RE: W98 to W2K upgrades -- PCTECH

Be afraid.....be very afraid.

I reloaded my wifes machine one time.  Told her "Copy EVERYTHING you think
you might want to keep into this folder".  Now mind you, my wife is pretty
much a power user.  Still a user, but pretty savy.  So she copied...and
copied.  Then said Ok.

So I formatted and reloaded.

She sat down and said "Where are my favorites?"  Crap.
Where is my address book?  Double Crap.

Guess the good thing is that 4 years later she wont let me near her
keyboard.  All I have to do is offer to help and that shuts her up.

Yes, I should have thought of these things.  But I don't reload PC's for a
living.  I just tell Dave to do that (Dave works for me).

My advice is till SHE is frustrated with the machine, leave it alone.

And oh yea.  I changed Cell Phone providers (Sprint to Verizon and still
glad I did it).  She is on my account.  So she got a new phone.  Big
mistake.

Bob

> -----Original Message-----
> From: pctech-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:pctech-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On
> Behalf Of Chuck Lewis
> Sent: Thursday, September 16, 2004 8:24 AM
> To: 'PC Technical Discussion for iSeries Users'
> Subject: RE: [PCTECH] W98 to W2K upgrades
> 
> So how'd it go Tom ?
> 
> And I know how you feel. I have a PC that SO needs to be wiped and
> COMPLETELY redone at home but "The Mrs." uses this and is comfortable with
> how it is setup. But there are some issues with it and the only thing that
> is going to fix them is a complete reload. So she one of these issues
> causes
> something to not work I have to say "well I've said I need to redo this
> but
> I can never get it to do that" and smile. This is pushing a year now. She
> is
> a very sweet lady so there is no fight or anything, she just isn't to the
> frustration point with it that I have got to about 10 months ago :-) And
> the
> kids just use one of the other computers and avoid this one like the
> plague
> :-)
> 
> Chuck
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: pctech-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:pctech-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On
> Behalf Of Tom Liotta
> Sent: Saturday, September 11, 2004 6:59 PM
> To: pctech@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [PCTECH] W98 to W2K upgrades
> 
> Adam Lang wrote:
> > Just as a side comment, that doesn't directly help you right now, unless
> of
> > course you take the advice, is never do an upgrade.  ALWAYS do a clean
> > install of an OS.  This is emphasized even more going from a 9x lien to
> an
> > NT line.  They are completely different operating systems underneath.
> > There is even a chance that a variety of programs you use on the
> computer
> > won't run, or at least need different versions, under NT line.
> >
> > I can guarantee life is easier if you do it that way.
> 
> In general, I agree. However, I had done almost the same upgrade on very
> similar machines with no issues that wouldn't have also happened on a
> clean install. A fundamental reason for upgrading in these cases was to
> preserve various general settings such as desktops.
> 
> Had these been business systems, it would have been different. Because
> this last PC was the Mrs.'s machine, the attempt to preserve as much
> look-and-feel as possible was needed. What one does to preserve the
> atmosphere at home isn't always what one might do professionally. (Of
> course, 'professionally' I don't do W98->W2K conversions.)
> 
> In any case, a clean install resulted in exactly the same error, i.e., I
> also tried that. The problem has two potential resolutions: (1) A BIOS
> upgrade and (2) a return to W98.
> 
> The BIOS upgrade will give resolution in two possible ways: (1) a proper
> handling of the ATI AGP graphics chips in W2K, interrupt handling for
> which seems to be the real problem, perhaps due to improper
> plug-and-play handling, and (2) access to a new primary IDE drive that
> appears to have an incompatible ATA number -- the spare drive I want to
> put in there is already old, but it _is_ spare and will provide more
> than enough space for some recovery operations plus the basic advantage
> of a second drive. Due to an apparent proprietary BIOS, the upgrade
> attempt is going to be via a BIOS extension card. (From now on, I will
> _always_ determine whether a BIOS is proprietary to the system
> manufacturer first! Who'da thunk it?))
> 
> If a return to W98 is required, I'll still want to install the spare
> drive in order to make future recoveries feasible. I'll first install
> the current drive temporarily as a secondary in another W2K PC and pull
> the needed files off of it in order to return them to W98 later. (The
> drive was converted for W2K at the beginning of the upgrade.) The _BIG_
> requirement is recovery of a saved address book. Because the original
> drive is small, I'll then reformat it back to be compatible with W98 and
> install W98 clean on it. The spare drive would then be used as a
> secondary where general files and applications will reside, separate
> from W98 and its registry, etc.
> 
> Whew. Wish I knew what I was doing.
> 
> Tom
> 
> :
> > > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Tom Liotta" <qsrvbas@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > Newsgroups: midrange.public.pctech
> > To: <pctech@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > Sent: Sunday, August 29, 2004 7:42 PM
> > Subject: [PCTECH] W98 to W2K upgrades
> >
> >
> >
> >>Though I'll accept all suggestions, this is more a rant than a request
> >>for help.
> >>
> >>My wife has used a PC we've had for some 6 years. She's no computer
> >>person by any means, but has gotten well into e-mail, browsing and
> >>similar PC functions. Spends nearly as much time as I do at her
> keyboard.
> >>
> >>Nothing fancy... 333Mhz, 256MB. Upgraded from the original W95 to W98 SE
> >>a couple years ago when I had a spare license. Another spare license
> >>brought the attempt to upgrade to W2K this weekend. Upgrades were
> >>motivated by desires for more stability.
> >>
> >>Start the upgrades by general cleanup -- everything from running a
> >>couple rounds of RegClean to removing unused programs and apps to disk
> >>defrag. Common stuff. The primary concern was to make the newly upgraded
> >>PC look as similar to the previous version as possible while getting the
> >>benefits of an OS upgrade. She has the apps she uses and knows; they do
> >>exactly what she wants them to do and there's zero need for new bells
> >>and whistles. (An ideal 'user'.)
> >>
> >>Now the rant...
> >>
> >>The W2K upgrade does _not_ like the ATI 3D RAGE PRO AGP display adapter.
> >>I have no idea why not. When it boots, the logon window appears; and
> >>approx one minute later, the system crashes hard with a
> >>DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL error in AtiBt829.sys, does a memory dump
> >>and reboots.
> >>
> >>Shouldn't be a big deal. Search for info in various forums, search for
> >>W2K drivers, etc. I found a few, downloaded, transferred on floppy, used
> >>Safe Mode to work some replacements, but clearly not to the point of
> >>making a difference. Go to microsoft.com for Hardware Compatibilty List
> >>issues or driver updates. But...
> >>
> >>Though there seem to be a few issues with AtiBt829.sys and W2K upgrades,
> >>there are apparently _zero_ sets of suggestions on exactly what to do.
> >>No info anywhere on how to actually update the drivers.
> >>
> >>Microsoft Windows Update is the real knee-slapper in this case. Of
> >>course, there's no way to connect to Windows Update with the PC in
> >>question; I need to connect with a different PC in order to download
> >>what Microsoft recommends in this case... and there does seem to be a
> >>recommended fix, there are references on microsoft.com and links to
> >>follow that lead to Windows Update for the fix.
> >>
> >>[THE rant:] But when I connect with another PC -- which has a different
> >>display adapter and therefore has no need for no stinkin' AtiBt829.sys
> >>update --  Windows Update provides no way that I can find to get to the
> >>recommended fix. Aaaaggghhhh. All links go to Windows Update.
> >>
> >>Meanwhile, there's Mrs. Me tapping her foot in the background... "When
> >>can I have my computer back?"
> >>
> >>Fortunately, Safe Mode shows that all the e-mail archives and documents
> >>and photos and everything else are still intact.
> >>
> >>Sigh.
> >>
> >>Tom Liotta
> >>
> >>--
> >>This is the PC Technical Discussion for iSeries Users (PcTech) mailing
> >
> > list
> >
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> >
> >
> 
> --
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> 
> --
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