sgant's Journal: Service pack 2 woes and why I'm glad I run Linux

I run Gentoo Linux on my machine and ONLY Linux on my machine. No dual booting for me since last November. I have 100% totally gone over to Linux and I LOVE it. Also, I built this Athlon 2500+ Barton system from scratch and paid all together around $500 bucks.

Now, my wife has a Pentium 4 Gateway machine that is running XP. Yesterday, service pack 2 raised it's ugly head and says "install me now". So, we install it. 18 hours later, I "think" we have it installed and ready to go.

The problem? Well, the NTFS file system on the machine needed some major major major chkdsk done to it for some reason. Now, this computer actually has been running fine since day one...two years ago. The only thing that isn't stock from Gateway when we bought it was a new ATI 9800 Pro in it. Everything else is exactly how it came from Gateway.

We've kept up with the patches, and run a virus scanner but that's all. It it hooked through a hardware router and for the most part, everything has been fine with the machine. But boy it didn't like Service Pack 2 at all. Finally, I had to boot off the original install CD and run the disk rescue and "chkdsk /r" 3 times....and each taking over an hour to complete. Finally it was able to boot and let my wife log on...at 4 in the morning today.

Yes, I know there are people out there that have no problems at all with Service Pack 2 and blah blah blah. It didn't work too well in the Gant household. I was "this" close to reformating the entire computer and bringing my wife over to Linux too. But she wants to play Sims 2. Yes folks, Sims 2 is the deciding factor here. No, I don't get it either but hey, either you get it or you don't. And I don't get it. It makes her happy though so who am I to stand in the way of a little more joy in her life?

I do owe her a new keyboard though as during the Service Pack 2 fiasco I slammed my fist down on the keyboard and broke one of the little stand thingies that props it up. And no, I'm not a violent person in any way shape or form...but that's how much this got to me.