Error: INACCESSIBLE BOOT RECORD

[Rod Speed]

Yes. It is the only OS I have used with DIP.

I restored once before without any problems.

Maybe you booted the copy in between the successful
restore and the one that failed. That can change whats
in the copy when 2K can see both copys at boot time.

Or maybe the restore of the copy doesnt restore everything.
Thats fine when the original isnt corrupted but once it got
corrupted, something that doesnt get restored didnt get fixed.

I just got Everest Home so I will try it out.

I am using the same mouse now and it has
not caused *any* problems whatsoever.

I tried an old mouse that was good and it did
not work when I was having mouse problems.

My son tried my mouse in his machine and it worked fine.

OK, that wasnt clear from your original. Hard to see how a
dust in the power supply could produce that set of symptoms.

And the memory stick list problem too.

I am an old DOS assembly hack from the early days of
computing (like back in the mid 1960s). I did not know what
a mouse was until PARC invented it and Bill Gates stole it.

He didnt steal it, he never claimed he had invented it.

It didnt invent the basic dos command line structures either,
they mostly came from DEC OSs which is hardly surprising
given that he used a PDP10 before he got involved with PCs.

Good to know. I thought I had pushed just
about every possible one to get a right click.

If my speculation about a flaky PS is correct

Unlikely given the mouse detail and the list of memory sticks.
Hard to see how either could be due dust in the power supply.

it is possible that the layoff I made the previous week was
contaminated and when I restored it Win2K got fussy.
Sure.

That was the only thing I did besides running the
a/c that is different - and now the machine runs fine.

Maybe the temp difference is the real effect.

Thats the problem with intermittent faults, they can
be a real bear to pin down whats causing them,
particularly if the fault doesnt show up very often.

I cant see its dirt in the power supply because others in
Houston dont get that problem and I cant see how that
would produce the mouse and memory stick list effects.

I once had an old 286 system that had a flaky
PS. That's what reminded me to clean this one.

I've never had one, likely over a lot more systems than you have used.

I suppose I could try to boot the archive disk to see what
is going on. But until I am convinced the current system
is stable, I do not want to touch that disk because it is
the only "good" archive I have - even if I have to use Win2K
install Upgrade Repair to get it to work after restoring.

Yeah, I wouldnt play around with it until it becomes clearer
that the intermittent fault isnt going to return any time soon.

They hardly ever stay away forever and I would
personally replace the PS because they are so cheap.

I'd replace the ribbon cable to the boot drive too for the same reason.

BTW, as a side question about the Upgrade Repair (aka "In-Place
Upgrade") capability of Win2K Pro Install. Just to make sure I am
communicating this correctly it is referenced in KB article

If I build a completely different machine, can I use Win2K In-Place
Upgrade to make my current disk work on the new machine?
Yes.

From watching the progress screens I got the impression
that Win2K Installation was assessing the hardware and
reinstalling the drivers that were appropriate.

Yes, that is correct.

If so, then it should be able to assess the new
machine and make my current Win2K system work.
Yes.

This is what frustrates me - I do not like smoke and mirrors.
I am an embedded systems developer and I know *everything*
that goes on in any system I design down to the last hiccup.

Trouble is that modern OSs are MUCH
more complex than embedded systems.

Here we are trying to figure out what should be very
simple but thanks to Windows it is being kept from us.

Well, not very well documented, anyway.

Some of that is deliberate, most obviously with NTFS, and some if it aint.

But what is it?

The only real way to prove that is to take a snapshot of the
restored 2K that refuses to boot, repair that using the 2K CD
and then see what that actually changed. Thats not going to be
a trivial exercise tho since 2K changes so much when repairing.

If I didn't value that archive so much - albeit
somewhat broken - I would run CHKDSK on it.

Its unlikely that that would make it bootable.

That was one of the recommendations in the blue screen.

For a different situation, when the drive got corrupted.

I did not boot from it sp I really do not know if
the archive was laid off without any problems.

I do not see how, but I do see that it is possible.

There's a known problem with not all of what is needed to
boot the NT/2K/XP family being restored by stuff like DIP.

Only once before and I had no problems that I can recall.

Maybe you booted the copy, maybe unintentionally.

Thats a known problem with the NT/2K/XP, booting the
copy with both the original and the copy visible to the OS
at boot time on the first boot of the copy. Usually seen
when upgrading the boot drive to a bigger drive.

The trick is to unplug the original drive for the first boot
of the copy and the OS notices that its been moved to
a new drive and fixes the boot detail by itself.

It gets very confused if it can see both the original and the copy.

I will try that. I really do not like DIP - too clunky.

Yeah, and obsolete now that Symantec has bought PowerQuest.

I have never restored an archive more than once, and then
only on two occasions - once in the past and once now.

Yeah, it would be interesting to test carefully.

That's good to know because if true it means my hardware is OK.

No it doesnt, you havent changed any hardware since
the drive got corrupted so that was most likely an
intermittent fault that will almost certainly return.

It could easily be a flakey motherboard. Hard to see
how any PS fault could produce the mouse symptom.

But why would the RAM be reported incorrectly by POST

Has it ever been reported correctly ?
That may just be a wart in the bios.

and why would my mouse act flaky?

Precisely. Thats almost certainly a flakey motherboard.

It was a cheap PS.

I've almost always used cheap PSs. Just recently bought one
a bit up from the cheapest when one of the cheapest cases
happened to have a very quiet PS and I chose to get another
when the test system ended up irritatingly noisey once I moved
to Samsung hard drives which are completely silent, and the
latest intel cpu was so quite that I had to check carefully to see
that the cpu was spinning when I first installed it it was so quiet.

When I finally replaced it with something decent the problem went away.

Sure, PSs certainly can be flakey, just like everything else can be.

Shit happens to the best of us.

It does indeed, in spades with computers.

Yes - and turning on the air conditioner.

I don't either but that's what happened.

I still dont believe that the mouse problem
could be caused by dirt in the PS.

I thought WD had a low-level formatter for their drives.

A few manufacturers do call them that, but they dont actually do
a low level format at all. The drive cant do one with modern drives.
It actually does defect management and they call it a low level
formatter because that has some meaning for some and its too
hard to explain exactly what it does in a simple description of a ute.

 

[Rod Speed]

How do I right click on the Start Button?
Dunno.

I use that to get to Explore.

Just get that directly using Win+E

 

[Jeremy Boden]

....
Is there a recommended list of crossposts that are widely used?

Yes - no crossposts!

 

[Bob]

Yes - no crossposts!

Why not if they are all the same kind of NG?

--

Map of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy
http://home.houston.rr.com/rkba/vrwc.html

"The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.
All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and
denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the
country to danger. It works the same way in any country."
--Hermann Goering

 

[Rod Speed]

I was not talking about this thread.

I was talking about future threads.
OK.

Is there a recommended list of crossposts that are widely used?

Fraid not, and it depends on the question being asked.

 

[Bob]

Or maybe the restore of the copy doesnt restore everything.
Thats fine when the original isnt corrupted but once it got
corrupted, something that doesnt get restored didnt get fixed.

It was my impression that Disk Image Pro created a 100% xerox clone of
the source HD on the target HD. If so, then the two disks are
interchangeable in terms of their content.

OK, that wasnt clear from your original. Hard to see how a
dust in the power supply could produce that set of symptoms.

In the instance with that old 286 system, the machine would stop
running.

And the memory stick list problem too.

Could it have been excess heat? That's the only other thing that is
different environmentally.

It didnt invent the basic dos command line structures either,
they mostly came from DEC OSs which is hardly surprising
given that he used a PDP10 before he got involved with PCs.

So did the developers that MS hired.

Unlikely given the mouse detail and the list of memory sticks.
Hard to see how either could be due dust in the power supply.

Fluctuating power?

Maybe the temp difference is the real effect.

Could be although it never happened before.

They hardly ever stay away forever and I would
personally replace the PS because they are so cheap.

I am tyhinking about doing that.

Yes.

Hot Damn! Now I am going to build another machine for sure. I have
held off all these years because I do not want the agony of having to
rebuild my system. I do not remember all the details of how I
installed/configured things I use now.

The only real way to prove that is to take a snapshot of the
restored 2K that refuses to boot, repair that using the 2K CD
and then see what that actually changed. Thats not going to be
a trivial exercise tho since 2K changes so much when repairing.

Maybe 20 years ago I would tackle something like that just for the fun
of it. But now that I am early retired, I want to spend time on more
enjoyable things.

There's a known problem with not all of what is needed to
boot the NT/2K/XP family being restored by stuff like DIP.

Then DIP does not make a 100% clone?

It gets very confused if it can see both the original and the copy.

I only had one copy in the machine.

Yeah, and obsolete now that Symantec has bought PowerQuest.

Another company gets gobbled up. Symantec is worse than AOL, if that's
possible.

No it doesnt, you havent changed any hardware since
the drive got corrupted so that was most likely an
intermittent fault that will almost certainly return.

It could easily be a flakey motherboard. Hard to see
how any PS fault could produce the mouse symptom.

What would cause a MB to get flaky other than dirt and/or heat?

Has it ever been reported correctly ?

It has always reported correctly.

Precisely. Thats almost certainly a flakey motherboard.

Now I am getting really worried.

I've almost always used cheap PSs.

I was talking about late 1980s.

Just recently bought one

a bit up from the cheapest when one of the cheapest cases
happened to have a very quiet PS and I chose to get another
when the test system ended up irritatingly noisey once I moved
to Samsung hard drives which are completely silent,

My WD Caviar drives make a sound when heavily accessed but nothing
irritating. When not being accessed they are very quiet.

and the
latest intel cpu was so quite that I had to check carefully to see
that the cpu was spinning when I first installed it it was so quiet.

I have used AMD CPUs and they were never noisy. Is there such a thing
as a noisy CPU and if so what does it sound like?

A few manufacturers do call them that, but they dont actually do
a low level format at all. The drive cant do one with modern drives.
It actually does defect management and they call it a low level
formatter because that has some meaning for some and its too
hard to explain exactly what it does in a simple description of a ute.

It sounds like I will be getting new drives when I build the new
machine.


--

Map of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy
http://home.houston.rr.com/rkba/vrwc.html

"The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.
All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and
denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the
country to danger. It works the same way in any country."
--Hermann Goering

 

[Rod Speed]

Why not if they are all the same kind of NG?

Some fools hate them.

They do make a lot more sense than separate posts in the
newsgroups it would be crossposted to. Crossposting means that
when its read in one of the groups, it gets marked as read in the
other groups by any decent news reader which works much better
if a particular individual reads more than one of the groups in the list.

 

[Rod Speed]

Speaking of hardware NGs, which are good for
recommending components for building a new machine?

I normally use groups specific to the particular item
being considered, a dvd specific group when adding a new
dvd burner for example, or a video group for video cards.

Quite a few of the motherboard manufacturers
have groups specific to that manufacturer.

I could use some recommendations and caveats.

I usually use groups.google for that, searching
on the specific model number that I am considering
to see what comments have been made about it.
That approach means that you dont need to know
what groups discuss that item most, and you can
get some surprises on that with groups.google.

But then I read widely anyway so I am often aware of the
dogs before I need to decide what to buy for a new PC etc.

 

[Bob]

Just get that directly using Win+E

Cool.

--

Map of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy
http://home.houston.rr.com/rkba/vrwc.html

"The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.
All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and
denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the
country to danger. It works the same way in any country."
--Hermann Goering

 

[Bob]

I normally use groups specific to the particular item
being considered, a dvd specific group when adding a new
dvd burner for example, or a video group for video cards.

Quite a few of the motherboard manufacturers
have groups specific to that manufacturer.

I have not decided the manufacturers yet.

But then I read widely anyway so I am often aware of the
dogs before I need to decide what to buy for a new PC etc.

My criterion for a new machine is to optimize the performance vs price
as reasonably as possible - and that includes reliability over a
period spanning at least 5 years.

For example, there is always a particular model processor that gives
the most for the money in terms of performance. Maybe it's the AMD in
the 2 GHz range. Anything slower may cost less but the performance
falls off faster than price. Anything faster increases price faster
than speed. You get the idea.

What manufacturers do you recommend for:

CPU and MB. Once I decide on those I can pretty much put the rest
together for myself.

I want integrated video, sound and LAN on the MB. I will provide CPU,
RAM, HDs, etc. compatible with the MB.

My uses are simple - no games, no graphics. I can get by with a "lower
performance" machine as long as it can run multiple tasks without
bogging down. I am running a 500 MHz AMD K6-II with 384 MB and it is a
bit slow at times but otherwise gets the job done. If I got a 2 GHz
CPU I would have all the processing power I would ever need.

I have a bunch of PC100 RAM, so is it possible that I can get a decent
MB that will use it and still offer performance and integrated voice,
sound and LAN?



--

Map of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy
http://home.houston.rr.com/rkba/vrwc.html

"The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.
All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and
denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the
country to danger. It works the same way in any country."
--Hermann Goering

 

[Rod Speed]

It was my impression that Disk Image Pro created a
100% xerox clone of the source HD on the target HD.

Thats not necessarily true if you copy
a PARTITION and not a physical drive.

If so, then the two disks are interchangeable in terms of their content.

In the instance with that old 286 system, the machine would stop running.

Separate issue entirely to the CURRENT failure.

Its very unlikely indeed that dust in the PS
can produce the symptoms you say you saw,
particularly the mouse and the memory stick list.

Could it have been excess heat?

Yes, particularly if that memory stick list error was
only recent and it did report it correctly previously.

That's the only other thing that is different environmentally.

Yeah, thats what I said a few overs ago, that it did get a
chance to cool down when you blew the dirt out of the PS
with compressed air, presumably with the system turned off.

So did the developers that MS hired.
Correct.

Fluctuating power?

Hard to believe that only the mouse would be affected by that.

Could be although it never happened before.

Sure, and it could be that the motherboard has developed a fault too.

Thats not at all uncommon, there is a real problem with
the electrolytic capacitors going bad over time, basically
a design problem that's bedevilled the electronics industry.

That problem is often visible, the caps are normally blue
or black plastic colored post like things sticking up from
the motherboard vertically and if any of those is misshaped
or the tops arent flat, or visibily leaking, its likely the problem.

I am tyhinking about doing that.

Hot Damn! Now I am going to build another machine for sure.

Yeah, I never have just one myself, makes like so
much simpler when a fault develops. And you can use
the spare to buy the replacement if it drops dead etc.

I have held off all these years because I do not want the
agony of having to rebuild my system. I do not remember
all the details of how I installed/configured things I use now.

Yeah, I basically document the non
obvious stuff so that I can redo it easily.

Maybe 20 years ago I would tackle something like
that just for the fun of it. But now that I am early
retired, I want to spend time on more enjoyable things.

I still find that sort of diagnostic stuff
interesting and I am likely older than you.

That particular diagnosis would be a lot of work tho.

I've basically just concentrated on testing what approach needs
to be taken to create a bootable copy every time instead of
trying to work out exactly what the OS is doing in that situation.

Then DIP does not make a 100% clone?

Not if you just clone the partition and not always when
you clone the entire drive either. And even a perfect clone
isnt always enough with as sophisticated an OS as the
NT/2K/XP family which puts its own unique identifier on
physical drives, so you move them around on the controllers
and the OS can work out what you have done and keep the
drive letter constant over significant reconfigs.

Its a hell of a lot more complicated than it first looks.

I only had one copy in the machine.

You always had the original and the copy tho.

Another company gets gobbled up.

Yeah, it wouldnt have been allowed in my country.

Symantec is worse than AOL, if that's possible.

Yeah, but then it bought ghost in too, it didnt write it from scratch.

What would cause a MB to get flaky other than dirt and/or heat?

That capacitor failure over time is the main cause of MB failure.

You can also get dry joints with any soldered electronic device too.

And cracked traces too with any system that uses printed circuit boards.

It has always reported correctly.

OK, then its likely the motherboard has gone flakey.

Now I am getting really worried.

Main consolation is that they dont cost a lot and you will get much
better performance with a new one and new cpu and memory.

I was talking about late 1980s.

So was I. I've been involved with PCs ever since they were
invented and way before that with minis, mostly DEC minis.

My WD Caviar drives make a sound when
heavily accessed but nothing irritating.

They can develop the most awful bearing howl.

When not being accessed they are very quiet.

Not as quiet as the samsungs. Those are so quiet that I
had to check that the drive was actually spinning up when
I installed the first one, with the covers off the case etc.

And no, I havent gone deaf in my dotage |-)

I did use WDs before I changed to samsungs and thats the
main source of noise in the HTPC now that I got a quiet power
supply for it and it always had a nice quiet intel cpu and fan.

I'm just waiting for the samsung 250G drives to be
buyable and that WD will be pensioned off so the
HTPC will be close to silent even with the covers off.

I have used AMD CPUs and they were never noisy.

Lot noisier than the best of the Intels.

Is there such a thing as a noisy CPU and if so what does it sound like?

The worst of them sound like a jet engine spinning up.

It sounds like I will be getting new drives when I build the new machine.

Yeah, they're so cheap you'd be mad not to. Also
gives a noticeable improvement in normal use too.

 

[Rod Speed]

I have not decided the manufacturers yet.

I normally decide that first with motherboards.

I avoid Gigabyte because they release stuff too early
in my opinion and you get an utterly bizarre variety of
revision levels in the pcb and the flashrom code.

I basically stick to Asus unless its a very cheap and high
performance motherboard from someone else that looks interesting.

My criterion for a new machine is to optimize the
performance vs price as reasonably as possible

Yeah, thats basically my criterion too.

- and that includes reliability over a period spanning at least 5 years.

Thats a hell of a lot harder to quantify, basically because
by the time its had that much history, the world has moved
on very dramatically indeed with a particular manufacturer.

They may not even be around anymore by the time
you decide that they did produce reliable components.

For example, there is always a particular model processor
that gives the most for the money in terms of performance.
Maybe it's the AMD in the 2 GHz range.

I dont believe there much in that personally.

I basically stuck to Intel Celerons because they are
noticeably quieter than AMDs, but the most recent intel
cpus with the Prescott cores get much too hot for my
taste and the AMD Sempron looked worth considering.

Anything slower may cost less but the
performance falls off faster than price.

I normally buy the cheapest currently available
and thats normally plenty fast enough for
anything I do expect transcoding video files.

Anything faster increases price faster than speed. You get the idea.

Sure, but I'm not convinced that the best
value is up from the slowest buyable cpu.

What manufacturers do you recommend for:

CPU and MB.

See above.

Once I decide on those I can pretty much put the rest together for myself.

I personally think its worth sticking to Pioneer DVD burners unless
you must have DVD-RAM capability. Much more bulletproof as far
as the media and readability on DVD players is concerned.

I want integrated video, sound and LAN on the MB.

Thats close to univeral now.

I will provide CPU, RAM, HDs, etc. compatible with the MB.

I make the cpu choice first, then choose the motherboard
that supports it, and that then determines the ram.

With the drives, I stick with samsungs now for the silence
and am currently avoiding the SATA format because the
physical connector is badly designed, much too fragile.

My uses are simple - no games, no graphics.
I can get by with a "lower performance" machine as
long as it can run multiple tasks without bogging down.

Even the slowest buyable cpu will do that fine.

I am running a 500 MHz AMD K6-II with 384 MB and it
is a bit slow at times but otherwise gets the job done.

You'll be surprised at how much better a new system performs.

If I got a 2 GHz CPU I would have all
the processing power I would ever need.

Likely, unless you get into transcoding video files.

I'm just in the process of ditching the VCRs,
using a digital capture cards for the PC instead.

The files arent that small, 3-4G per hour is typical and if you
want to crunch them back to say a 500MB divx avi, that needs
considerable PC horsepower to do in a reasonable time.

I have a bunch of PC100 RAM, so is it possible that
I can get a decent MB that will use it and still offer
performance and integrated voice, sound and LAN?

There were a few motherboards that did support those as
well as the more recent format but they arent very common
at all anymore so its better to not limit yourself so drastically
on motherboard choice. Even 512MB dimms are as cheap
as chips now. Peanuts in the cost of the new system.

 

[Bob]

I basically stick to Asus unless its a very cheap and high
performance motherboard from someone else that looks interesting.

Asus is very popular at our local dicsount retailer, Directron. That's
where we buy all our components. It's about a 10 minute drive from our
house.

I basically stuck to Intel Celerons because they are
noticeably quieter than AMDs, but the most recent intel
cpus with the Prescott cores get much too hot for my
taste

My son built his latest machine with a 3 GHz Prescot P-4. Even with
the Retail Box cooler it got too hot. So he put on a Zalman 7700
cooler. http://www.directron.com/cnps7700cu.html

I normally buy the cheapest currently available
and thats normally plenty fast enough for
anything I do expect transcoding video files.

That's why my son got the 3 GHz. He literally burnt out two other
machines doing that - fried the CPUs.

I personally think its worth sticking to Pioneer DVD burners unless
you must have DVD-RAM capability. Much more bulletproof as far
as the media and readability on DVD players is concerned.

My son bought the Sony burner. He says it works great and is cheap.

http://www.directron.com/directron/dwd26ab.html

With the drives, I stick with samsungs now for the silence
and am currently avoiding the SATA format because the
physical connector is badly designed, much too fragile.

I have always used WD because they are very reliable.


--

Map of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy
http://home.houston.rr.com/rkba/vrwc.html

"The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.
All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and
denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the
country to danger. It works the same way in any country."
--Hermann Goering

 

[Bob]

Yes, particularly if that memory stick list error was
only recent and it did report it correctly previously.

Then that must be it. I have the case open now with a fan blowing air
directly onto the MB. The CPU runs no hotter than 43C and the MB no
hotter than 32C (according to Motherboard Monitor I have installed).

That problem is often visible, the caps are normally blue
or black plastic colored post like things sticking up from
the motherboard vertically and if any of those is misshaped
or the tops arent flat, or visibily leaking, its likely the problem.

I will look for that.

Yeah, I basically document the non
obvious stuff so that I can redo it easily.

I used to do that but it ended up being too much work so I quit doing
it. I ended up with over 10 handwritten pages for an old NT4 install
alone. But then those were the fun days when you had to fetch drivers
yourself and none of them worked.

I've basically just concentrated on testing what approach needs
to be taken to create a bootable copy every time instead of
trying to work out exactly what the OS is doing in that situation.

I am going to install a removeable drive bay for the boot device so I
can swap cloned disks easily. I have one such bay now but it is not
for the boot device.

I am thinking of the Enermax 352 RAID System.
http://www.directron.com/directron/es352b.html

It purports to solve all my backup problems in hardware.

Not if you just clone the partition and not always when
you clone the entire drive either. And even a perfect clone
isnt always enough with as sophisticated an OS as the
NT/2K/XP family which puts its own unique identifier on
physical drives, so you move them around on the controllers
and the OS can work out what you have done and keep the
drive letter constant over significant reconfigs.

Yet another reason to do backups with hardware.

You always had the original and the copy tho.

Not when I rebooted. I took the source out of the removeable drive bay
immediately after doing the layoff. I am paranoid about screwing it up
with an OS malfunction.

Yeah, it wouldnt have been allowed in my country.

What country is that?

OK, then its likely the motherboard has gone flakey.

Time to build a new machine.

Main consolation is that they dont cost a lot and you will get much
better performance with a new one and new cpu and memory.

Indeed. Six years is enough to get out of one machine.

As I mentioned the real reason I have hesitated to build a new machine
is having to rebuild my operating system. But now that I know Windows
will do an IPU on new hardware, I no longer have an excuse to put it
off.

So was I. I've been involved with PCs ever since they were
invented and way before that with minis, mostly DEC minis.

My first computer was an IBM 7094 in the mid 1960s when I was in grad
school.

They can develop the most awful bearing howl.

The PS fan is the most obnoxious when it does that.

Yeah, they're so cheap you'd be mad not to. Also
gives a noticeable improvement in normal use too.

I would need 3 if I implemented RAID 1 - two for the mirror and one
for the archive.



--

Map of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy
http://home.houston.rr.com/rkba/vrwc.html

"The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.
All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and
denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the
country to danger. It works the same way in any country."
--Hermann Goering

 

[Jiminy]

Especially if the stop error is 0x0000007B.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;122926
Troubleshooting STOP: 0x0000007B or '0x4,0,0,0' Error


best,

Jiminy

 

[Rod Speed]

I am going to install a removeable drive bay for
the boot device so I can swap cloned disks easily.

I dont care for those myself. They flout the ATA standard
and can produce problems themselves because they do.

I have one such bay now but it is not for the boot device.

And that is one other possibility, that its the removable drive
bay that produced the original problem with restoring the copy.

I am thinking of the Enermax 352 RAID System.
http://www.directron.com/directron/es352b.html

It purports to solve all my backup problems in hardware.

Like I said, it flouts the ATA standard and I dont do that myself.

If you do want to go that route, get an SATA version,
that doesnt flout the standard. But if you tend to break
things, thats got some downsides too, the SATA
connector is very badly designed, MUCH too fragile.

Yet another reason to do backups with hardware.

Thats got its downsides too.

What country is that?
Australia.

Time to build a new machine.

Yeah, the current one is getting a tad elderly now.

I still have one of those dinosaurs in use, but its only in the kitchen now.

Indeed. Six years is enough to get out of one machine.
Yep.

As I mentioned the real reason I have hesitated to build a new machine
is having to rebuild my operating system. But now that I know Windows
will do an IPU on new hardware, I no longer have an excuse to put it off.
True.

My first computer was an IBM 7094 in
the mid 1960s when I was in grad school.

Yeah, me too. And a PDP8S, the serial one, that I used
to measure fluorescent decay to sub nS levels driving a
sampling CRO. Crunched the numbers on the IBM.

The PS fan is the most obnoxious when it does that.

Dunno, I guess its because the data is on the hard
drive, it always grates on my nerves even worse,
even tho I know its irrelevant to the data on the drive.

I would need 3 if I implemented RAID 1
- two for the mirror and one for the archive.

RAID1 has its own downsides.

 

[Rod Speed]

My son built his latest machine with a 3 GHz Prescot P-4. Even
with the Retail Box cooler it got too hot. So he put on a Zalman
7700 cooler. http://www.directron.com/cnps7700cu.html

Yeah, but I dont care for the noise. My current
main system, with a Northwood core, is essentially
completely silent and thats with the covers off too.

The only real problem with that system is that its so quiet
that the test system, which is the previous main system,
is irritatingly noisy now, even tho I tolerated that for years.

That's why my son got the 3 GHz. He literally burnt
out two other machines doing that - fried the CPUs.

That shouldnt have happened if it had adequate
cooling. The problem with the Prescotts is the
max inlet air temp. That not easy to ensure.

My son bought the Sony burner. He says it works great and is cheap.
http://www.directron.com/directron/dwd26ab.html

The Panasonic 109 with 1.40 firmware is rather more bulletproof
as far as the media and compat with DVD players is concerned.

I have always used WD because they are very reliable.

Many are finding that they arent anymore. And WD
tells you to drop dead if you break the SATA connector.

And samsung and seagate have 3 and 5 year warrantys respectively.

WD weasels on that.

 

[Bob]

Yeah, but I dont care for the noise.

It is noisy. But he doesn't mind since he plays loud music on it.

That shouldnt have happened if it had adequate
cooling. The problem with the Prescotts is the
max inlet air temp. That not easy to ensure.

He has 3 fans - front, back and side. The CPU got to 75C when
converting DVD rips for layoff and he was worried because he literally
fried two old Acer systems someone gave him to play with. So for a few
bucks he now runs cool - albeit somewhat noisy. There is a fan speed
control but Directron did not install it and he is not going to fool
with it because noise is not a problem for him.

The Panasonic 109 with 1.40 firmware is rather more bulletproof
as far as the media and compat with DVD players is concerned.

His unit cost a bit over $50 and it does dual layer. It has not caused
him any problems and he has ripped/burned several hundred DVDs with
it. The only problem he has is the conversion/compression utility he
uses most of the time can sometimes let crap in and then the copy
won't play. Usually that's caused by a library DVD. I swear the idiots
who check out library DVDs must use them to train their dog to fetch.

Many are finding that they arent anymore. And WD
tells you to drop dead if you break the SATA connector.

I won't touch SATA - too many years of being serial number one and
paying the price for it. Let the pioneers wear the arrow shirts.

And samsung and seagate have 3 and 5 year warrantys respectively.

I just looked it up on Directron and it's actually a bit cheaper than
the equivalent WD drive. It is ATA1333 whereas the WD is ATA100.

So I will consider switching to Samsung based on your recommendation.

http://www.directron.com/directron/sp8004h.html

http://www.directron.com/wd800jb.html

WD weasels on that.

That always happens when a company dominates the market.

I remember calling the developers at Microsoft back in the 1980s to
chat about their assembler and C compiler. I found a bug in Quick C
and they confirmed it, which entitled me to a free upgrade. I asked
the guy if I could have the full C Compiler instead and he said OK. I
got a $600 compiler for free.

Those were the days when computing was really a joy.

 

[Bob]

I dont care for those myself. They flout the ATA standard
and can produce problems themselves because they do.

My son has that one and he uses it for hig 250GB HD with no problems
whatsoever. It claims ATA 66/100/133.

http://www.directron.com/kf23.html

And that is one other possibility, that its the removable drive
bay that produced the original problem with restoring the copy.

I used an older model bay for that.

Like I said, it flouts the ATA standard and I dont do that myself.

I checked up on that unit and the vendors I talked with claim they
have had no problems with it. I have yet to talk to Directron,
however, and they have the final say as far as I am concerned because
they do an incredible volume of business. I believe they get over
10,000 hits per day to their website.

If you do want to go that route, get an SATA version,
that doesnt flout the standard. But if you tend to break
things, thats got some downsides too, the SATA
connector is very badly designed, MUCH too fragile.

I will stick with PATA for now.

I still have one of those dinosaurs in use, but its only in the kitchen now.

I will keep it as a backup machine. I have a spare port on my router
that I can hook it to and do a refresh of new files now and then.

RAID1 has its own downsides.

I may use that Enermax box to make archives by removing the mirror
disk each week and putting it back in a week later to build a new
mirror for archiving. I don't see any need for dynamic mirroring -
just disaster recovery backup once a week.

The reason for using that unit instead of a software approach is that
I can plug in the second drive hot and remove it hot after the mirror
is built. IOW, it is effortless - I do not have to dedicate a special
time to do the backup.






I can put a

 

[Bob]

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;122926
Troubleshooting STOP: 0x0000007B or '0x4,0,0,0' Error

Thanks for the heads up.