I think it's clear by now that the Windows OS has something against me, and this was proven over and over last night. It all began when I wanted to swap my gaming mouse. I just took a look at Cooler Master's Sentinel Advance II, and after having used it for about a month-and-a-half, I was dying to get back to my SteelSeries Sensei. If only it was that simple.
After I plugged the mouse in, Windows couldn't install it. The internal driver install just failed. It seemed that somehow, the basic USB drivers that Windows uses no longer liked anything new that I plugged in, or even anything I've had plugged in before. This affected the USB 3.0 ports in some way also, as keyboards and mice that I plugged into those didn't work either.
Figuring it'd be best to uninstall the USB ports and have Windows re-install them (which I've done before), I went ahead and started doing that - only to realize a bit later that I didn't have any backup PS/2 peripherals in case I lost use of my KB. As you can probably guess, I did lose the ability to use my KB, and virtually every other peripheral I own.
At this point, any reasonable person would think, "Windows Restore", so that's where I headed next, via the CD installer. I reverted back to a one-day-old point, and guess what? That reverted the software I installed that day, but didn't affect the USB ports, and that problem. My KB continued to not work (I should note, the peripherals continued to work fine in Linux).
So, fed up, I decided to reinstall Windows. Now, there was a lot that happened last night that brought me to a boiling point where I wanted to throw the PC out the window, but I won't get into them all here. Just imagine that while being frustrated with Windows, you spill your drink on your laptop, knock your BlacX hard drive enclosure on the floor while it's running (knocking the drive right out of it... poor 2TB Caviar), and having to hook up my SSD to another machine over and over, trying to partition it and secure erase it to fix my next problem.
First, I should mention that because I have never secure erased this SSD since I've owned it (about a year-and-a-half), I decided to do that to freshen up performance. Because I had a Linux install I didn't want to nuke, I used Acronis to capture just that portion of the drive. After the secure erase, Acronis for some stupid reason restored the Linux fine but made the Extended partition span the entire drive. That prevents Windows from being installed to the drive, so I hooked the SSD up to the other machine, boot into Ubuntu and used Gparted to fix the issue.
Back on my main PC, I kept getting an error from Windows telling me that I couldn't partition the drive... even a 100% / secure erased drive. Baffled, I thought it was just Windows, and then my SSD. I hooked it up to the other PC again, and it was able to install Windows fine... so I was just lost.
After a bit of Google searching, someone recommended unplugging all of the storage from the PC, but that was already long done (because I don't like how Windows will sometimes choose a drive at random to store its boot stuff on). What I didn't realize, is that I had an SD memory card plugged into my monitor, from photos I took earlier that evening. Yes, believe it or not, despite that storage not showing up in the Windows installer, and it virtually having nothing to do with anything, Windows refused to install. I took the SD card out, and Windows installed just fine.
Sigh. And we were supposed to have a piece of content up today
On a side note, because I run into so many odd problems with Windows, like disappearing Office icons, I am using this install a little differently. For one, I didn't disable UAC, or anything for that matter. Second, I am letting Windows update itself, rather than go in and just select everything. Essentially, it'll just install what's essential. I am not sure how long I'll be able to live with UAC on, but we'll see. The goal here is to use Windows as any person would, and see if I still manage to encounter these stupid issues, namely disappearing icons. It's really crappy to look at a .docx with a default icon, when it should be a blue one, and not be able to immediately tell the difference between files in a folder full of .docx and .xlsx.
Sigh. Did I say that already?
After I plugged the mouse in, Windows couldn't install it. The internal driver install just failed. It seemed that somehow, the basic USB drivers that Windows uses no longer liked anything new that I plugged in, or even anything I've had plugged in before. This affected the USB 3.0 ports in some way also, as keyboards and mice that I plugged into those didn't work either.
Figuring it'd be best to uninstall the USB ports and have Windows re-install them (which I've done before), I went ahead and started doing that - only to realize a bit later that I didn't have any backup PS/2 peripherals in case I lost use of my KB. As you can probably guess, I did lose the ability to use my KB, and virtually every other peripheral I own.
At this point, any reasonable person would think, "Windows Restore", so that's where I headed next, via the CD installer. I reverted back to a one-day-old point, and guess what? That reverted the software I installed that day, but didn't affect the USB ports, and that problem. My KB continued to not work (I should note, the peripherals continued to work fine in Linux).
So, fed up, I decided to reinstall Windows. Now, there was a lot that happened last night that brought me to a boiling point where I wanted to throw the PC out the window, but I won't get into them all here. Just imagine that while being frustrated with Windows, you spill your drink on your laptop, knock your BlacX hard drive enclosure on the floor while it's running (knocking the drive right out of it... poor 2TB Caviar), and having to hook up my SSD to another machine over and over, trying to partition it and secure erase it to fix my next problem.
First, I should mention that because I have never secure erased this SSD since I've owned it (about a year-and-a-half), I decided to do that to freshen up performance. Because I had a Linux install I didn't want to nuke, I used Acronis to capture just that portion of the drive. After the secure erase, Acronis for some stupid reason restored the Linux fine but made the Extended partition span the entire drive. That prevents Windows from being installed to the drive, so I hooked the SSD up to the other machine, boot into Ubuntu and used Gparted to fix the issue.
Back on my main PC, I kept getting an error from Windows telling me that I couldn't partition the drive... even a 100% / secure erased drive. Baffled, I thought it was just Windows, and then my SSD. I hooked it up to the other PC again, and it was able to install Windows fine... so I was just lost.
After a bit of Google searching, someone recommended unplugging all of the storage from the PC, but that was already long done (because I don't like how Windows will sometimes choose a drive at random to store its boot stuff on). What I didn't realize, is that I had an SD memory card plugged into my monitor, from photos I took earlier that evening. Yes, believe it or not, despite that storage not showing up in the Windows installer, and it virtually having nothing to do with anything, Windows refused to install. I took the SD card out, and Windows installed just fine.
Sigh. And we were supposed to have a piece of content up today
On a side note, because I run into so many odd problems with Windows, like disappearing Office icons, I am using this install a little differently. For one, I didn't disable UAC, or anything for that matter. Second, I am letting Windows update itself, rather than go in and just select everything. Essentially, it'll just install what's essential. I am not sure how long I'll be able to live with UAC on, but we'll see. The goal here is to use Windows as any person would, and see if I still manage to encounter these stupid issues, namely disappearing icons. It's really crappy to look at a .docx with a default icon, when it should be a blue one, and not be able to immediately tell the difference between files in a folder full of .docx and .xlsx.
Sigh. Did I say that already?
