Tasgandy
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Posts posted by Tasgandy
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OK then here's one for the "billy lids" KIDS.
PS: Hazel yours is that good I'm now using it on my main PC.................a great image
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Yes it should run faster BUT.................if it ain't broke.................you know the saying.
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Wildman can you give us some background to what happened to your sound?
Do you have powered speakers?
Have you checked the speaker to sound card / connection at the back of the PC?
Was the sound working before you installed or updated software?
Was it working until you powered down then restarted your PC the next day?
Are you sure that in the case of powered speakers they are plugged into the power point? and turned on?
OR are they USB powered speakers? if so, did you change USB ports?
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Macrium Reflect would be my No. 1 choice. Ideal for system and apps
You should also look at [url="http://allwaysync.com/[/url]
This one will cater for synchronizing only the files that have been changed, ideal for files & folders.
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It surprises me that my BIOS contains the option to boot from Floppy Disk first.
I have no floppy drive, and 7 USB sockets.
As mentioned earlier in the thread, an update to the BIOS would probably fix that, but that isn't something I'm keen on doing, and it works anyway, so I'll leave well alone.
Well that's it I reckon I've tested all I can now, I have even updated the BIOS, safe for me as this PC has Dual BIOS + can be done via the web. I have even tried another USB stick (brand new) formatted FAT 16 and FAT 32, made sure that "Legacy USB storage detect" was enabled in the BIOS, NBG.
Sent a query to Gigabyte (yeah like I'll hold my breath for an answer NOT).
So I shall stick to the good "OL rescues CD". With this particular PC (my main unit) it has no FDD or CD installed, just 2 USB HD backup units and a heap of SATA HD's. It only takes 5 minutes to remove a CD from another Unit and fit to this PC.
So many thanks to those that sent in comments, advice etc.
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All due respect to all the replies thus far, we need to step back and consider something very obvious.
How things "supposed" to work and how it "actually" work is night and day sometimes. What I shared was how it "actually" worked.
As I said, secure delete was an experiment for me. (it took days for the experiment) I know how MR "suppose" to work. But for some odd reasons it could not restore after secure delete. Even Macrium tech support did not have an answer. For me, it's one of those "weird" things that I am not going to spend any more time on. I moved on.
I chose two partitions because that's how many there were showing by rescue CD. After secure delete, once there were two partitions and other time just one unallocated empty partition. In theory, MR is supposed to restore onto totally 000s, unallocated and empty HD. Well, it didn't work for me.
I wanted to restore into both partitions as one after the restore.
I made myself very clear that restore worked before secure delete and after factory settings were recovered. But the old image (before secure delete) could not be restored into secure deleted HD.
Personally, this is the last posting on this matter for me. I have moved on and all the speculations have not added to solving the mystery. The fact is (for me) I will never play with secure delete. I am back to normal operation with MR, so I am satisfied.
Go USA and South Korea!!! Winter Olympics and World Cup !!!
Thanks for your reply and as long as you are back up and running that's what really matters.
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Try unplugging your computer completely from any power source (e.g. wall socket) Then hold the power button in for 30 seconds as though you were trying to turn the computer on.
Then plug the computer back into the wall socket and turn it on. Does it work now?
I had to do this each time after running a speccy build which would never complete. Also had to do a hard shutdown.
The cause for me was a build up of static electricity inside the tower while speccy was trying and failing to analyze.
The static discharge routine made everything work okay again otherwise I got stuck at the post test on booting (the black screen with the white writing)
Now that's spooky, sounds like me trying to recover a clients data from a HD that simply stopped working once the HD had been running for 25 minutes +.
Take the HD place it in a freezer bag and seal. Place in the freezer for 30 minutes, remove from the freezer and the bag, connect to my USB to IDE powered kit, and "magic" the HD fired up, start transferring my clients data. Naturally after 25 minutes or so, the HD stops, then one repeats the process, until the data is all captured. Why does this work? simple, cooling simply shrinks everything including the platters, now back towards original tolerance. Now unbelievable as the above sounds, IT DOES WORK and has done for me many times.
So hazelnut I shall remember this tip of yours.
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When I was doing my flash USB test the other day, I didn't overwrite the MBR because I did the restore immediately after the back-up, so I was confident that the existing MBR was fine.
But ordinarily I'd probably agree; though it is something I would consider, rather than just doing it habitually.
I agree with you.
In my case the last 2 episodes, one failing to boot at all, just kept posting, detecting HD's then posting again, and again etc. the other time after posting I got a millisecond "blue screen" then blank - black, so I replaced the MBR, and all went according to the manual (as such). Reckon this saved my bacon.
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It looks like Tigerllc74 might have made a misstep somewhere, my guess would be choosing the wrong wiping option in Active@ Kill Disk. Would be very easy to do, Acronis gives me headaches just thinking about it.
A definitive answer requires an experiment which I don't have time to do right now, maybe later:
- make a Macrium image from a working OS
- install it on an old HD & make sure it runs
- zap the old HD w/ Active@ Kill Disk
- reinstall the Macrium image onto the old HD
- cross your fingers and boot up the old HD
Did I leave out any steps?
No login123 you did not leave any steps out BUT I would like Tigerllc74 to answer my question "Why did you choose 2 partitions? you are only restoring 1 partition".
Further, I always take the offered option to replace the MBR..............what say you all.
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iden:
What do you mean ?? Are you saying after DBAN, Macrium restore will not work ??
If so, any idea how I can restore to the same HDD ??
During restore, I got to Choose Partition to overwrite. So I chose two (using cntl key), but "no new partition can be restored to this location" error.
Some told me to delete the partition first. But how can I ?? I am using rescue CD, and HD is cleaned with secure delete.
Why did you choose 2 partitions? you are only restoring 1 partition.
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Well done Ladies & Gentlemen, keep up the good work.
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OK as the title would suggest from above and to make things alive in this seemingly forsaken section of the forums, lets talk about how often do you clean the inside or even the outside of the CPU to keep the computer running smoothly.
Another purpose of this is so that we will have a chance to share why or when we have to do this so that our machines keep their hardware tweaked as well.
Some of you can share the problems they noticed on their computers with a dirty CPU over the years.
Strange you should ask, I make a habit of carefully blowing out my PC's with compressed air (from a great distance to reduce the pressure) every 12 to 18 months. My main PC is due sometime this month. I normally take the side off, lay it on the workshop bench (the Misses will not let me do it on the dinning room table !!!!!!) direct the air to: power supply (inlet and outlet), the MB, the CPU fan from the top and then from the sides, then the fan (if any) on the video card, then the 2 case fans I run (Antec case with thermo fans) then clean the gauze filter out on the main 6" front of case fan. DUST is a KILLER.
There you go, I'll bet you wish you had never asked, but seriously I saw what happened to PC boxes many years ago when take off the lid's when they had not been touched for 4 to 5 years.................you really don't want to know.
It will be interesting to see just what sort of response is forthcoming.
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Remember folks it is Beta................I feel sure they will get it right at final release
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If there are no images visible in this tutorial, please inform me via pm as soon as possible. Thanks.
Please note also that the "Image Speech" site is under maintenance, although the method of use is pretty much the same with the other sites listed further below.
Screen Capture:
There are a lot of free Screen Capture tools available, but IMO one of the better ones, and also freeware, is Faststone Capture. It's small GUI belies a very sophisticated program. It has a very good help file, and a very detailed tutorial which can be downloaded in PDF form.
Faststone Capture: (Last Freeware Version. Do not use the "Home" link.)
However, to get you started quickly, and save trawling through the help files, I'll outline the basic features.
Menu 1:
I have chosen to use the "To Editor" as my default. This means as soon as you capture the screenshot, it opens into the Faststone Editor, in which you can add "point to" arrows, descriptive text etc., as shown here:
Menu 2:
Here you can find links to the help file/tutorial, and an option to open any image on your PC straight into the Faststone Editor.
The next screenshot shows the different "capture" options available:
1: Capture the "active" window. (Link to definition/description of "active" window.)
2: Switch between all windows on the page.
3: Choose a capture window of any sized square or rectangle by left clicking once, drag the window to size, left click again.
4: Capture a freehand region by drag and multi-click.
5: Capture Full Screen.
6: Capture a "scrolling" window.
The PDF tutorial contains detailed explanations on each of these features, and is well worth consulting.
Please Note: Save your image as only JPG, PNG, or GIF, to save on file size and page loading. Not BMP.
Now that you've captured your image, you'll need to upload it to an Image Hosting site, and link to it by pasting a "Thumbnail Image" in your post.
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Image Hosting:
For the purpose of storing, sharing, and posting Images, you'll find a lot of "Image Hosting Sites", or "Image/File" hosting sites on the Web. Some are free to use, some are commercial, and others are a combination of both.
The idea is to upload and store your image, and simply place a small thumbnail in your post that links to that image. The thumbnail is only a fraction of the size of the original, and therefore won't use up the forums bandwidth, and will make the topic you're posting in quicker to load.
These sites all have similar, but different conditions of use, and limitations on things like the maximum size you can upload, the maximum number of images you can store,(measured by either number or total size), or how long they will host your image before deleting it.
Some of these sites are very slick, with a nice clean interface, and a nice clean onsite image that the thumbnail links to.
Some are just the opposite. Sluggish to use: Site littered with ads: Site littered with distasteful ads: Images being lost: etc. etc. You can take note of which sites other people are using, or start a new topic and ask for some suggestions.
On the majority of these sites you can register for free, which enables you to keep track of your images, or even have an on site album.
Or, if you don't register, you can upload an image, link to it, and then you normally have no further contact with that image.
As an example I'll use the one I'm using at present called "ImageSpeech", which has great conditions of use, is very clean. And you can use it whether you register or not.
This screenshot is fairly indicitave of what a decent site looks like, although some are more cluttered.
You can click the image a second time to see it full sized. (Depends which browser you use)
All you would do here is press the browse/choose button which takes you to an upload window on your pc, choose an image, select it, and press upload. If you have a large digital image, it may take a while to upload.
Once uploaded, you should see something like this: (again, it varies from site to site.)
As you can see, there's a choice of "linking codes". What you look for is either Forum Code, or BB code, but usually the link starts with "".
Next, just simply right click anywhere in the link, it turns blue, and select COPY.
Come back to where you are typing your post, place the cursor on the start of the next line, right click and select PASTE.
You will now have a long line of text. To check that you have the correct linking code, go just below this window and select "Preview Post". In the preview window you should see your thumbnail. Click it, and it should take you to your hosted image.
Note that the Hosting Site automatically makes a thumbnail of your uploaded image.
That's it very basically, although you can play around with things, you can't do any harm, and if you get stuck, don't be afraid to ask.
Some other decent sites are:
PixPipeline: Nice clean site. Registration optional.
ImageBam: Nice interface, and again registration optional.
IMGBoot: Registration required, (email address). New "add title and description to image" feature. Clean site.
ImageCave: Registration required. Unlimited bandwidth. Clean site.
Image Ox: Registration Optional. Clean site with a lot of "gallery" features.
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IS the Macrium ISO the only thing on the flash drive? Is the ISO installed to the root of the drive?
Yes Anomaly Macrium associated files only on dics, and the process performed on the same PC that was used to format @ FAT16.
On flash drive: 9 months old @ 2.0GIG (used about 5 times since a 16.0GIG unit purchase)
Folder isolinux conatins: boot.cat, initrd.bin, isolinux.bin, isolinux.cfg, linux26, menu.txt & version
Files in root: idinux.sys, syslinux.cfg, ubnfilel.txt, ubnint, usbkern, ubpathl.txt & vesamenu.c32
I shall try another USB flash drive at a later date.
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I can tell you that when I use the flash drive to boot there is nothing plugged in other than a USB mouse.
Strange non of the USB options in the boot menu work for you. Did you try another flash drive? Maybe the one your using is just not working. PC's are flaky that way. Even try another USB port. I've seen a device work in one port but not another for no apparent reason.
Well I did try all available ports, disconnected all other USB devices and still no good. Even though a careful study of the MB documentation where under Integrated Peripherals - Legacy USB storage detect, which states "determines whether to detect USB storage devices, including USB flash drives, and USB hard drives during POST. (default: enabled). I have checked that this is enabled, still no go. I have to assume there is something amiss with the 2.0gig USB flash drive, what I am not sure as I can use it as one would normally do without any issues. I can only assume it is a MB issue (still under warranty) I shall look to updating the BIOS to see if that sheds any light on the subject. Thank you Anomaly for your input.
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I can tell you that when I use the flash drive to boot there is nothing plugged in other than a USB mouse.
Strange non of the USB options in the boot menu work for you. Did you try another flash drive? Maybe the one your using is just not working. PC's are flaky that way. Even try another USB port. I've seen a device work in one port but not another for no apparent reason.
"Try another USB port"...........yes that is a good idea, I shall give that a go i.e. bandwidth and power supply to USB ports are different. Unable to try another USB stick as the other sticks I have here with me are 8gig & 16gig, and from memory you can not format FAT16 over 4gig. I shall report back.
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No worries - I didn't know you could do the latter until you posted; I'm glad you did. That's the whole interesting thing with this stuff - so many different ways of doing things.
How true, now I think I shall try disconnecting all the USB hanger-oners, and go through the boot menu options (F12 quickest way) one by one prefixed as USB?????, nothing to loose and everything to gain.........know how. Thanks for your interest marmite.
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The point I was trying to make is NOT to alter the boot sequence. Plug in the properly set up USB flash drive. Reboot the machine. Press the key/s that bring up the boot menu. In the boot menu you will see several options including your plugged in flash drive. Select it and let it boot. I would remove all other drives you might have plugged in so there is no confusion. Once booted you can plug in the external HDD that contains the Macrium back up image.
What key/s you use to bring up the boot menu will vary depending on the manufacturer of the PC. You can find out what the key/s are the same way you found out what key/s to use to get into the BIOS settings. Watch for them on reboot. When the BIOS load on reboot you will see the settings and boot menu options with the key/s to use to get them listed beside them.
The flash drive must be properly formatted and the ISO must be bootable or you won't boot no matter what you do. The flash drive must be Fat 16. You get the Macrium ISO from within the Macrium program. Than simply tell UNetbootin to put the ISO on the flash drive and let it do it's thing. Than follow the instructions I gave. I have booted 6 different machines this way no problem. Most of them had different key/s combos to get the boot menu up so you will have to find the proper one's for your machine.
Yes the USB 2.0GIG stick has been formatted as FAT16, Macrium created the rescue.iso saved to my HD. I then used UNetbootin to put the .iso file onto the USB stick.
Yes, the F12 at post gives one access to the Boot Menu (only) the default "first boot" device is marked, (a reflection of BIOS information) one can now for this boot only select any of the other boot functions listed. What appears at the F12 boot menu and within the BIOS are the same, and unfortunately USB flash drive is not shown as an option, only USB FDD, ZIP, CD & HDD. Other options listed are the normal ones: Floppy, LS12, HD, CDROM, ZIP & Legacy LAN.
Following our discussion the other day on USB speed, bandwidth etc, perhaps I need to disconnect all USB's devices (2 printers, HDD, business card scanner etc.) who knows and maybe just maybe I need to locate the 1 and only "Enhanced USB port".
The reason for the exercise is that with 5 PC's on the network, 2 with DVD's attached (shared across the network) my main PC (the one refered to above) does not have any CD/DVD attached. So if this PC ever fails to boot from C and I need to "restore" my Macrium Restore image I simply need to fir the SATA CD/DVD unit from one of the other PC's. Hey I could always use a USB CD? Back to the drawing board.
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For what it's worth, using the method outlined in the first post produces a drive recognised on my netbook as USB HDD.
I take it when you see the BIOS menu (I'm assuming this is what your F12 key raises) you don't see your USB flash drive listed at all?
Having sorted out the BIOS boot menu key, I can now boot via either that or by BIOS settings, where the only things I have ahead of the actual HDD are USB CD and USB HDD. But then I'm not using the UNetbootin method.
Yes, the F12 at post gives one access to the Boot Menu (only) the default "first boot" device is marked, (a reflection of BIOS information) one can now for this boot only select any of the other boot functions listed. What appears at the F12 boot menu and within the BIOS are the same, and unfortunately USB flash drive is not shown as an option, only USB FDD, ZIP, CD & HDD. Other options listed are the normal ones: Floppy, LS12, HD, CDROM, ZIP & Legacy LAN.
Following our discussion the other day on USB speed, bandwidth etc, perhaps I need to disconnect all USB's devices (2 printers, HDD, business card scanner etc.) who knows and maybe just maybe I need to locate the 1 and only "Enhanced USB port".
The reason for the exercise is that with 5 PC's on the network, 2 with DVD's attached (shared across the network) my main PC (the one refered to above) does not have any CD/DVD attached. So if this PC ever fails to boot from C and I need to "restore" my Macrium Restore image I simply need to fir the SATA CD/DVD unit from one of the other PC's. Hey I could always use a USB CD? Back to the drawing board.
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Couple things here.
First there is a very simple to understand tutorial right on the Macrium site on how to create a bootable thumb drive with the Macrium recovery disk ISO. It is basically a 5 minute job. Surprised all the Macrium fans haven't seen it yet. http://www.macrium.com/blog/2008/09/23/How...uxUSBStick.aspx
Secondly, as for weather your PC can boot from a thumbdrive there is a few things to consider. Most people go into the BIOS and look for the boot order in the settings. Many find that there is no USB to select and they think they can't boot from the USB because of this. Well they are wrong. What you want to do is look for the key combo that launches the BIOS boot menu not the BIOS settings menu. You will see the keys to use when the machine is booting. You should see a key combo for "settings" and one for "boot menu". Once you get the proper key/s plug in the bootable thumbdrive and reboot the machine and hit the key/s for the boot menu when you see the bios screen. If you do this the boot menu appears and the plugged in thumbdrive will be an option to select to boot from.
OK now I'm a little stumped Anomaly, you may be able to head me in the right direction. I now have a "bootable USB stick" (not yet able to tested).
It seems not to matter if I use F12 when posting or alter the boot sequence in the BIOS I am unable to boot from the USB stick.
I have disconnected the USB FDD for the exercise, next do I disconnect the 1TB USB HDD which contains my Macrium Reflect backup image? This I have not done yet, thought I would ask first.
I am aware that some BIOS see the USB stick as USB FD or USB ZIP. My Gigabyte MB 12 months old (F12 or BIOS) shows the following USB boot choices:
USB FDD, ZIP, CD, HD - I have tried USB FDD & ZIP with the USB stick connected - did not work. I then used UNetbootin process with the USB HD, thought if that works I can always place the backup image on another HDD if need be. That did not work either.
No matter what I do the PC simply boots up in the normal fashion. Do have any ideas?
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Sounds quite safe
I have been using EasyBCD on my Vista Pro unit for some time now. A very usable piece of software!
Have you tried Macrium Reflect yet?
I used to work with Acronis but as Macrium Reflect is free and has a much nicer interface I switched.
Acronis now runs on a virtual XP machine to be able to read old Acronis backup images.
Yes I am a keen user of Macrium Reflect (recommend it when ever the occasion arises) indeed just this afternoon I had occasion to restore the 23gig image of my XP Pro on my recently build Win 7 / XP Pro Dual boot PC. This restore only took some 12 minutes in total and I was back up and running.
I have also since tested the Win 7 restore just to make sure the other half of the equation works as it should and it did.
Re "Windows XP mode Virtual PC" that you spoke of, I'm told unfortunately will not install on XP Pro, however "Microsoft Virtual PC 2007" is still a good backstop, although I by-passed it last time for Sun Virtual-box which is a excellent piece of software, almost every bit as good as vmware.
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I've just installed Speccy 1.00.108 Beta and I gave it a run. Now the last version 1.00.089 Beta showed my hard drive as 160GB Western Digital WDC WD1600BEVS-22RST0 (IDE). This version shows the same details but my drive is a SATA.
Interesting from my perpsective both previous and latest version show the following on this PC:
Samsung HD SATA shown as IDE
Samgung HD SATA shown as IDE
Seagate HD SATA shown as SATA
Western Digital SATA shown as IDE
Lets hope they fix this at final release.
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There is a new avast program update, info here
Updated & many thanks.
How to do Screen Capture and use Image Hosting Sites
in The Lounge
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DennisD I am using FastStone Capture on a daily basis now and find it much better and easier to use that my previous method (used for many years) as I create screen grabs for instruction manuals.
Having the ability to edit / watermark / caption etc. then drop into Adobe Acrobat or MS Word documents being created is excellent, so I wish to thank you once again and recommend this little gem to anyone that has other uses for screen capture software other than message board / posting use.
PS: it allows me to enjoy more of these images from my deck overlooking the river whilst enjoying some good wine and cheese.