Posts by Chaky

1.8 gigs should not bee too small for updating Office.

You could lower the limit on system restore disk usage.
(My computer/Properties/System restore/settings/Disk space usage)

I'm affraid that you would need to boot atleast in safe mode to make the necessary change, so your BSOD would remain on screen.
(My computer/Properties/Advanced/Startup and Recovery/Automatically restart (uncheck it))

Giving from what you've posted, you either have:
a) wrong drivers installed
b) corrupt driver files
c) M/B malfunction
d) any combination from above

I suggest you try clean windows install if chkdsk doesn't remedy your problem. Make sure that all the BIOS settings are default. (No O/Cing)

I think that the power consumption is the same whether or not the data cabel is plugged in. (the power cable is plugged in all the time, right?)

You should try smartmon tools (or alike) to see what S.M.A.R.T. has to say about it.

Now, thinking about S.M.A.R.T., I could think of one or two effects that plugging the drive in while PC is running could have on the S.M.A.R.T. monitoring itself. I think that it ispossible that it could generate some false-positive readings of slow spinups ans such, that can accumulate and eventualy give you a warning on every single time you try to boot with that drive pluggd in, telling you that "it will fail soon".

Maybe, you should disable the S.M.A.R.T. for the time being. (no need to have it enabled, I think, to collect the data with smartmon tools)

You say "Unplug SATA, and everything is fine, and I can plug it in, in both XP and Ubuntu and the drive works perfectly."

As in you plugg it in while PC is running?

I don't think that is a good practice.

Anyway, it seems to me that the drive is not in question here, but the controller. (in other words: mobo)

Take a look here. You might find your answer there.

Seems like your CPU is dead.

Only thing you could do is disconnect all the drives, all but one stick of RAM and clear CMOS, then try to turn it on (while everything is D/C-ed) to see if it would spring back to life.

Also, reseat the VGA, while you're at it.

If that don't make any changes, remove VGA and turn it on. If you hear beeps, then your VGA is busted, and not CPU.

BIOS tends to shuffle the HD boot priority order, so it is possible that it tries to boot from 1.5 Tb drive first when it detects it.

What you should do is plug everything in, and access BIOS settings, making sure you are booting from the right drive.

It is possible by BIOS settings.
I could render any PC unbootable within a minute just by making BIOS manually look for some bogus HD.

What your roommate should do is access BIOS and revert all settings to defaults.

I'll assume you're talking about XP.

What you need to do is this:

- disconnect the drive
- disable IDE controller in device management (usually, you can disable one IDE channel, while second is enabled)
- restart with drive connected
- enable the IDE controller
- restart

98 should see the partition because they are usually in fat32 format .

If not, there is NTFS4DOS that can be added to that win98 CD.

I made one such CD myself :)
Ironically, one has to make bootable floppy with CD support and use that floppy as boot image for CD, otherwise, the system would boot from CD while not being able to access it.

What kind of a disk is it?

If it is internal, then you could try HDD regenerator. (google for it)
It is not free, apart from evaluation version which will recover only one bad sector per session, but it could spring your drive back to life.

I'm not sure if it will do the same on external drives though.

You need to mount the drive (partitions) to be able to see them in My Computer.

To do so, follow these steps:

- Rightclick "My computer", Select "manage".
- In the computer management left pane select "disk management". On your lower right pane will appear all the drives and their partitions. On upper right pane you will see mounted and unmounted partitions.
- Find one that you need (unmounted ones don't have drive letter assigned to them) and rightclick it, and select "change drive letter and paths".
- In the next window click "add" and assign a letter to it, and you're done.

Does the "optimize for performance" flag need to be set in Device Manager | Disk Drives | flash device | properties | policies before you see the NTFS option in the format menu then? That would explain why I didn't see it there.

Yup. If it is set to "quick removal", NTFS is NOT in a drop-down box when you're about to format it. Same applies to external HDs and flash drives.

I prefer NTFS because of file compression.

Music production and recording?

a) Avoid on-board and PCI card sound cards. They pick up all the static from all the fans, HDs and such. Whatever you go with, go with external (USB) sound cards.

b) If you want cheap, forget about studio quality sound.

- Check the power cables. Try swapping them with ones that are plugged to optical drives (since they are apparently working OK)

- Check that your BIOS settings are set on auto-detection. Also make sure that all on-board IDE channels are enabled together with all extra options (UDMA data transfer, etc).

- Make sure that the drives are set as masters with slave present (some have different settings when slave-drive isn't present).

- Also try "cable select" settings.

I believe flash drives must be FAT32

Not so.

If the drive settings are set on "Optimize for quick removal" in device manager, then the only formatting options for it would be FAT and FAT32.

However, if the "Optimize for performance" is selected instead, then the "NTFS" will become an extra formatting option.

But, beware:
If the USB drive is NTFS-formatted, then "Safely remove hardware" is mandatory prior to disconnecting it. Otherwise, data corruption is possible.

Control panel/sound and audio devices/Advanced (button in "device volume" box)

In the volume control window:
click options/properties
select "recording" (make sure that microphone is checked in a box below)
click "ok"

now you can choose the sound source and adjust its volume. Click on Mic's "select" checkbox and volume it up. If you see "advanced" button below the checkbox, then you could give it more boost, or change whatever the options are. If you want, you can click options (on the menu bar) and check "advanced controls" to enable the that "advanced" button.

Check event viewer logs (administrative tools) for possible causes and post if you find any.

Take it out, but not for 24 hours, which is ridiculous. 5 minutes will suffice, and it might help the situation.

What error message?

A new thread maybe?

I don't think you understood me.

You said that you can't open mp3 files by double-clicking them? That is why I assume that your file associations (that are responsible for running the player and loading the file into it) are bad.

You should start, say, Windows media player from "start/programs" or rightclick on mp3 file and select "open with" if available (if not, try holding shift or ctrl key while right-clicking).

It just might be that DRM kicked in on you. (Digital rights management, a.k.a. Digital Restrictions management). More on the subject here.

Possibly bad file associations?
Try opening the file from some media player. Most of the players (including windows media player) can re-associate the files.

It's not you that preformed a necromancy here.. it's that neeko guy.

And you can't help someone who gave up...

Run chkdsk from command prompt with /f switch on your C drive. It will schedule system partition check on next boot. Try defragmenting after that.

For the mp3 files, are you sure you are clicking the actual files, and not shortcuts? Vista is a real pain in the neck when it comes to using anything that is in "progam files" folder. Better to avoid downloading anything there.

Try moving the files to some other folder.

a) reviving dead thread
b) "recovering with recovery disk" means formatting primary partition
c) too late anyway
and, yea.. d) Laptop = no XP Setup CD

No. It would be buying a new mobo. Only difference between that and actually buying a mobo is that i+your PC would get positive confirmation that it is a mobo that needs replacing.

CPUs have implemented memory controllers. As far as I understand, you problems come to light when you plug in 2 Gig sticks. Memory controller is one responible of allocating memory addresses (read: using those gigs) and that is where the faliure might occur in your case, but I kind of doubt that it would be the case with 2 Gig sticks only. It would likely show with any sticks.

My advice is:

If the mobo warrany is still valid, take the PC to the same PC shop you bought your mobo, or (if bought online) to any PC shop that is willing to RMA your mobo (since it is probbably mobo). Staff there will quickly diagnose the problem, and they will replace it and bring you the bill...

If the mobo warrany expired, expect a bigger bill.

New ram, as G.Skill?

Also, your CPU might be the root of the problems aswell, but nevertheless, if it isn't RAM, then my money is on mobo.

There is work in progress and there is beta-stage. Let's not forget XP and amount of change it went through from SP0 to SP2. Suffice to say that some device drivers (like motherboard and video drivers) need XP to be SP1 or 2 in order to work at all. In other words, SP0 was useless and should not have been released so soon. The fact is that the customers are regarded as paying beta-testers.

Now, imagine the car manufacturers behaving like that. Scary, isn't it?

...and the phone companies are thriving.

Too bad the police don't do jack regarding organized crime in Japan.
Instead, they focus on Sony-offenders.

They probably presented the number of copies sold to the resellers as the number of copies bought by customers.

Told you ppl about MS making it to the market in a way that the OS is considered as physical part of PC or laptop. It only complements the 99% of shops that will abuse any detail in order to refuse to cover for faulty-by-manufacturer product.

I explicitly recall the words "we don't know if they gained access to the nuclear missile system" spoken by some Pentagon official when those kids hacked them. If you ask me, dumb thing is that Pentagon is connected AT ALL to internet. Huge liability.

Couple of kids in Croatia hacked Pentagon 4-5 years ago. Nobody knows what and how much has been compromised. I wonder why, oh, why is Pentagon relying so much on Internet (I bet they use Windows too)... I know that it is their baby, but... man! , Can't they get the hint? For God's sake, get it in your thick, army brain-washed head (in the sand): YOU WILL GET HACKED OVER AND OVER AGAIN! Nobody wants to see world's most powerful arsenal's trigger in the some 9yo kid/hacker/anarchist/terrorist/any-kind-of-totalitarist trigger happy hands.

There's much simpler way of tracking down and detecting pedophiles in general, and not just predators and it is a low-tech one (software-wise).
All you need is satellite dish, DVB card and patience. Speaking from my own experience, there's a load of pedophilia in the universe (literally, it comes from satellites) and there are low-cost softwares that grab those space-born files that bounce off the satellites.
I experimented with such and, whaddayaknow, first night of grabbing produced mostly porn. Some of which was... well, related to this topic in the worst possible way. But, there is one info attached to every file that comes from satellites. That is IP address of sending party or a server and IP address of receiving party (or receiving party that the file is intended to, since the whole Europe receives it). If I am able to learn those IP addresses (IN A REAL TIME), then why don't authorities do the same? All it takes is couple of thousands Euros for the equipment and some patience.
I also managed to collect some messenger chat (or something), so be careful of what you type.
I know that this covers only the small portion of pedophiles, ones that use satellite internet providers, but it is a very simple way to track them down.

Blaming skype for sexual predators stalking the kids is like blaming S&W for the murders.
(It is not guns that kill people...)

Unless internet becomes UN jurisdiction and laws (like Maritime laws for the international waters) are passed, and every country is forced to ratify them, the problem will go on and on.

If I was selling something, I wouldn't care less if it went into 20 mil of homes or 1 store, as long as I got paid. You can predict all you want, but the fact is that 20 mil times average of $200 poured into MS. And the global trend says that it will continue to pour in.

That seams futile, since PC releases are usually released last.

For example, Call of Duty 3 is not yet released for PCs. PS3 and Xbox releases are here since February (I think), but PC gamers will have to wait couple of months more. And I know that it is not for technical reasons, for Xbox is PC-based console. It is purely for commercial reasons (read: lack of piracy protection).

I say let them fight.

What's next? Ads on my desktop? As part of the windows code?

I guess the billions aren't enough.

There should be a survey on geeks and geekettes that have no social life, on whether they want to swap thier gadgets for the life "normal" ppl live.

Law affecting the movies is the copyright law (emphases on the "copy"). If there is a movie torrent, and it is downloaded by someone else than the original owner, then the original owner and the person downloading it are in breach of that law.

I stand corrected regarding the spyware. We're talking about P2P. But, IP addresses are changeable stuff, so it is not much of an evidence. And for it to be an evidence the fake torrent must be real, and if it is real then the MPAA is in breach of the same law they try to enforce, or the law becomes bypassed, since they are the copyright holders.

I have to say 2 things:

1. As far as I know, you have to USE the software like cracks and stuff to break the law. Downloading them is not illegal. I think that same goes for torrents. (movies, music, games... law is the same for all) You cant watch fake movie, or listen to the silence (fake music) and be in the breach of the law that doesn't apply to the non-existent movie/game/music.

2. Obtaining IP address via fake torrents spells "SPYWARE", and that is questionable way to enforce the law. I'm sure that there is a law against spyware, and to enforce one law by breaking another, spells "case lost" in the court of law.

I think that the whole "fake torrents" story is nothing more than a delusion fueled by the MPAA's lack of resources to fight the piracy.

*reading his own comment* Oops! I, kind of, read the title wrong. I thought it said "DaniWeb in trouble" ignoring the "blogs" part.

I still thing that this is trend that will eventually be on the downhill side of the slope, but I don't think that it will die-out completely. I think that the way Dani is managing the blogs here is the way to go. Otherwise they would become just another forum with a different look.

I think that blogging is a pass-trough trend, and it will (if not already) reach it's peak and oversaturate the net and remaining blogs will be in smaller numbers than right now, but they will be quality-selected. I also think that daniweb does not rely on blogs, so it can't be jeopardized by the lack of it. I think that 99% of members came to daniweb via google/yahoo/lycos, and the threads and posts are the main member-magnets here.

Just look at the numbers:

Threads : 57,698
Posts : 281,859
Blogs : 88 (!)

Don't want to sound paranoid, but there is another aspect of VoIP.

PS 3 had a bad karma from the beginning. I've read that there were numerous of bugs, and those bugs were the reason for release delays. No wonder it had sales consequences.