Just a few days ago I assembled a Computer for a friend. Unfortunately, after various testing sessions it turned out that the mainboard had a miserable failure. I could have returned the mainboard back to my wholesaler, who is in Hannover so actually everything goes via snail mail. However my friend urged me to speed up the process a bit and so I bought a slightly other mainboard model from the same manufacturer at antoher semi wholesaler semi not-wholesaler (you get the point), which is just round the corner. At this point I had already arranged with my wholesaler in Hannover that it was no problem to return the mainboard and get back the money.
Just a few hours ago I exchanged the mainboards. The new mainboard was all-right and so I was quite happy. After tweaking the BIOS settings I restart the computer and whoops: Auf Grund einer weitreichenden Soft- oder Hardware-Änderung konnte Windows nicht gestartet werden. Wählen Sie …. Abgesicherter Modus … Letzte bekannte funktionierende Konfiguration … Setzen Sie sich mit Microsoft in Verbindung …. Very well. At this point something remembered me that I had opted for a SATA hard disk drive. After exchanging the mainboards Windows was no longer able to find the SATA raid controller and therefore refused to start properly. A quick Google research told me I had to reinstall the whole system. Perfect I thought. Another 3 hours you’re going to waste. Let’s see where the Windows CD-ROM is…. Oh shit. I left that damned CD with my friend. Argh! O.K., at least I’ve got the time to write up this essay as my friend is unlikely to be up and running and ready for handing over the CD-ROMs at about 3:53 in the morning.
If they were smart they would have changed the sorry-I-am-unable-because-I-am-windows dialogue slightly and have it say: Leider kann das Bootmedium nicht gefunden werden. Eventuell haben Sie Änderungen an der Hardware vorgenommen. Drücken Sie [F6] wenn Sie einen SCSI- oder Raid-Treiber eines Drittanbieters nachladen wollen, der notwendig ist, damit Windows das Bootmedium erkennt. But hey, Bill Gates is not Steve Jobs so I think he decided that he is not smart either and that the damned customer needs to reinstall the whole operating system and all helper programms after upgrading his mainboard.
I hate Windows for certain things. You get the point.
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