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03-24-2006, 10:02 AM
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#1
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Remember, Safety Third
1973 27' Overlander
Catfish Corners
, Georgia
Join Date: Oct 2004
Posts: 5,720
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Another weird off topic request
Well, I’ve got another weird question for you all. Last spring I was having a problem with #1 child’s car and asked the forum to direct me to a good site to help me troubleshoot. With your help, I found Automotiveforums.com. Great site, I might add. Now I’ve got another one you.
I’m having computer problems with my home network. And before you Apple guys start yelling at me, read on McBeth, there be a question here for ye, as well. I’ve searched the Microsoft Knowledge Base and it is spotty, at best. Most of the sites that turn up in a Google search are filled with Geekinese, jargon that only an 18 year old pimple face could understand, advice filled with nonsense political junk and the like. So here’s question number one of two. Does anybody know of a forum out there that gives reasoned, thoughtful advice about working on Windows issues? A site that explains things in everyday terms that a non-geek can understand? You know what I’m talking about, a site like Airtreamforums.com that caters to Windows users.
Now for question number two (for all of you Apple guys and gals). Is there a site like this for Apples? I’ve about had it with Microsoft’s kluge filled, security-hole-riddled junk they call an operating system. The problem is that we have five computers at home and a work laptop that all have to work happily together, so I can’t simply replace all the WinTel stuff with Mac’s. And even if I could afford to do that, my company provided laptop will always have Windows.
Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Jim
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03-24-2006, 10:38 AM
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#2
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Patriotic
1973 23' Safari
North of Boston
, Massachusetts
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 4,546
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim & Susan
Well, I’ve got another weird question for you all. Last spring I was having a problem with #1 child’s car and asked the forum to direct me to a good site to help me troubleshoot. With your help, I found Automotiveforums.com. Great site, I might add. Now I’ve got another one you.
I’m having computer problems with my home network. And before you Apple guys start yelling at me, read on McBeth, there be a question here for ye, as well. I’ve searched the Microsoft Knowledge Base and it is spotty, at best. Most of the sites that turn up in a Google search are filled with Geekinese, jargon that only an 18 year old pimple face could understand, advice filled with nonsense political junk and the like. So here’s question number one of two. Does anybody know of a forum out there that gives reasoned, thoughtful advice about working on Windows issues? A site that explains things in everyday terms that a non-geek can understand? You know what I’m talking about, a site like Airtreamforums.com that caters to Windows users.
Now for question number two (for all of you Apple guys and gals). Is there a site like this for Apples? I’ve about had it with Microsoft’s kluge filled, security-hole-riddled junk they call an operating system. The problem is that we have five computers at home and a work laptop that all have to work happily together, so I can’t simply replace all the WinTel stuff with Mac’s. And even if I could afford to do that, my company provided laptop will always have Windows.
Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Jim
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why don't you just use THIS forum?
start by telling me what your problem is.
__________________
Air:291
Wbcci: 3752
'73 Safari 23'
'00 Dodge Ram 1500 4x4 QC
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03-24-2006, 10:51 AM
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#3
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Remember, Safety Third
1973 27' Overlander
Catfish Corners
, Georgia
Join Date: Oct 2004
Posts: 5,720
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Well, since you asked.....
We have a computer that acts kinda like what we used to call a file server. Many of our files are stored there and it acts as the internet gateway for the network. I think the hard drive is trying to fail. But before I spend the money, I want to know for sure the hard rive is the problem. About a year ago, the computer would suddenly shut down and a simple CLI type message would appear on the screen that reads "operating system not found". Reboot and it woulod run fine for a while. Then the whole process would start all over again. It mysteriously stopped doing that after a few days. Now it has started again. But wait, there's more!
Other strange things are also happening. The Microsoft firewall has been disabled, and the internet settings have been changed so as NOT to allow any of the other computers to attach to the internet. And even when I change things back to the proper settings, you stll can't get to the internet (from the other computers) or even view the other computers on the network. Weird. It's almost like the hard drive is having a problem and the registry has been affected in some way.
Yes, I do run anti-virus and spy-ware software on all of the computers.
Any Ideas?
Jim
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03-24-2006, 11:33 AM
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#4
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Patriotic
1973 23' Safari
North of Boston
, Massachusetts
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 4,546
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so, can I assume that this computer has 2 ethernet cards in it...one connecting to a cable/dsl modem, the other to a hub into which your other computers are connected?
If so, the first thing I would check is the "internal" network segment...nic, cables, hub. on the surface, it sounds like your second nic failed. but it could be as simple as a loose/bad cable. you can't "see" your network computers from the gateway--how are you looking? ping test? can the other computers "see" the gateway?
__________________
Air:291
Wbcci: 3752
'73 Safari 23'
'00 Dodge Ram 1500 4x4 QC
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03-24-2006, 11:46 AM
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#5
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Remember, Safety Third
1973 27' Overlander
Catfish Corners
, Georgia
Join Date: Oct 2004
Posts: 5,720
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Your assumptions are correct, 2 nics as you described. I have have checked the obvious things like loose connections. I intend to move the DSL to another computer tonight and bypass the "bad" computer altogether and see if I can get the network back up. In other words, I have had the some of the same ideas you mention, but just haven't had a chance to try them yet.
It seems odd that I would be having software issues and a NIC card go south all at the same time. This "bad" computer is on battery back up and a surge protector, so I don't think it got zapped or anythig.
You want to hear another weird one? When this started last year, and then just as suddenly stopped, Windows began occasionally (not allways) asking for the product I.D. to be reentered, and then wouldn't accept it. This along with some of the other behavior the software has exhibited is what makes me think that this is a software issue more that hardware.
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03-24-2006, 12:54 PM
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#6
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3 Rivet Member
Commercial Member
1950 25' Cruiser
Currently Looking...
Currently Looking...
Lebanon
, Ohio
Join Date: May 2004
Posts: 238
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Free Mac support site with Forum & Tech assistance
This is a great site with the same format as Airstream Forums....
@ http://www.macosx.com/forums/
I realize you are a non Mac user, but your question might be answered here as the members use both pc & mac
I found it after our G3 Pismo notebook froze up while trying to install OS 10.4
There are Forum members with over 5000 posts who are friendly & fast!
Apple Tech Support could not solve our problem, but I followed the advice of a Forum member & solved the problem in less than 12 hours!
Registration is free & help from Forum members & volunteer Techs is free
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03-24-2006, 12:57 PM
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#7
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Remember, Safety Third
1973 27' Overlander
Catfish Corners
, Georgia
Join Date: Oct 2004
Posts: 5,720
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Jim, thanks for the link. Now if I can just find one for Windows, I'm in like Flint.
Jim
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03-24-2006, 01:18 PM
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#8
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Rivet Master
2012 25' FB Eddie Bauer
Vintage Kin Owner
Virginia Beach
, Virginia
Join Date: Sep 2004
Posts: 7,801
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Fans, baby, Fans
We find that a lot of problems can come about as a result of overheating - caused by a fan or fans that has either become clogged with dirt, or has had a bearing failure due to heat and dust. Once we found that a cooling fan had fallen off of the CPU chip on the motherboard causing all of our problems.
My partner who is the real geek put all of our hard drives in removable caddies that have dual fans in the caddy. Periodically we swap out the caddies just to put in ones with clean and/or new fans. Makes a world of difference.
Remember to check the power supply, drives or drive caddies and motherboard. We have a couple of servers with 11 fans in each of them. One goes bad and you get squirrelly problems that come and go unpredictably. We found one fan that was blocked because someone had set an empty paper plate on top of the computer, and it got knocked down behind the computer....
Also your power strips.... If you've had one really bad lightening storm or a lot of up-and-down power outages, go buy new power strips. They really work right ONCE.... They often give their lives, or at least surrender their powers the first time they save your data.
Paula Ford
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03-24-2006, 01:29 PM
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#9
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Patriotic
1973 23' Safari
North of Boston
, Massachusetts
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 4,546
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim & Susan
Your assumptions are correct, 2 nics as you described. I have have checked the obvious things like loose connections. I intend to move the DSL to another computer tonight and bypass the "bad" computer altogether and see if I can get the network back up. In other words, I have had the some of the same ideas you mention, but just haven't had a chance to try them yet.
It seems odd that I would be having software issues and a NIC card go south all at the same time. This "bad" computer is on battery back up and a surge protector, so I don't think it got zapped or anythig.
You want to hear another weird one? When this started last year, and then just as suddenly stopped, Windows began occasionally (not allways) asking for the product I.D. to be reentered, and then wouldn't accept it. This along with some of the other behavior the software has exhibited is what makes me think that this is a software issue more that hardware.
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don't assume anything. start at the begining. don't jump ahead. check the cables...again. check for link lights. surge protectors may give "some" protection, (not much), but nics go bad for other reasons, too. "just because". Its not just a "hardware failure" we need to test for; we need to check the network channel on these computers, so to speak..the path through which data flows..nics, cables, hubs. that involves both hardware, and software. then work your way up the troubleshooting tree. establish communication, first. (connectivity with the lan); then worry about "wan" stuff. one step at a time...
windows is weird; nothing it does surprises me anymore. Someone or something changed other settings; how do we know they've been put back correctly? if "connection sharing" isn't setup right, none of the client machines will be able to communicate with anything, because they get their addresses from the gateway machine. so...what is the address on the internal nic in the gateway machine? what is the ip address on one of the clients? does it have one? can you ping one machine from the other?
__________________
Air:291
Wbcci: 3752
'73 Safari 23'
'00 Dodge Ram 1500 4x4 QC
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03-24-2006, 02:14 PM
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#10
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Remember, Safety Third
1973 27' Overlander
Catfish Corners
, Georgia
Join Date: Oct 2004
Posts: 5,720
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Thanks, Chuck. I'm headed home now to work on this. I have spare NIC's, Hubs and cables, connectors, crimp tools and so on at home. I think my best bet is to isolate the "bad" computer from a couple of known good compters, build a simple 2 PC lan and then add back compters and services one at the time until I find the busted link in the chain, so to speak.
Thanks for the help, everybody. Hopefully I'll be talking to you again in a few hours.
Jim
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03-24-2006, 02:32 PM
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#11
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3 Rivet Member
1965 20' Globetrotter
Yakima
, Washington
Join Date: Apr 2005
Posts: 182
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Here is a Microsoft Windows forum.
http://www.ozzu.com/forum18.html
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03-24-2006, 04:19 PM
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#12
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Remember, Safety Third
1973 27' Overlander
Catfish Corners
, Georgia
Join Date: Oct 2004
Posts: 5,720
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So I get home from work, turn on the bad computer, then go upstairs and turn on good computer number one. Everything works. I'm talking to you now from good compter number one. Highly strange. Lets see how long it stays up and functioning.
Hey Paula, is that why you bought that new trailer? Server farm gettin' too big for the old one? Where do you set up an operation like that in an Airstream? Forward of the axles I suppose.
65, thank you very much for the link. I'll check it out next.
Jim
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03-24-2006, 04:34 PM
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#13
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Remember, Safety Third
1973 27' Overlander
Catfish Corners
, Georgia
Join Date: Oct 2004
Posts: 5,720
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Routable I.P. addresses.
192.xxx.xxx.xxx are not routable, right? I think that was how Windows home networking set everything up in the beginning.
Bad computer and good computer number one are both on that lan segment and working. "Good" compter number two is on 169.xxx.xxx.xxx and not working on the LAN. Humm...the plot thickens.
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03-24-2006, 04:49 PM
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#14
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Remember, Safety Third
1973 27' Overlander
Catfish Corners
, Georgia
Join Date: Oct 2004
Posts: 5,720
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Ok, so we just crashed. Stayed up about 45 minutes before the bad computer crashed and I got the "operating system not found" message.
When it happens again, I'll take it off the LAN and get a normal LAN up with out it.
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03-25-2006, 06:20 AM
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#15
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Patriotic
1973 23' Safari
North of Boston
, Massachusetts
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 4,546
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim & Susan
Routable I.P. addresses.
192.xxx.xxx.xxx are not routable, right? I think that was how Windows home networking set everything up in the beginning.
Bad computer and good computer number one are both on that lan segment and working. "Good" compter number two is on 169.xxx.xxx.xxx and not working on the LAN. Humm...the plot thickens.
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192.168.x.x are not routeable, but thats ok...thats exactly what we want. you're not "routing" those addresses to the internet; what's happening is that the windows gateway machine is acting as a "proxy" server, of sorts. that means that the gateway machine is sending and receiving packets on behalf of the lan clients. everything coming and going to and from the internet to your lan appears to be eminating from the gateway machine (to anyone watching from outside).
the "169" address indicates that this machine is using a default address. It probably booted up when the gateway machine was unavailable. (either "off", or in its crashed state). when these clients boot up, they make a broadcast request for an address to "borrow"...the gateway machine hears this request, and tells the client machine what address it should use. the gateway keeps track of what addresses its lent out, and to whom.
in order to communicate via IP on your home lan, each machine needs to have an address in the same ip address range. In this case, they should be 192.168.0.1-254. Since "good machine 2" doesn't have an appropriate address, it can't communicate.
From the description of the behavior of the gateway machine, it could very well be that the hard drive is heading south. I would back up any data on that drive to one of the client machines "post haste". then replace the drive and give it a "re-do". In the mean time, pull that second nic out of the machine, and put it in another one. win98 and above can do the "connection sharing".
best thing would be to get a seperate box to do these functions...(more secure, less hassle, don't need to leave a computer on to get to the internet=less$ for electricity...). home wireless routers are pretty cheap these days. they have regular ethernet ports for your hard-wired machines, and will provide wireless connections for future ones.
__________________
Air:291
Wbcci: 3752
'73 Safari 23'
'00 Dodge Ram 1500 4x4 QC
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03-25-2006, 07:34 AM
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#16
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Site Team
2002 25' Safari
Dewey
, Arizona
Join Date: Mar 2005
Posts: 15,617
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Good advice from Chuck. I have a setup much like he discribed, except no wireless. The only time I use wireless is when my cable is down and then I can jump on to one of my neighbors "secure encripted" wireless network. The issue with the hard drive sounds like something I have seen with some Maxtor drives (we have mostly Dell's at work). They will quit working when they get hot. When I replace a drive I like to "ghost" (Symantec utility) it to a new drive. Many times the drive would fail before it finished. What I do then is put it in the refrigerator for an hour, pull it out and clone it with ghost. I do get a few strange looks when I go to the break room and pull out a hard drive for lunch. Here is a picture of my setup. It is on a shelf in the closet of my home office. Cable modem on the left, gateway router next and then a hub to connect all the drops in the house.
__________________
Richard
Wally Byam Airstream Club 7513
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03-25-2006, 07:59 PM
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#17
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Remember, Safety Third
1973 27' Overlander
Catfish Corners
, Georgia
Join Date: Oct 2004
Posts: 5,720
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Chuck, Thank you very much for the overview. After swapping out components/wires/etc for the past day or so, I think I can confidently say that the "bad" computer is indeed the problem. As we discussed earlier, this "bad" computer acts as the file server/gateway/print server for the home network. Each of the other computers on the network can ping one another, as well as the sevrver, but using network resourses is spotty. The plan for tomorrow is to take this computer completely out of the network, designate "good" computer number one as the gateway, then trouble shoot the bad computer. I think AZFLY may be on to something with the overheating problem.
Fly, what utility do you use to mirror drives? I priced a new hard drive (Western Digital) today at the local big box place for about $100. But they want $150 to mirror and install it. I can easily handle simple installations like this, but I haven't had to backup/reinstall one in a while. I'll have to try the fridge bit on Susan and the kids, they will surely think I've slipped over the edge!
Thanks for all the help guys and gals. Hopefully I'll be 100% by tomorrow night.
Jim
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03-26-2006, 01:48 AM
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#18
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Site Team
2002 25' Safari
Dewey
, Arizona
Join Date: Mar 2005
Posts: 15,617
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I use Symantec Ghost (Enterprise Edition). they also make Norton Gost for the home user...
__________________
Richard
Wally Byam Airstream Club 7513
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03-28-2006, 06:58 AM
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#19
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Remember, Safety Third
1973 27' Overlander
Catfish Corners
, Georgia
Join Date: Oct 2004
Posts: 5,720
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Thanks to everybody for your kind help. This forum gets better every day because of folks like you all. So here's an update.
Over several days of trouble shooting (a bit at a time, not several straight days, thank goodness) I've tested the network hardware, all good. I isolated the "bad" computer. Then I rebuilt the network using the first "good" computer as the gateway. That was really the time consuming part, having to reconfigure all the network settings. The LAN is now working again.
I used the link that 65GT suggested to pcpitstop.com. That is a great tool. The "tune-up" software did indeed tell me that the hard drive on the bad computer was "very slow". The software reports that the drive is running at only about 10% of the normal speed.
I've got some other things to look at before I spend the money on a new drive, but all indications are that either a) the drive is failing, or b) there is some junk software somewhere causing big time problems for that drive.
Again, thanks for the help.
Jim
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03-28-2006, 10:11 AM
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#20
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Moderator Emeritus
1972 31' Sovereign
High Springs
, Florida
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 2,311
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Hard drives are dirt cheap now. Just buy a new one, reload XP and forgeddaboutit!!! You'll waste a lot of time trying figure out what it is or isn't. I just bought an 80 gig HD for $59.95. I don't like "ghosting" because it can transfer old problems to the new drive. If you are going to ghost, do it after an OS reload, and all your programs are re-installed. Do it BEFORE connecting to the internet!!!!!
__________________
ARS WA8ZYT
2003 GMC 2500HD 4X4 D/A Ext. Cab
Propane Powered Honda EU2000i
Lots of Hot Sauce!
Air # 283
WBCCI 1350
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