I have done it! And proud of myself. 🙂 My Windows XP installation crashed last evening. I came back from dinner with friends and tried starting my computer and it simply refused to start. After many failed attempts at reviving it, I finally set down to the task of effecting a complete system reinstall, something I have never done before. It is convenient having a technician father who takes complete care of your computer and its maintenance. A week to go before I get back home and my computer had to choose to fail now. It is a cruel twist of fate that all the notes I needed for my Grand O on Saturday were stuck in electronic form on my system. So, here I was undertaking what I once considered a Herculean task, at midnight.
Twenty four hours later, my computer is good as new. All essential software installed, Windows updates installed and all files and folders completely intact. Boy, am I proud of myself! May I pat myself on the back for it. I am not a techie, far from it actually. But, I am gifted with the ability to wriggle out of the most inconvenient situations (ex. my computer crashing) with a lot of effort. So, it is done! And I am so thrilled that I managed to get it up and running without any major mishaps. Maybe I should have been a techie after all. 😉