Windows 7 and the headaches I knew were coming!

DISCLAIMER: if you are not a geek, you will probably not fully understand any of this. And also you need to be a little ADD to stay with my thought process. /end disclaimer

So not sure if ya’ll know? But if you are a student (or still have a student e-mail like I still have one) you can get windows 7 home/pro, 32/64bit for $30. Well……. That is a great price for windows 7 but boy does it come with complication for me. So I went ahead and bought it because I have no clue when my school email will go byebye. Well it is a promotion thing through digital river. It is an online download of a 3 separate files that total 2.9 gigs. Which shoot that aint nothin. Only took about 40 minutes to download I think. But I couldn’t get it downloaded as an iso. Meaning I couldn’t just burn it to a dvd and then clean install windows. What I bought is a upgrade, which you need to have windows vista to upgrade or windows xp. Well I have windows xp because I didn’t want to go into the vista nasty world. But I figured I might as well get into the windows 7 I figure that is where windows is going, and I don’t wanna get left behind on knowledge of an OS. Where was I… oh yeah well I have windows xp but I still want to keep it while I get accustomed to windows 7. ( for now on I’m just going to call windows 7 …”7” cause i’m lazy. Also here is the link for the offer http://windows7.digitalriver.com/store/mswpus/en_US/DisplayHomePage?resid=dQJxNwoBAiMAAFa2YYUAAAAK&rests=1256329835913 Well I went to the land of google to try and see if I could find an iso of this version of windows, since theoretically I just payed for the serial key. If I can find the iso no pirating is happening. Well I (when I say I, I really mean my friend matt!!) found a site that showed how to make the three files into an iso after you kinda extracted them. Now you have to use a terminal.. or in windows it is called a command window I think. Omg !!! oh no not the terminal you mean I have to like type out directories!?!?!11 well it is practically copy and paste (ctrl-c…ctrl-v). oh here is the website for the how to make it into an iso. http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/how_burn_your_student_copy_windows_7_dvd so I extract one of the 3 files but it crashes with an error.. I’m like well crap.. now I have to redownload 3 gig of info. Well I went back to trusty ol google… which makes me think of this picture.. here

So back to the extraction. I searched on google about the error. ( by the way if you don’t know how to do something or you get an error.. just copy and paste to google.) Well it seems a lot of people are having trouble with that error. I found out it doesn’t matter to me, because that is all about doing the install within windows[which is not what I want]. So when it did extract I got all I needed from it and followed the how to. Awesome I’m that much closer to my goal of breaking my computer with 7. well when I say break I mean software not physically.

Let me tell you a little more about my story and worries. The reason I’m so nervous is the fact that I’m dual booting Ubuntu 64bit(linux) and windows xp. Well I have GRUB as my bootloader. It is the default bootloader that comes with ubuntu. Well a little more to this. I have 4 partitions on my main OS hard drive. The first being a partition for ubuntu 32 bit version. ( that was back when I was skeptical about 64 bits and compatibility issues.), the second partition goes to windows xp. The third partition went to a stuff drive as I call it. Well I was feeling frisky and I partitioned that stuff drive later on to get a partition for ubuntu 64.. well let me tell ya… I have no problems with 64 bit ubuntu.. frikin uses all of my ram.. another issue with 32bit *sigh*. So anyways once you go 64 bit you can’t go back.. who says size doesn’t matter?!?!11 ok well I have a 32 bit ubuntu partition that I haven’t touched in months. Well that was /dev/sda5 and my 64 bit partition was /dev/sda7. I formated my 32 bit partition and then deleted the logical drive so windows 7 would just see it as unallocated space. Well as soon as I rebooted.. grub is already complaining.. and by complaining I mean it isn’t showing anything to boot at all. No windows xp or ubuntu.. head ache has begun. So I’m like screw it I know that there is is formated partition so I put in my 7.iso dvd into the drive and start the death of the life, aka 7 install. Well it is taking for ever and nervous at the same time that I don’t accidentally miss the unallocated space wording and format my other partition or something. Well I finally feel confident about it and then boom error it can’t read a file. OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!111111. This is where the e-mail I sent to anthony came from which is this: (his reply to my email was “You should blog about this. Just cut and paste this in, it’s teh awesome.” and now look what you gone and made me do)

*hahha well get this.. my dvd burner is old.. i was even having problems installing ubuntu.. says it couldn’t read a file.. but there is a retry button.. so it finally would read the file.  (i think my burner is just dirty, which would surprise me.. i’ve had thru out college)  well windows 7 is like .. if i can’t read one file  your screwed!@!!11111 so i thought.. dude i can just boot off usb.. i have a newer board.. like i don’t even think the board is over a year old yet.. sooo i get the install on a usb harddrive.. and then boot into bios.. looking.. only options are harddrive, cd rom,, or frikin FLOPPY!!! who uses a floppy these days… so i’m go to my friend google.. and find out my mother board can use a usb stick to flash bios.. frikin bios!!! so i askmyself why in the world can ASUS not have usb bootable.. tell me that anthony WHYYY!  so I yeah.. that is my story of the day. *

So I can’t get 7 installed because my dvd burner doesn’t work. Well I’m living at the rivas and I was thinking surly andrew has to have a computer or dvd rom around here somewhere? Well he did.. but my computer wouldn’t even recognize the dvd rom in bios. So that is a no bueno. So my motherboard can’t boot a simple usb, which I know motherboards like 4 years old that could… I can’t read the dvd itself. Well I guess I’ll just go back to my linux until I find someone with a dvd drive. Anthony is hopefully gonna pull through for me. It is a external usb dvd rom though.. little nervous.. Ok so back to me going back and relaxing in my linux.. ohhhh nooo grub is all like.. what! You want to boot into a OS.. heck no! I’ll give you an error 17! well guess who I went to for help.. no not my foot in the screen.. it was my pal google (remember him?) yeah here is a link for what I just copied pasted. http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=224351 OMGZ0RS!!!11 more terminal and now your throwing in a live cd.. whaaaaa!?!?! .. well I had to use the ubuntu live cd to get to a terminal in root and reinstall to the mbr (master boot record). And noww I just wait more .. for what I know is to come.. more headaches!!..

But have no fear! Raid 5 is here!! You might be thinking through all of this, this guy needs to be backing up all his stuff if he is messing around with formating and master boot records and what not.. well let me just say I have a raid 5 setup with all my personal stuff on there. But it still sucks losing your OS to something stupid like a format or rm /*.. haha don’t ever do that one.. Well I’ve spent a lot of time configuring my ubuntu to get it that way I want.. But oh yeah! I just remembered.. 9.10 is coming in 6 days!!!! can’t wait for it http://www.ubuntu.com/

what is raid ? or even radi 5?  http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2007/06/11/understanding_raid/1