I backed up everything on an external backup hard drive which I got a great deal on (and needed anyway). I went to Fry's and bought a 500Gig USB external backup drive -- a Maxtor OneTouch 4 -- for only $129. That's about half what I was expecting to pay, and it's so easy to use... just plug it in, and it pretty much works. So that was very cool, and I really needed it anyway (I'm bad about backing up, and having something just do it automagically for me in the background is just a good idea). I also bought a network card for $4, and swapped it for the existing card, but that didn't fix anything -- same exact symptoms -- which told me it wasn't a hardware problem. That means the only resolution was to reinstall Windows XP Media Center from scratch. Ugh.

I therefore spent several hours reinstalling XP and trying to get drivers and updates to install and work. Several updates failed to install, and I had to spend hours figuring out why, and trying to get them to work. I spend still further hours trying to find drivers for two "unknown devices" that show up in Device Manager. I figured out one of them, and am still working on another. But the worst part is that I have no sound. The hardware is there, the drivers are all installed, Windows reports it working fine, the speakers are plugged in and turned on... and silence. Not a peep. The only sound is a little glitchy "blip" on boot. Sigh.

I must have rebooted a thousand times in the last few days. It really shouldn't be this hard. In fact, I've never had this much difficulty before. Double-sigh.

At least the computer is back on the network and functioning ... other than the sound. So I should be able to return to posting pictures of the Cruise soon. I hate that my little narrative was interrupted like this. It'll be a little longer, as I still have to reinstall all my applications and stuff, but at least there's some light at the end of the tunnel.

If only I could figure out why there's no sound...