Compact Flast, non-graceful shutdown

  • Thread starter Thread starter Steve Wagner
  • Start date Start date
S

Steve Wagner

Dear community,

Apparently one of our compact-flashed based XPE brick computers has
corrupted critical files on the flash disk because it lost power and didn't
shutdown gracefully. Supposedly, the caching was configured properly, and so
forth. So my question: can XPE survive a power outage? If so, would you
expect the same handling on a hard-drive versus a flash-drive? Has anyone
else experienced the same thing and what was your solution? A UPS?

We understand that XP Pro can be unplugged ungracefully without problems. Is
this true? Sort of the same question: why not XPE if XP Pro? Probably no
answer to that one!

Thanks much!

Steve Wagner
(e-mail address removed)
 
I think i can add a few ideas and opinions here. This is a complicated
issue, and I think that probably everyone here has had their XP pro
computer accidentally shut off at least once, without problems.
Thankfully, this situation is much improved since the Windows 3.1/Win95
days.

A few issues that affect whether the system survives include:

1) When did the 'ungraceful' event occur? I have read here that people
can always corrupt their system by shutting off the power at a certain
point during the power up sequence? If the system is sitting there
doing nothing, then in my experience it is quite likely there will be
no problems whatsoever.

2) What is the file system: NTFS is much more robust than FAT. (IMHO
you should always use NTFS, unless you absolutely need FAT because your
device won't boot NTFS. (Actually, if the world was perfect, I would
probably recommend that you get another computer or a BIOS upgrade so
that you can use NTFS anyhow. But, the company already bought 5,000 of
these 386-based brick computers that support 256MB of RAM only.
**Sigh**)

3) What file system activity is occurring when the power fails? If the
system is writing to the registry this can be VERY bad. (i.e. system
will require reformatting). Many times, nothing seems to happen at
all, or maybe scandisk runs at boot.

4) What XPE components do you have present? If you don't have the
scandisk tools installed, and you do develop a file system problem, how
will it get fixed? Or, if you have a non-standard display, then you
might not see error messages, making a bad situation worse.

5) How is your system set up? If you do use EWF to protect your drive,
there are a bunch of issues to be aware of, such as moving Event Logs,
the page file, and the Documents and Settings data to a non-EWF
protected drive. This means you must have two partitions on whatever
drive you have, or have two drives available... increasing complexity
of the system. (if the system is expected to run for many days without
rebooting, there will be additional issues to look at).

All of that said, XP (Embedded or Pro) is quite reliable. If you have
a device that is going to run unattended in an industrial setting, and
that you expect to be bulletproof, then you probably ought to either
use a UPS or learn more about and implement EWF or some other
'hardening' solution for XP Embedded. If you have a device that runs
in an office environment with stable power, and can trust and/or
educate your users to shut it down gracefully, then you might decide to
accept the risk of an occasional corrupted system.

Finally, one other idea that occurs to me is to use network booting.
It is possible to boot XP over the network. If your situation consists
of a networked device with dedicated servers related to your system,
then you can build diskless workstations that boot XP from a server,
and use a ramdisk to run from. This has it's own set of
advantages/disadvantages.

SteveS
stevesATeyeDASHimagingDOTcom
 
I think i can add a few ideas and opinions here. This is a complicated
issue, and I think that probably everyone here has had their XP pro
computer accidentally shut off at least once, without problems.
Thankfully, this situation is much improved since the Windows 3.1/Win95
days.

A few issues that affect whether the system survives include:

1) When did the 'ungraceful' event occur? I have read here that people
can always corrupt their system by shutting off the power at a certain
point during the power up sequence? If the system is sitting there
doing nothing, then in my experience it is quite likely there will be
no problems whatsoever.

2) What is the file system: NTFS is much more robust than FAT. (IMHO
you should always use NTFS, unless you absolutely need FAT because your
device won't boot NTFS. (Actually, if the world was perfect, I would
probably recommend that you get another computer or a BIOS upgrade so
that you can use NTFS anyhow. But, the company already bought 5,000 of
these 386-based brick computers that support 256MB of RAM only.
**Sigh**)

3) What file system activity is occurring when the power fails? If the
system is writing to the registry this can be VERY bad. (i.e. system
will require reformatting). Many times, nothing seems to happen at
all, or maybe scandisk runs at boot.

4) What XPE components do you have present? If you don't have the
scandisk tools installed, and you do develop a file system problem, how
will it get fixed? Or, if you have a non-standard display, then you
might not see error messages, making a bad situation worse.

5) How is your system set up? If you do use EWF to protect your drive,
there are a bunch of issues to be aware of, such as moving Event Logs,
the page file, and the Documents and Settings data to a non-EWF
protected drive. This means you must have two partitions on whatever
drive you have, or have two drives available... increasing complexity
of the system. (if the system is expected to run for many days without
rebooting, there will be additional issues to look at).

All of that said, XP (Embedded or Pro) is quite reliable. If you have
a device that is going to run unattended in an industrial setting, and
that you expect to be bulletproof, then you probably ought to either
use a UPS or learn more about and implement EWF or some other
'hardening' solution for XP Embedded. If you have a device that runs
in an office environment with stable power, and can trust and/or
educate your users to shut it down gracefully, then you might decide to
accept the risk of an occasional corrupted system.

Finally, one other idea that occurs to me is to use network booting.
It is possible to boot XP over the network. If your situation consists
of a networked device with dedicated servers related to your system,
then you can build diskless workstations that boot XP from a server,
and use a ramdisk to run from. This has it's own set of
advantages/disadvantages.

SteveS
stevesATeyeDASHimagingDOTcom
 
I think i can add a few ideas and opinions here. This is a complicated
issue, and I think that probably everyone here has had their XP pro
computer accidentally shut off at least once, without problems.
Thankfully, this situation is much improved since the Windows 3.1/Win95
days.

A few issues that affect whether the system survives include:

1) When did the 'ungraceful' event occur? I have read here that people
can always corrupt their system by shutting off the power at a certain
point during the power up sequence? If the system is sitting there
doing nothing, then in my experience it is quite likely there will be
no problems whatsoever.

2) What is the file system: NTFS is much more robust than FAT. (IMHO
you should always use NTFS, unless you absolutely need FAT because your
device won't boot NTFS. (Actually, if the world was perfect, I would
probably recommend that you get another computer or a BIOS upgrade so
that you can use NTFS anyhow. But, the company already bought 5,000 of
these 386-based brick computers that support 256MB of RAM only.
**Sigh**)

3) What file system activity is occurring when the power fails? If the
system is writing to the registry this can be VERY bad. (i.e. system
will require reformatting). Many times, nothing seems to happen at
all, or maybe scandisk runs at boot.

4) What XPE components do you have present? If you don't have the
scandisk tools installed, and you do develop a file system problem, how
will it get fixed? Or, if you have a non-standard display, then you
might not see error messages, making a bad situation worse.

5) How is your system set up? If you do use EWF to protect your drive,
there are a bunch of issues to be aware of, such as moving Event Logs,
the page file, and the Documents and Settings data to a non-EWF
protected drive. This means you must have two partitions on whatever
drive you have, or have two drives available... increasing complexity
of the system. (if the system is expected to run for many days without
rebooting, there will be additional issues to look at).

All of that said, XP (Embedded or Pro) is quite reliable. If you have
a device that is going to run unattended in an industrial setting, and
that you expect to be bulletproof, then you probably ought to either
use a UPS or learn more about and implement EWF or some other
'hardening' solution for XP Embedded. If you have a device that runs
in an office environment with stable power, and can trust and/or
educate your users to shut it down gracefully, then you might decide to
accept the risk of an occasional corrupted system.

Finally, one other idea that occurs to me is to use network booting.
It is possible to boot XP over the network. If your situation consists
of a networked device with dedicated servers related to your system,
then you can build diskless workstations that boot XP from a server,
and use a ramdisk to run from. This has it's own set of
advantages/disadvantages.

SteveS
stevesATeyeDASHimagingDOTcom
 
I think i can add a few ideas and opinions here. This is a complicated
issue, and I think that probably everyone here has had their XP pro
computer accidentally shut off at least once, without problems.
Thankfully, this situation is much improved since the Windows 3.1/Win95
days.

A few issues that affect whether the system survives include:

1) When did the 'ungraceful' event occur? I have read here that people
can always corrupt their system by shutting off the power at a certain
point during the power up sequence? If the system is sitting there
doing nothing, then in my experience it is quite likely there will be
no problems whatsoever.

2) What is the file system: NTFS is much more robust than FAT. (IMHO
you should always use NTFS, unless you absolutely need FAT because your
device won't boot NTFS. (Actually, if the world was perfect, I would
probably recommend that you get another computer or a BIOS upgrade so
that you can use NTFS anyhow. But, the company already bought 5,000 of
these 386-based brick computers that support 256MB of RAM only.
**Sigh**)

3) What file system activity is occurring when the power fails? If the
system is writing to the registry this can be VERY bad. (i.e. system
will require reformatting). Many times, nothing seems to happen at
all, or maybe scandisk runs at boot.

4) What XPE components do you have present? If you don't have the
scandisk tools installed, and you do develop a file system problem, how
will it get fixed? Or, if you have a non-standard display, then you
might not see error messages, making a bad situation worse.

5) How is your system set up? If you do use EWF to protect your drive,
there are a bunch of issues to be aware of, such as moving Event Logs,
the page file, and the Documents and Settings data to a non-EWF
protected drive. This means you must have two partitions on whatever
drive you have, or have two drives available... increasing complexity
of the system. (if the system is expected to run for many days without
rebooting, there will be additional issues to look at).

All of that said, XP (Embedded or Pro) is quite reliable. If you have
a device that is going to run unattended in an industrial setting, and
that you expect to be bulletproof, then you probably ought to either
use a UPS or learn more about and implement EWF or some other
'hardening' solution for XP Embedded. If you have a device that runs
in an office environment with stable power, and can trust and/or
educate your users to shut it down gracefully, then you might decide to
accept the risk of an occasional corrupted system.

Finally, one other idea that occurs to me is to use network booting.
It is possible to boot XP over the network. If your situation consists
of a networked device with dedicated servers related to your system,
then you can build diskless workstations that boot XP from a server,
and use a ramdisk to run from. This has it's own set of
advantages/disadvantages.

SteveS
stevesATeyeDASHimagingDOTcom
 
I think i can add a few ideas and opinions here. This is a complicated
issue, and I think that probably everyone here has had their XP pro
computer accidentally shut off at least once, without problems.
Thankfully, this situation is much improved since the Windows 3.1/Win95
days.

A few issues that affect whether the system survives include:

1) When did the 'ungraceful' event occur? I have read here that people
can always corrupt their system by shutting off the power at a certain
point during the power up sequence? If the system is sitting there
doing nothing, then in my experience it is quite likely there will be
no problems whatsoever.

2) What is the file system: NTFS is much more robust than FAT. (IMHO
you should always use NTFS, unless you absolutely need FAT because your
device won't boot NTFS. (Actually, if the world was perfect, I would
probably recommend that you get another computer or a BIOS upgrade so
that you can use NTFS anyhow. But, the company already bought 5,000 of
these 386-based brick computers that support 256MB of RAM only.
**Sigh**)

3) What file system activity is occurring when the power fails? If the
system is writing to the registry this can be VERY bad. (i.e. system
will require reformatting). Many times, nothing seems to happen at
all, or maybe scandisk runs at boot.

4) What XPE components do you have present? If you don't have the
scandisk tools installed, and you do develop a file system problem, how
will it get fixed? Or, if you have a non-standard display, then you
might not see error messages, making a bad situation worse.

5) How is your system set up? If you do use EWF to protect your drive,
there are a bunch of issues to be aware of, such as moving Event Logs,
the page file, and the Documents and Settings data to a non-EWF
protected drive. This means you must have two partitions on whatever
drive you have, or have two drives available... increasing complexity
of the system. (if the system is expected to run for many days without
rebooting, there will be additional issues to look at).

All of that said, XP (Embedded or Pro) is quite reliable. If you have
a device that is going to run unattended in an industrial setting, and
that you expect to be bulletproof, then you probably ought to either
use a UPS or learn more about and implement EWF or some other
'hardening' solution for XP Embedded. If you have a device that runs
in an office environment with stable power, and can trust and/or
educate your users to shut it down gracefully, then you might decide to
accept the risk of an occasional corrupted system.

Finally, one other idea that occurs to me is to use network booting.
It is possible to boot XP over the network. If your situation consists
of a networked device with dedicated servers related to your system,
then you can build diskless workstations that boot XP from a server,
and use a ramdisk to run from. This has it's own set of
advantages/disadvantages.

SteveS
stevesATeyeDASHimagingDOTcom
 
I think i can add a few ideas and opinions here. This is a complicated
issue, and I think that probably everyone here has had their XP pro
computer accidentally shut off at least once, without problems.
Thankfully, this situation is much improved since the Windows 3.1/Win95
days.

A few issues that affect whether the system survives include:

1) When did the 'ungraceful' event occur? I have read here that people
can always corrupt their system by shutting off the power at a certain
point during the power up sequence? If the system is sitting there
doing nothing, then in my experience it is quite likely there will be
no problems whatsoever.

2) What is the file system: NTFS is much more robust than FAT. (IMHO
you should always use NTFS, unless you absolutely need FAT because your
device won't boot NTFS. (Actually, if the world was perfect, I would
probably recommend that you get another computer or a BIOS upgrade so
that you can use NTFS anyhow. But, the company already bought 5,000 of
these 386-based brick computers that support 256MB of RAM only.
**Sigh**)

3) What file system activity is occurring when the power fails? If the
system is writing to the registry this can be VERY bad. (i.e. system
will require reformatting). Many times, nothing seems to happen at
all, or maybe scandisk runs at boot.

4) What XPE components do you have present? If you don't have the
scandisk tools installed, and you do develop a file system problem, how
will it get fixed? Or, if you have a non-standard display, then you
might not see error messages, making a bad situation worse.

5) How is your system set up? If you do use EWF to protect your drive,
there are a bunch of issues to be aware of, such as moving Event Logs,
the page file, and the Documents and Settings data to a non-EWF
protected drive. This means you must have two partitions on whatever
drive you have, or have two drives available... increasing complexity
of the system. (if the system is expected to run for many days without
rebooting, there will be additional issues to look at).

All of that said, XP (Embedded or Pro) is quite reliable. If you have
a device that is going to run unattended in an industrial setting, and
that you expect to be bulletproof, then you probably ought to either
use a UPS or learn more about and implement EWF or some other
'hardening' solution for XP Embedded. If you have a device that runs
in an office environment with stable power, and can trust and/or
educate your users to shut it down gracefully, then you might decide to
accept the risk of an occasional corrupted system.

Finally, one other idea that occurs to me is to use network booting.
It is possible to boot XP over the network. If your situation consists
of a networked device with dedicated servers related to your system,
then you can build diskless workstations that boot XP from a server,
and use a ramdisk to run from. This has it's own set of
advantages/disadvantages.

SteveS
stevesATeyeDASHimagingDOTcom
 
arrgh! I accidentally posted the same thing five times! Sorry. I
removed all but the latest in google, but I don't know if that removes
them from the real usenet newsgroup or not. Aargh.

Steves
 
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