Fix or Reinstall?

[Farmer Mike]

I finally isolated why my USB flashdrive wasn't working on my laptop with openSUSe 10.1. I tracked the problem to IRQ assignments and a PCI option. In dmesg | tail, both the USB bus and soundcard were complaining about interrupts. Apparently HP Pavilion N5400s, Omnibook XE3s and my Pavilion Xh485 require a special boot argument (pci=usepirqmask). I found this in the BootPrompt HowTo on the Linux documentation project website. My laptop's included because it has the same bios as the N5400 and XE3, I found that out when I updated it for Linux. I tested the parameter with Knoppix, and the system sees and mounts the flashdrive fine. I still have to reconfigure the sound card. It echos sounds over and over.

I could get the hardware working from here. But I'm wondering if there's more, hidden problems from the install without proper parameters. At this point, would it be better for function and labor-saving to just reinstall using all of the right arguments?
Thanks,
Mike

[naked dave]

I would have to agree that in a situation like this I would feel compelled to go for a reinstall. I feel that a fix could work, and you may be lucky with no other problems arising, however there is a high chance that more underlying problems could surface after fixing this problem as a sort of knock on effect.

My opinion is : reinstall