To Upgrade or Not

I've had some fun and games today, and it's taken me all day to resolve more computer problems. I'm definitely not meant to have a hassle-free user experience if my track record for problems is anything to go by. Last night I finally got a copy of Windows Vista. Now isn't that an experience in itself? This image sums it up beautifully.

Before I put my foot in it big time, I decided to do a backup of the C drive just in case the install/upgrade didn't go smoothly. I've used Norton Ghost plenty of times in the past and the backups have got me out of trouble more times than I can remember. I had no idea that this time would be any different. So I set the task for Ghost to back up C, and the computer shut down and rebooted into the Ghost screen, but all I got was a static hourglass and a progress bar going nowhere. So I did a three-finger salute, the computer restarted the Ghost job and the same thing happened. When I chose to skip the Ghost job and to boot in to Windows nothing happened either. I couldn't get out of the Ghost loop that I was in, couldn't get into Windows and was getting more steamed up by the minute. Talk about a disastrous situation.

I think the problem was the SATA drive I was backing up, which also hosts my operating system. I put Hiren's Boot CD in the computer, which has numerous tools for troubleshooting and after trying several partition and recovery tools I was none the wiser. I ran Partition Magic and deleted the "virtual" partition that Ghost had created and made active, but then I couldn't set my OS drive back to C. It's been a nightmare.

I read a post from Jaybee with the exact problem, after I set up the modem on the laptop and decided to look online for some inspiration, because by that time I'd run out of ideas. If only I'd done that to start with, instead of deleting things. Anyway, I tried a couple of the Symantec recommendations that didn't work either.

In the end I resurrected the "old" PC, which I had only retired yesterday after getting a new power supply back from the "new" computer manufacturer, and since it had a working copy of Windows, I swapped a couple of the drives and managed to boot into Windows. I reinstalled the new OS drivers, and suddenly my original C drive was back. Thank the Gods, I nearly fell to my knees crying, I was so relieved.

I did manage in the end to back up my C drive using Ghost, but this time from a floppy disk. Ghost does work with SATA drives and the problems only occur when you reboot from Windows. That's when it messes with the boot files on the hard drive and can cause the OS hard drive to be unbootable.

And so to the question... to upgrade to Vista or not? I have a backup now in case it all goes to hell, and I'm over my rage (yes, I had steam coming out my ears and got more frustrated as the day wore on), so I may take the plunge, but not today. As I said, I only got the new computer up and running again yesterday so I think I'll enjoy it working properly for for few more days before I make any more major changes. Perhaps I'll even consider setting up a new partition for Vista, that way I don't stuff up this install and can test the compatibility of programs as I install them.