1222 - The Cost Of Freedom

2010-02-17

I’ve just nuked my laptop. Really. I did.

After two installations of Windows 7, performed on two different desktop computers, one from scratch in Carinthia (you remember the hard drive failure?) and one upgrade in Vienna, I had become reckless: I decided to do it on my Laptop, a Sony VGN-Z21MN, as well.

The laptop had come preinstalled with Windows Vista Business 32 bit, and I wanted to run Windows 7 64 bit (I really intend to use all of my 4 GB RAM). I didn’t want to ever go back to Vista, thus I decided to make no recovery disc. Reckless. Did I say “reckless”?

While installing, Windows 7 did not give me any option to keep the recovery partition, so I simply opted for the possible, wiping everything that was there, installing Windows 7 from scratch.

I couldn’t have been more wrong. Windows 7 installed, and then it rebooted into … a black screen. Oops! Uhhh … this Sony has two graphics cards, an Intel chipset on the motherboard and a separate NVidia graphics adapter, some 9300 or so. Switching (via a hardware switch) to the Intel graphics adapter at least gave me back my display, but then I got a crash a little later.

Well, the new installation did not work. It says something about an unexpected crash and that it needs to reboot, and upon reboot it just gets to the same point again. The Visa installation is gone, Windows 7 can’t install, the Windows XP DVD, that came with my laptop, does not even boot. My laptop is a brick. A brick, that has cost me 1400€.

No reason to panic. I will find some solution. Probably. Wish me well. I need it.

The Song of the Day is “The Cost Of Freedom” from the 1993 Marla Glen album “This Is”. Hear it on YouTube.

There are 8 comments

Gina   (2010-02-17)

wishing you well .. and luck (while holding my tongue - thinking mac) ... 🙂 the title of your piece is apt on so many levels ... may your (understandable) frustration be a thing of the past VERY VERY Soon ... regards >>> Gina http://ginaseye.blogspot.com/ http://fyneartstreasures.blogspot.com/

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Cedric   (2010-02-17)

Good luck Andreas 🙂 Love your image. The motion blur in the man makes it surreal, like he is partly blended into the graffiti. Well done.

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andreas   (2010-02-17)

Thanks. I know some things more now, and one of them is, that I should have made a BIOS update BEFORE nuking Vista. Oh well. Still, I think I'll get it out of its brick state today, and if not, I know some people at work who could possibly help me. Regarding motion blur, well, I really don't understand this "image stabilization can't stop motion" argument, that you hear so often. Sure, at 1/15s moving people get blurred, but as you say, it actually contributes to so many images, making the specific archetypical. I really see no fault in it 🙂

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Paul   (2010-02-18)

Good luck on your recovery, Andreas. I know that it must be frustrating to not be able to even get back to where you were, stuck in the nether regions! I really like the motion blur and the Live Free or Die, something about it is very appealing, though I cannot exactly place my finger on it. Certainly those taggers have tagged most everything, even the window! I guess that they were expressing their 'freedom'. 🙂

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andreas   (2010-02-18)

Thanks. I've learned even more in the meantime. Though I can't make the BIOS upgrade under Windows 7 using Sony's program, I could extract the ROM image from it and could try flashing it with FLASH*T.EXE. On the other hand, I may end up with much more of brick 🙂 The only other option seems to be, to buy a recovery disc from Sony service. Heaven knows if they have one in Austria or how long this would take. Hmmm ... let's see if I feel adventurous tonight 😄

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Flo   (2010-02-18)

Andreas, I love this image - the dog is also blurred. But he's not free, as he's hooked to a lease. He probably wouldn't want to be free, either, in this weather. The man could also be thinking that he wishes he could be free of the chore of having to walk the dog periodically. Even tho he probably loves the dog otherwise. Your experiences with trying to install Windows 7 on your laptop remind me that I always have the experts do stuff like this for me! Sure, it costs money, but in the long run, I don't lose whatever stuff I didn't remember to back up before trying to install some stuff and in so doing, crash the computer. I'm mostly "thumbs" when it comes to doing things like this for myself. Good luck.

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andreas   (2010-02-19)

Yes, only in this case it's I who is supposed to be the expert 🙂

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Thomas   (2010-02-22)

Ouch! Rest assured, that could very well also have happened to me. How about a Linux- or DOS-based boot-CD or XP with a Ramdrive or something like that? And then flashing the BIOS from there? Mh, but I guess you might have considered that already. Good luck, anyway!

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