My weekend adventure....

Should I blame my itch to switch or My(monkey)Mind...
I brought home Wubi, wanting to try Ubuntu. It wouldn't install, It tried to download the Ubuntu ISO image but as I was as connected as the oasis in the Sahara..It didn't proceed. I thought of a plan, 'I can make an ISO image of the latest Ubuntu 7.10 Live CD that I have and place in the correct location.' But naa....My Dell pre-configured system does not have an ISO writer software !! I needed it badly... I went to the nearest cyber cafe, got Imgburn in a pen drive, came back and make an ISO image. Now when I tried to Install Wubi.. It wouldnt proceed, reason...The wubi was for version 7.04 and my ISO was 7.10. So I said 'Until next time when I am really desperate I will try you my dear Ubuntu Linux.'

Now comes the Interesting part. After a couple of hours when I am using my system, I notice that the drive opens in a new window, The hidden folders cannot be seen. The folder options menu is ineffective. I was sure...this was a virus that some also call as rootkit. I checked a few things and I learnt that the virus was amvo.exe. It spreads through an executable file d.com that is hidden in USB pen-drive. Whenever you access your pendrive the virus jumps into action, adds a few entries into windows registy. The pre-installed Macafee Antivirus couldn't detect it. I should have updated the antivirus with latest signatures...but shouldn't the company be providing the system with all the latest signatures?? How can you expect everybody to be connected ?
Anyways...I tried to correct the problem, booted with Ubuntu Live CD and deletedd all the suspected programs and files but still the problem persisted. The virus was not dying. I said 'Fcuk Windows...' I took backup of my data into a pendrive and thought of trying the Dell System restore which brings back the system to factory settings state wiping off every data from the disk. But...but but...that option did not work...there was some modification done to the bootsector(or whatever) so it wouldn't start. Now I decided I was going to reinstall WinXP. Prepared my system for the Dell media direct partition, booted with the WinXP CD, formatted the drives and installed both XP and Media direct.. But now when I tried to log into Media direct 'Missing NTLDR' message came, same followed with WinXP.
I was frustrated, I finally decided 'I will install Ubuntu' and I did. My system is now a working Ubuntu system with limited functionality(no sound,cannot play popular media format files & all). While installing Ubuntu, I formatted the hard disk with one 3GB swap, and others as some 30 GB ext3 partitions. Now I can access only one of those ext3 partitions which is mounted as '/'. I have to learn the basics of linux, it's file system, commands and all or else I cant live with Linux.