After almost exactly 24 hours (about 7 of which were spent messing with the computer), I have my XP box back up and running, actually better than it was before. I still have some software to install, but overall I have it back to useable. I have internet and email, what more could I need?

The reason that it took so long is that the XP installer wouldn’t get a DHCP’d address. I thought that maybe it was an install fluke so I reinstalled again from a newer XP CD. Same results. Finally early yesterday evening I decided to just enter the IP info automatically. Almost instantaneously, I got the ugly popup from the MSBlast virus. Fresh install of XP, first few seconds of internet connection, and behind a hardware firewall. How did that happen? We thought that one of the other PCs in the house must be infected, but thats not the case. They all scan out as clean, although Daly is having some problems with his internet connectivity, but his computer scans clean of the virus.

Anyway, I ended up having to move all of my backed up data from the secondary partition on my drive over to BeauFun’s computer, then wipe the drive clean and perform a very clean install. Without connecting the network cable, we downloaded the virus patch and patched it. Then I installed the most recent driver for the onboard NIC and all is well. After a few hours of downloading updates and installing programs its time for bed.

A couple of good thing have come ot of this – my filesharing now works, I can once again send mail through UTD, and my computer starts up faster than it ever has. Go figure.