RE: HANG time... -- PCTECH

A few comments:

Based on your descriptions and despite NDD, etc. it appears that either
your FAT/directory entry is corrupted or the HD has a bad sector (or
several) and the result of either is the hung condition when accessing
that particular bit of data.

The OEM license for Windows must be purchaed with hardware.  Any
hardware.  Including case screws.  You just have to find the retailer
who'll let you do that (vs. a mobo, HD, etc.).  XPHome seems to run
around $99 OEM; $160 for Pro; $190+ for upgrades from prior releases.

Try a local PC show and you should be able to find used PCs for nicely
less than the $400 Dell deal.  Not as powerful, of course, but probably
still an upgrade from your current box.

That said, I have to admit to being sorely tempted by that same
TigerDirect deal.  I live about 15 minutes from their warehouse in
Naperville, IL; no shipping charges.  But I don't actually _need_
another PC.


John A. Jones
Americas Security Officer
Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.
V: +1-630-455-2787 F: +1-312-601-1782
John.Jones@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

-----Original Message-----
From: Dan Bale [mailto:dbale@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Friday, July 09, 2004 10:29 AM
To: PC Technical Discussion for iSeries Users
Subject: RE: [PCTECH] HANG time...

replies inline:

> -----Original Message-----
> From: pctech-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx / daparnin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> There's no technology like old technology, eh?  <g>  It's been awhile 
> since I've heard of Windows 98 referred to as new.  <vbg>

Ahh, someone who truly understands!  This box originally shipped with
Win
3.11 installed, 90MHz Pentium, 16 (or 32?) MB ram.  I installed Win95
over Win 3.11 back in '96 and never "had" to reload it.  That's gotta be
a record for Windows, I think.  Since then, I upgraded to a Cyrix 233MHz
and maxxed the ram out at 128MB.  Oh, added a 2.5GB HD to the original
1.0 GB config, partitioned the new one into three cuz FAT16 would have
carved out 256k clusters otherwise.  During that time, I'd installed and
de-installed hundreds of apps, and my registry backed up took about
13MB.  This machine is/was so bast*rdized it's amazing the thing still
operates.  The event that triggered the Win98 upgrade was that the
original 1GB HD died, so I figured I'd better get with the times.  <vbg>

> Seriously, if it's
> truly a scratch install then you shouldn't have any files that you 
> need to preserve.  The worst case scenario is that you have to reload 
> windows.

Again, more PITA than anything else.

> Can
> you start up in safe mode and then run scan disk or does that hang?  
> You say that you did a scratch install.  By that do you mean running 
> FDISK to delete the old partition and recreate a new one, format the 
> c: drive, then booting from a Win98 startup floppy and running the
install?

Well, I installed a "new" 30GB hard drive as the boot drive, so yes,
FDISK'd and FORMATted, etc.

> Have you run
> Windows Update since the scratch install?  If that's the case then you

> don't have anything to loose by doing it again other than the time it 
> takes to do it.

Yes, did the Windows Update.  Actually, I had the security update CD-ROM
that had all of the patches that Microsoft sent me a few months ago and
was current up to February 2004.  But, up to typical MicroSh*t
standards, it hung and crashed the system so that I had to scratch
install Win98.  TWICE!
After that, I just got all the updates from the Windows Update site.

> It may also have nothing to do with what's loaded.  It might be memory

> that's gone bad.  If it's an old PC it might have worked its way
loose.
> You could try taking the simms out and reseating them.  The same could

> be done with the processor and any cards.  It also wouldn't hurt to 
> make sure that cable are secure.

The timing of the original hang and the problems of trying to access
that particular folder leads me to believe that it's purely the result
of trying to kill that copy.  But you're right, it never hurts to reseat
everything.

> If all else fails check Ebay for a P-II Windows ME system.  <another 
> vbg>

I think I'm going to break down and buy a new barebones box.
TigerDirect has a deal on a barebones system w/ a Soyo MB, keyboard,
mouse, speakers, 52x CD-ROM for $20 after MIR.  Add an AMD Athlon for
$60, 512MB ram for $65 after MIR, salvage the HD, CD burner, and monitor
from the old box, and I've got a screamer for $145 plus S/H.  (One of
the rebates ends today, so better
hurry.)  Only problem is figuring out what OS to load on it.  Really fed
up with Windoze being so intruder-friendly.  OTOH, with the horsepower
on this setup, I'd finally be able to run a firewall/spyware detector/AV
detector combo that doesn't freeze the system.  (I've already got a
Gigafast firewall/router, but I really have no idea how much more secure
it makes
me.)

If I go with WinXP, and want to save $ with an OEM copy, do I have to
buy it from the place where I buy the system?  Or can I shop around for
it?  Anyone got recommendations on that?

> Personally, I like using Windows to drag and drop when copying files 
> instead of doing it from DOS.  Either way, once it starts let it go 
> until it's done.

OK, here's the embarrasing confession.  If you're a LangaList reader,
you're probably aware of the image-type backups that create an image of
the HD on a CDR(s).  I'm looking at BootItNG's IMAGE app, and it has an
option to compress.  One of the tricks discussed on LangaList was to
"clear the bits"
across all of the unused disk space so that this area would compress
down to almost nothing (so you're not wasting CDR's on this space).  So,
using a simple QBASIC program, I created a 2GB file filled with blanks.
I duplicated this file in Windows until I had only 5GB of free space
remaining.  I booted out to DOS so I could delete the Windows swap file
(I
did) and had more space to "clear the bits".  (If I booted back into
Windows, the swap file gets recreated.)  Needless to say, copying a 2GB
file on this box is a test of patience, especially since the HD activity
light on the front panel isn't hooked up to the new HD (which is
actually on a new ATA/100 PCI card) because the cable, originally
attached to the MB, can't reach the ATA card.

The first copy I did in DOS completed OK, but I had left it alone for a
few hours while I did something else, so I don't have a clear idea of
how long it took.  The second copy I watched for about 45 minutes before
I tried the "proven" Ctrl-C to kill the copy.  But nothing happened that
I could see.
Then I powered down.  The rest is history.  :(

> Good luck.

Thanks, but I'm not feeling too lucky today / this week.

Again, thanks for the advice.  Any others are welcomed to chime in.

db

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