Bandwidth Place 2

So I had vista installed and was using that for like the last oh 6 months or so. I wanted to dual boot vista and XP for school (and then linux once I got XP working) so I try to do it but despite following every guide to the T and trying every tip and trick it just wont work and I even manage to do something that won't let me boot the computer at all anymore no matter what.

So I have to reformat and lose a lot of stuff. I get XP back on and whilst copying most of my stuff back over (music/programs) I accident smack my 500GB mybook and it smacks off the door and breaks.. now I've effectively lost EVERYTHING.

So I get XP back in, and install service pack 3. Go to reboot and guess what, a file is missing or corrupted and I can repair it with the windows disk. So I use the dos commands to copy this file back to where it should be and restart.... it's gone again. So I have to reformat and reinstall XP AGAIN and now I hate computers guts lol.

So I go on to read how AMD processors with OEM installs face this issue. We'll I've got an OEM copy of windows and an AMD processor... so service pack 3 fucked me over.

That sucks. What are the benefits with SP3? So far I haven't seen a reason to install it...

So is the 500GB really dead? Clicking noises?

Yep, it's clicking... drive wont initialize.

Anddd I bet it's warranty is already up due to WD's absolutely shitty less-than-a-year warranty time for normal HDs.

Shouldn't be... I'm hoping it isn't....

So are you going to get another copy of XP not OEM for SP3?

We'll M$ released today a final offline ISO of the SP3 install that I'm downloading now. If it works fine on this other computer I'm doing work on (for a friend) then I'll try it on my system.

I'm honestly tempted to use an slightly outdated autopatcher xp (3rd party XP updater) to get me right up to before SP3. I don't want to reinstall again... it's a pain in the balls.