Do tell how system restore overrides a corrupted HDD filesystem.
Never said it would. It may well have helped with the
partitions ending up with duplicated entrys in some apps tho.
The resolution for that is what he is already doing,
continually restoring a backup and losing any
data/changes/etc made in the interim.
Duh.
Nope, working out what is corrupting the MFT, hardware or
****ed OS install, since it cant be one of the apps he runs now.
Well there's that part about running it...
which is more than can be said about XP.
Wrong again. He can run XP just like he runs 2K now if he wants to.
Why would we need to use the files and settings
transfer wizard to see if that fixes the problem?
Because that is the easiest way to do a clean OS install, stupid.
Clean OS install will certainly fix it,
You dont know that. It could be a hardware problem.
only through trying to move this frankensteined
2K installation to XP without control over exactly
what's being added, would it tend to allow
unresolvable reoccurance of the problem.
Mindless silly stuff when its a clean install of XP, not an upgrade.
Its actually significantly easier to try a clean OS install with XP
instead of 2K, just because the wizard isnt available with 2K.
And if he still gets the MFT corruption after using the wizard, he
can try another clean install of XP, dont migrate any of the apps
at all and see if he still gets the corruption of the MFT. If he
doesnt he can cut to the chase and manually install those apps then.
Corse he's so bone headed that he wont do that, because
he so bone headed that he would prefer to waste MUCH
more time over the next year or so fixing the corrupted MFT
manually every week than to manually install the apps again.
To put it another way, IF he chooses to go with XP,
IMO he should not use that wizard until after he has
first tried mergining a few registry keys, leaving it
alone for testing, then adding the application files.
It would be better to not bother with any registry keys
at all, just see whether a clean install of XP corrupts
the MFT when running ImPerfect Disk. That would be
one way of completely eliminating any possibility of a
hardware problem being the cause of the corrupted MFT.
Corse he's so bone headed that he wont even try that VERY easy test either.
The least additions and changes at first will
make it easier to see if the cause is reproduced.
Yes, but it makes more sense to try the virgin XP install
first when its so easy to use ImPerfect Disk to see if it
corrupts the MFT since it does with the 2K install.
I know that the odds are, with over 100 apps
carried over from several years pre-2K era, there
will be more than a couple things needing attention.
You dont even know how many of the apps are actually that old.
Problem is Bob wants a comprehensive overview of what
these things will be when we haven't even seen his system,
left alone tried to migrate that particular combo of old and
problematic software and/or settings.
The real problem is that he's so bone headed that he
is actually stupid enough to prefer to manually repair
the MFT corruption weekly, over more than a year,
instead of even trying the most basic test like checking
if a clean virgin XP install sees any MFT corruption.
Presumably thats what saw him getting the
bums rush from his last paid employment.
Yes most things that'll run on 2k will on XP too, but that
doesn't mean the XP wizard can get it all working without
software reinstallation, user config, and possibly hidden
key/validations recreation.
Never said it is guaranteed to. In fact I repeatedly said that
the worst that might happen is that a few apps might have
to be dont manually. Its very unlikely to be more than a few tho.
I won't rule it out but it's quite doubtful considering
the duplicate volume entries shown in windows.
Those dont show in Win, only in a couple of his apps.
Even if this is true, with XP there's validation
and escalated checking for patch purposes...
Not if you have a clue and use a corporate XP.
so we'd have to suppose he's inclined to hack that out
when he isn't even wanting to reinstall windows at all.
You dont need to if you have enough of a clue to use a corporate XP.
Corse its a big ask to assume he actually has a clue about
anything at all or have enough viable between his ears to
be able to even accept that recommended approach either.
If he doesn't configure or make use of anything else in XP over
2k, thus no learning, then XP's only benefit may be the wizard.
Wrong, there are quite a few other conveniences too. Many
of them just see XP making it harder for stupids to do things
dangerously and others just making life easier like with the
completely automatic detection and appropriate app launching
when you plug in stuff as basic as a camera etc even if he's
such a dinosaur that he would touch an ipod if you paid him etc.
Quite an expense just to get a wizard.
No expense whatever if you choose not to pay for it.
Then again, he's been going on about Vista, and buying XP right now
from the right vendors might get him an upgrade coupon for vista,
He doesnt appear to buy any software that its possible to download.
so at least XP's cost is contributory towards another goal he has,
regardless of whether we feel his aging system is a good vista candidate.
I bet vista is just more talk and he wont ever buy it.
yes, but presumably for what he has/had, NT/2K.
We can't really ignore than jumping into (probably SP2
revision of) XP may require some updates to these.
No big deal if that only involves a couple/few.
Maybe not, but remember that Bob is trying
to use a crystal ball to see everything possible.
That's just his excuse to justify actually doing anything
except continuing to waste heaps of time manually
repairing the MFT corruption weekly, and the cloning
that has to be done at a high rate because that happens.
He's actually too stupid to use TI's incremental backups.
Only if you assumed a magic wizard is a cure-all,
Doesnt have to be a cure all, ALL it needs to do is substantially
reduce the number of apps that need to be manually configured.
otherwise he may have similar tasks to do PLUS the wizard with XP,
Mindlessly silly.
though it'll transfer user preferences instead of that manually-
Which alone is a substantial saving of effort.
though that is not so production inhibiting
as not having any vital software working.
Its completely trivial to try the XP wizard and see if
that very unlikely outcome happens and reconsider the
migration to XP if that does fix the MFT corruption problem.
And doing that by cloning at the high rate that needs to be done
because of the high rate of MFT corruption is alone one hell of a
lot more effort than even manually doing a clean install of 2K.
what would you claim a system restore would do for him
over an entire partition backup from the same moment in time?
If the clean install of XP doesnt see any MFT corruption,
it would allow him to do the backups at a much lower rate
and while he is too stupid to actually use TI incremental
backups instead for the effortlessness of those, it would
allow him to do a system restore when something else
goes pear shaped in the future, as its absolutely guaranteed
to do given the terminal stupidity of so much of what he does.
System restores are MUCH faster than restoring by cloning.
Apparently he doesn't have any such event to fall back
on, so a system restore now is a day (ok, Years...) late,
Yes, but he's learnt his lesson from that one. He
didnt have the clone backups for that one either.
and preempted by the full partition backups he'll most certainly
want to make if he has any hope of painlessly salvaging what's
left on the drive after this continual corruptive cycle.
Yes, but if the XP install does eliminate the MFT corruption,
he may well stop cloning at such a high rate, and then he
will benefit from being able to do a system restore when he
****s up in the future, and that is absolutely guaranteed to
happen given the terminal stupidity of so much of what he does.
... except for the things that don't (then)
work, requiring the other steps anyway.
It always works fine when using it from one XP install to another.
If he wants XP, ok, but at this point the problem
is not which OS he chooses, it's that he hasn't
started a replacement installation of either.
Yes, but doing a clean install with XP is sure to require much
less effort because of the wizard, so its more likely that it will
eventually get thru his thick skull that its worth trying, if only
to avoid the effort of manually repairing the MFT corruption
weekly, with the the real risk that it might end up fanging
him on the arse very comprehensively indeed one day.
He isnt completely stupid, he did manage to grasp the need for backups.
He's got one hell of a capacity for painting himself into a corner and
did so with that stupid raid approach and kept adamently insisting
that it was working fine until even he managed to realise that it wasnt.
Its going to be interesting to see if he actually is so stupid as to
continue to manually repair the MFT corruption weekly for another
year or two. Corse he wont have the balls to admit that now.
