Time To Mix It Up! Part II: Attack of the Linux Clones

So, in my last post you heard me ramble on about Windows 7 beta like a catholic school girl with a puppy crush. Well, if it helps, the switch to 7 Beta got me going so much that I decided to try out the latest linux Fedora distro via, you guessed it, dual booting.

It's been a while since I got messed with ubuntu on my other PC, a homegrown desktop that's a decade old. I know... damn. Don't get me started on my OTHER PC, also a homegrown desktop but even older (don't think it's polite to ask any more... yeah that bad). That baby sports a K6-2 CPU and Windows Me! Hey, don't judge. Genuine Windows 9x support comes in handy whenever an urge for old games flare up.

One of these days, I might just install MS-DOS 6.22 somewhere. Watch me.

Anyhoo... oh yes, trying to make Fedora 10 play nice with Windows 7 Beta. I got one word for you...

friggin'-disaster

Pronunciation: \o-'hell-no, -'shi-t-f-me\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English & Finger; see dual-boot on same drive with radically different OSes

1. Panic-inducing event. See Cuban Missile Crisis.
2. Cuban Missile Crisis.

First of all, I learned that the Fedora image file is a picky princess. My usb dvd burner was JUST not good enough for her. For a while I didn't think I would be able to attempt to get into this princess's pants with my stupid external burner as wingman. Fortunately, my laptop was big enough to have an internal slot-loading burner. Again, 6-yrs-old! I love my lappy. *Ahem* Sorry about that. But then... the same problem with the Windows 7 Beta/XP Pro setup came up. Basically, bootloader's confused and I can't get into either OS. No matter, just need to adjust some partition settings and booting order and position of crossed fingers. But no... the damn thing just won't boot up. At all.

So, after an hour or three of repeated OS installs (started to be a turn-off after the third cycle), I decided to utterly give up. Only now, I can't get 7 Beta to boot. Not even a little bit. There's a blinking underscore that eerily resembles the one on the Jurassic Park main computer after the power shutdown. You know, when Shaft the Jurassic Park IT Guy declared he needed to go switch some jumpers back on. Famous last words before the raptors got 'em, indeed.

Crap, now I want to watch Jurassic Park. Better wrap this up.

So yes, thanks to some googling on the work tablet, I was able to fix Windows 7's corrupted MBR (yes Fedora, bad princess) and boot up. I am happy to report that in the end no animals or data were lost. I guess I can try Fedora on the desktops... but right now, I am a bit exhausted and just want to sit back and watch dinosaurs chase after humans.

Is that too much to ask?