We got a virus or something about a month ago, which had been getting progressively worse. It got to the point where I’d get popups while watching TV. So after Christmas I decided I’d fix it by formatting the computer and reinstalling everything. It’s been two weeks and I’m still working on it.

First, I formatted it with the dell restore cd that came with the computer. It reinstalled windows, but didn’t come with any drivers. I couldn’t get online to download them because I didn’t have drivers for the ethernet. It came with a Drivers CD but that didn’t work.

I get on my mac and talk with dell support. Talk about terrible support.

Bill Erickson: “I formatted my Dell using the provided restore CD, and now I’m trying to install the drivers. the Drivers CD crashes every time it tries to load. I tried downloading the eithernet driver from dell.com, putting it on a flash drive and trasfering it to the computer (because it can’t connect to the internet without the ethernet driver) but that didn’t work either.
Bill Erickson: “can you provide me with an ethernet driver that will work with my computer, so I can connect to windows update and get all the other drivers?”

That was the first thing I said in the chat. It took over 30 minutes for them to actually give me a link to the driver. BUT, I finally got it.

Once I’m able to get online, I go to Windows Update to do all the updates and get all the drivers working. Then I try to install BeyondTV. It freezes toward the end of the installation and I’m forced to end the task. I try to relaunch the installer but it says it’s already installed. I try to use the software but it never loads after clicking the icon. I try to remove the program from Add/Remove Programs but it doesn’t show up in there.

I format the comptuer again. I keep the ethernet driver on the external drive connected to the computer (the one that holds all my movies and recorded shows). Format, install driver, windows update, install BeyondTV. Everything’s going well, but then BeyondTV says there’s a problem with my TV tuner card. I have the driver for it, and it shows up in the list of TV cards in BeyondTV, it just doesn’t work. So I give up for the night.

The next day I take a look at it and there’s all these errors on the screen. “Can’t write file to D:/[something].” I try to open up My Computer but it freezes. I restart, and the external drive doesn’t show up. Hoping it’s a problem with the computer, I take the external drive to the other windows box and see if it will work there. No luck. I don’t know what happened to it but none of my computers are able to see it. Which means I’ve lost all my movies and tv shows.

I’m seriously considering buying a mac mini and just using front row to watch movies and DVD’s. No TV any more. There’s no good shows out there anyway, and if I do hear about one I like I can download it.

I am so tired of working with windows. When I fix one problem, another shows up, and they progressively get more difficult (or important). I feel like I’m playing a game I’ll never be able to win.