Want to Make a Bet?

I have this Windows XP box that is blanking out its hardware configuration. To believe the MMC, opening up this machine would cause the magic pixie dust it runs on to spill out. Clearly, something is wrong.

I go to repair the OS with a Windows install CD. It hangs on the "Installing Devices" section with, allegedly, 33 minutes left to go.

It does this repeatedly.

I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to fix this, but I know I won't get it done in the next 180 seconds, so we're gonna play a little game. I call the game "33 minutes".

The objective of the game is to see if Windows will have completed its installation in 48 hours: I'm leaving at 5:30 and I'm not getting back to this problem until Saturday morning, which is substantially more than 33 minutes.

Your move, Windows.

Update, 2005-11-26: Windows was stuck at the exact same spot it was on Wednesday. Unbelievable.