I never properly figured out how to make it play DvD's. I tried several different Linux-based players and reviewed several sites, but in the end I think it was a combination of the DvD encryption & the HP DvD drive.

Most internet based movie players & streaming sites require Internet Explorer or Windows Media Player. I could not find any workarounds for these. I researched using a windows emulator & running IE7 inside it, but that would just tax the hardware of this junk heap even more.

Finally, I decided to go back to Windblows. Easy right? I can image a computer in my sleep right? Well, not exactly. First, I learned that my standalone copy of XP must have gotten into the "lost" box when we moved south. Then I learned that the DvD image that I made the day after we got the HP machine is corrupted. I made it from the machine. I remember a painfully long verification test that ran when it was done. I placed it carefully into plastic sleeves and put them in a box. And what did I get for my trouble? Glorified paperweights!

So, what did I do? Well, I learned something rather useful. HP does have a service to request software restore CD's. If your system is under warranty, it's free. If your system is out of warranty, then you can still request the CD's. If they still have supplies, then you can pay a processing & shipping fee. It cost me $16. The disks arrived today. Disk #4 was scratched, but it did eventually work.

The box is hooked back up to my TV. There are still issues with the damn thing, but it's running. Lord HP still sucks.

Anyway, that's this adventure. It's working. There's a bunch of good content out there. I'm watching an episode from season 1 of Lost right now! I'll post more about that in my next post.