Almost forgot about the pain :laugh:

[topsites]

I always forget this until it hits, I go through this every year...
First coming out of hybernation is a bit rough, but it's nothing in comparison to a HOT and BUSY spring season...

As of last wednesday, things were honky dory, cutting like 6 lawns / day and lalala... Then, all of a sudden...
Thursday: Two mulch jobs, 4 cu.yds. total hand spread (feels like 8 cu.yds. rake spread).
Friday: Two more mulch jobs, same dang thing.
> Came home, went to close a window on the PC, BOOM, XP hard drive crash.
>> Took an hour just to boot into Ubuntu Linux w/ a boot Cd :cry:
Saturday: Cut 11 yards, breakdown: $35, 30, 30, 45, 40, 50, 30, 30, 35, 35, 40
> A/C in the truck decides it wants to work intermittently.
> Came home, more troubleshooting, found a spare HDD that crapped out years ago, got this to work w/ Win98... :confused:
Sunday: Day Off... Cut own acre lot, maintenance on all 3 mowers, got XP installed on the spare HDD, still can't access main HDD.
> Eventually found it was Ntfs MBR sector corruption, found a recovery program, downloaded it, paid for registration :cry:
Monday: Cut 8 yards, breakdown: $85, 35, 35, 35, 30, 45, 30, 30
> A/C is really aggravating, works great sometimes, then it shuts off and nothing, wt...?
> Still recovering files (thank GD most of my template documents and taxes are ok, hope the Web sites are, too {otherwise I get to FTP like 15 gigs back down})
Tomorrow: 8-10 more yards, similar breakdown.
Wednesday: 5 cu.yd. standard mulch job (ahhh an easy day).
Thursday: Either grass cutting or all day weed control.
Friday... Grass cutting for sure, at least 8-10 yards.
etc, etc...

But one thing's for sure... The last time I went through this mess with Windows taking a dump on my HDD, by the time I finally got it working I swore I would switch to Linux the next time. It might take a year or two, with a spare WinXP HDD and a multi-boot config, I'm looking for a nice Linux ISO right now :laugh:

[grandview (2006)]

My knees are doing the same thing as your computer:cry:

[buddhaman]

Linux is awesome. Problem is can't play madden and quickbooks don't work on it. Otherwise I would be all Linux.

[ncls]

Linux is awesome. Problem is can't play madden and quickbooks don't work on it. Otherwise I would be all Linux.
Have you tried it with Wine?? Quickbooks, not Madden....
here: http://www.winehq.com/site/download

[topsites]

Linux is awesome. Problem is can't play madden and quickbooks don't work on it. Otherwise I would be all Linux.

Well I tell you I've been considering it for a long time, it dawned on me some time after I started working on a dedicated Unix box remotely, it's really not that bad.

I'm currently posting under Ubuntu's Install CD while it is completely formatting my 30gb slave drive and installing the OS. It's just about done, we're talking 5-10 minutes.

Much like yourself, I have a couple of games I like playing... I'll try a Windows emulator after a bit but for right now I've got my 13gb master drive with XP on it, I am thinking if I config the bios to boot Hdd-1 then Hdd-0 in that order I should be able to have a multi-boot system (but idk yet)...

I did lose a slew of files, there must've been 150,000 of them total, I recovered 50k or so... Never ceases to amaze me how much GARBAGE windows accumulates, thou I have to admit it's been 4-5 years since I've underwent a complete format, still it is absolutely ridiculous.

Welps, gtg see if it will boot into Linux via the slave hdd now.

[topsites]

ahhh yes I had a feeling it might not like being partitioned as a slave drive, but after removing the master and hooking the slave as master, re-formatting and installing, I'm an official Linux user.

Now I wonder if I can hook the XP drive as a second master lol.

[topsites]

ahhh I forgot the sunburn, got that today.

[TURFLORD]

You can't call them master/slave drives anymore. My Geek friend told me the story of a major company getting sued and now the industry is changing the terminology. It's good to have a geek friend. When my drives crash, I get to call a geek directly. I don't have to do any of the stuff listed above.:)