I decided to go ahead and do one last system recovery on this stupid VAIO (no, I have no idea how many that makes) and just replace the DVD-R drive after that, so I wouldn’t have to worry about the hardware configuration preventing the recovery.

So much for that. The recovery went through just fine; runs right, says it’s reconfiguring everything right and all, reboots - and dies. I didn’t change the BIOS (the recovery would’ve balked at that) and I haven’t changed the hardware since the *last* time I reinstalled the opsys. I have no idea what’s wrong this time.

Right. Goodbye Sony. Mom’s old VAIO works much better since I overwrote the whole thing with Debian (well, except the part where I broke it trying to install a printer driver, but reinstallation is easier with Linux - no arbitrary anti-piracy measures). It’s time to shop for new hardware and a cheap copy of Elements (already bought a standalone copy of XP Pro, just in case) and build a whole new machine. How much is a membership at Costco again?