They started sporadically at first, gradually increasing in frequency until my beleaguered machine restarted with every visit to the Vista login screen, with it's pretty Aurora Borealis-like facade and ridiculous login icons. The faulty memory had been replaced. The ATI video drivers had been rolled back, rolled forward and unrolled with great vigor. USB devices had met their doom while being propelled at high velocity by their frustrated god. Various treks through the list of other installed drivers and arcane registry entries brought no relief lasting more than an hour. Maybe three. On the verge of installing a badly compromised alternative until a replacement could be found, it was agreed to reinstall the entire bloated, yet strangely appealing in some inexplicable way that can only be compared to the allure of poisonous seafood to some, mass that is Windows Vista for one last attempt. This heroic effort at slash and burn technical support lasted many minutes. When it was done, there was once again the veneer of a stable operating system residing deep within the dust and nicotine tar choked bowels of The Computer.
And for a time, everything was well. The gnomes of the screen did their work with tiny colored candles and the invisible hamsters spun their fan shaped wheels day and night while strange groaning things within did what strange groaning creatures do within whatever they're in. * This time more care was taken and interloping Windows Updates were stopped at the gates, thoroughly searched by the Google before allowed entry to the inner sanctum. Aging drivers were left unmolested by younger, more aggressive versions seeking to gain their positions. The Comodo firewall had it's teeth filed down to nubs and its corpse left within an MSI file to rot, lest it's corrupt touch once again bring about the dreaded Blue Plague... err Screen. Right then. Blue Screen of Death it is. The horses and coconuts lived in harmony for another blissful stretch of time.
To make a long story short: Virtual Clonedrive (Latest version last month, whatever that was) caused a STOP error immediately this time. Same symptomatic lack of any error code, just a plain, blank BSOD. This only after turning off the automatic restart function in VIsta (retained from XP, apparently).
*Whatever it was, at least they did it well out of sight.
