Phases Two and Three, however...

I get halfway through Phase Two (installing Leopard on my chief computer at home), thinking "it was so was so easy to get this done at work!" and I should have known that this was a mirage. I get a botched install because the "installation media is damaged". I do not think it is damaged, I had the same problems a long time back with my Final Cut Pro install. I have a vague suspicion that my home computer's DVD hardware, or disk controller, or something has hiccups attempting to make lengthy reads from DVD media.

So, I restart and try again, no doubt to meet with exactly the same error, eta about five minutes.

What this means, of course, is that my "archive and install" has probably become botched as well, and what I'll end up with is a new box (if I'm lucky) and I'll have to go through the hassle of re-creating all the user stuff and network configuration. Whee. I anticipate that this will give me hours of fun; especially since the botched install has now rendered the computer unusable in its normal configuration...

On the up side, I'm not going to lose any data¹, as I've been using the dual hard-drive method to do nightly backups for some time now.


¹ - I should say, it's highly unlikely that I'll lose any data; since the Lost Photo Incident of 2002, I try to avoid claims of certainty around personal data. But even if I have some unforseen and catastrophic failure of both internal hard-drives (very unlikely), I still have semi-monthly burned backups to DVD (very, very unlikely to lose those).

Phases Two and Three, however...

I get halfway through Phase Two (installing Leopard on my chief computer at home), thinking "it was so was so easy to get this done at work!" and I should have known that this was a mirage. I get a botched install because the "installation media is damaged". I do not think it is damaged, I had the same problems a long time back with my Final Cut Pro install. I have a vague suspicion that my home computer's DVD hardware, or disk controller, or something has hiccups attempting to make lengthy reads from DVD media.

So, I restart and try again, no doubt to meet with exactly the same error, eta about five minutes.

What this means, of course, is that my "archive and install" has probably become botched as well, and what I'll end up with is a new box (if I'm lucky) and I'll have to go through the hassle of re-creating all the user stuff and network configuration. Whee. I anticipate that this will give me hours of fun; especially since the botched install has now rendered the computer unusable in its normal configuration...

On the up side, I'm not going to lose any data¹, as I've been using the dual hard-drive method to do nightly backups for some time now.


¹ - I should say, it's highly unlikely that I'll lose any data; since the Lost Photo Incident of 2002, I try to avoid claims of certainty around personal data. But even if I have some unforseen and catastrophic failure of both internal hard-drives (very unlikely), I still have semi-monthly burned backups to DVD (very, very unlikely to lose those).

Bad news and some slightly good news

Well, my home computer is almost certainly bricked at this point. Repeated attempts to install from the Leopard DVD have met with no success. I suppose there is a chance that my Leopard DVD has become hosed so, I suppose step one is to get a replacement disc and try it with that. If that doesn't work, then it's off to the repairshop with the desktop, fingers crossed that the problem is a faulty DVD drive or controller (in short, something which is replaceable at not hideous expense). The sadness of this tale is, of course, that all this happens a month after the Applecare extended warranty has passed. Bastards.

I strongly suspect the DVD drive for two reasons:

- the Leopard media successfully installed on my work machine not 12 hours previously

- the home computer seemed to operate with nothing much in the way of problems for the past two years (since the warranty repair on the factory hard-drive fault)

I hope that it really is just a bad Leopard disc, but I fear that it's more likely that my computer has a hardware problem of some kind. I just hope it's not expensive, now that it'll be on my dime.

Bad news and some slightly good news

Well, my home computer is almost certainly bricked at this point. Repeated attempts to install from the Leopard DVD have met with no success. I suppose there is a chance that my Leopard DVD has become hosed so, I suppose step one is to get a replacement disc and try it with that. If that doesn't work, then it's off to the repairshop with the desktop, fingers crossed that the problem is a faulty DVD drive or controller (in short, something which is replaceable at not hideous expense). The sadness of this tale is, of course, that all this happens a month after the Applecare extended warranty has passed. Bastards.

I strongly suspect the DVD drive for two reasons:

- the Leopard media successfully installed on my work machine not 12 hours previously

- the home computer seemed to operate with nothing much in the way of problems for the past two years (since the warranty repair on the factory hard-drive fault)

I hope that it really is just a bad Leopard disc, but I fear that it's more likely that my computer has a hardware problem of some kind. I just hope it's not expensive, now that it'll be on my dime.