Upgrading to Windows VISTA

Last week I started noticing erratic behaviour from my windows xp os. My IOLO anti-virus software picked up a couple of viruses, and that probably was the cause. When I opened one too many applications, the desktop would go all static and/or blank and it would take forever to close the applications to free up memory.

So on Sunday, I decided to reinstall the OS so that any corrupted files could be fixed. I started the process and opted for an upgrade rather than a clean install. Half way through the process I got a blue screen and a physical memort dump! I restarted the machine and the opening screen was the reinstallation process resuming. Again the blue screen! Another attempt resulted in the same blue screen!

I guess there must have been some hardware issues, so I disconnected all perpheral devices and tried to reboot normally. I was dismayed when the machine would no longer boot up my normal windows OS but would rather jump straight to the reinstall. I tried the “last known good configuration” with the same result. After repeated attempts, including safe mode, the reinstall screen would also not show up. The only thing I could see was a black screen with the mouse pointer.

Because all my business files and correspondence were on this machine I started to panic. I went out to PC world and bought an exclusor. I asked the guy at the counter for a exclusor and showed him the hard disk (IDE) that I took along with me. He points me to a product and says that should work fine. So I buy that and a copy of Windows Vista Business (Upgrade Only) and get back home in a hurry to retrieve the data. When I opened the exclusor I find to my dismay that it is only for PATA hard drives and mine is SATA.

So I go back to PC World and talk to an expert this time. He says that it would take a few days to get the SATA exclusor and suggested that perhaps I should get another IDE hard drive and load the OS on to that and connent my current one as a slave so I can retrieve the data. So I buy a 250 GB SATA drive and connent it to my machine. Bingo! Works like charm.

I loaded Windows VISTA and must say I am quite impressed with the overall look and feel and also the improved plug and play. The network connectivity has been tremendously improved and context sensitive links to system tools is fantastic!

I will be exploring the OS more and will be updating you.