One way to avoid reinstalling Windows-- Interesting!
Straight_Man
Geeky, in my own wayNaples, FL Icrontian
Ok, most people when for three days running get spooler32 errors, a simultaneous situation with ALL IDE drivers problem flagged, and floppy not usable suddenly would think time to validate HD and floppy and reinstall. However, my board was a MSI KT4VL and beahved fine until three days ago.
So, I tried checking BIOS, found the base FSB was wrong and the BIOS had reloaded defaults. Date was right. Reset my freshly reprogrammed BIOS with a save and reboot, this time ScanDisk ran and said drive was not marked LBA. And when checking HD it said it had mismatched FATs (short form). Hmmm... HD?
Well, I gambled on something else. CMOS cells are two bucks and by then it was 2:30 am today. So, stuck one in and ScanDisk still had LBA problem. And then I did soemthing odd-- Did you know that Partition Magic validates FATs and matches to best fat both fats on a partition MOVE? I had played a bit with it during this time. That had fixed the LBA mark and the FATs before.
Oh, and on boot Windows kept auto-rolling the registry back one backup (Windows keeps five back) on every Windows start (this is 98SE which likes my business programs BETTER than XP).
So, ran PM and made first partition smaller(too big anyways) and forced an implicit move check of data, and resized the extended part to fill new empty space. In sequence, staged a move, resize, and move for the four parts.
Hit apply once and becasue I had gone base up and reprogrammed BIOS settings in Setup for BIOS first it flew and in 20 min 80 GB of data got reshuffled, the LBA mark that ScanDisk had said was missing was no longer missing, and when I finished that I foudn Windows totally back to normal to the extent that the faulted ECP port in Device Manager got found after I forced a DOS rollback of registry to Aug 22 with the 'scanreg /restore' command and using arrows keys and enter key to choose what was what.
Lessons:
If windows is not ever online, you have a box that loses its IDE functionality adn loses talking to a printer prot all at once, or other real weird things you are fairly sure you did not change, MSI might have shipped you a long in the tooth CMOS battery with your new mobo and the clock does not pull much amperage at all to run but the BIOS CMOS combined chip DOES pull significant amperage compared to clock.
PM can fix things you never know it was fixing, and things it warns about but does not keep you from working on might get fixed so it is worth a try before trashing Widnows and AFTER checking CMOS settings.
Oh, the board also S1\STRs now and I can wake Windows 98SE on box with tap of power button the way I set it-- been off for hours except for RAM trickle, windows restores working to lkast place I was working and then I move mouse and video gets reset and monitor goes live (about 30 seconds total). Oh, one tiny other thing, 98SE can use an 80 GB WD SE if parts are 20GB or less each.
Done it five times since 3 AM. Business box is sleeping to RAM now. Box shows no LEDS when STRing either and only powers RAM enugh to refresh it. NEAT!
No Windows reinstall and recover, big time bonus.
style fixes number one.
So, I tried checking BIOS, found the base FSB was wrong and the BIOS had reloaded defaults. Date was right. Reset my freshly reprogrammed BIOS with a save and reboot, this time ScanDisk ran and said drive was not marked LBA. And when checking HD it said it had mismatched FATs (short form). Hmmm... HD?
Well, I gambled on something else. CMOS cells are two bucks and by then it was 2:30 am today. So, stuck one in and ScanDisk still had LBA problem. And then I did soemthing odd-- Did you know that Partition Magic validates FATs and matches to best fat both fats on a partition MOVE? I had played a bit with it during this time. That had fixed the LBA mark and the FATs before.
Oh, and on boot Windows kept auto-rolling the registry back one backup (Windows keeps five back) on every Windows start (this is 98SE which likes my business programs BETTER than XP).
So, ran PM and made first partition smaller(too big anyways) and forced an implicit move check of data, and resized the extended part to fill new empty space. In sequence, staged a move, resize, and move for the four parts.
Hit apply once and becasue I had gone base up and reprogrammed BIOS settings in Setup for BIOS first it flew and in 20 min 80 GB of data got reshuffled, the LBA mark that ScanDisk had said was missing was no longer missing, and when I finished that I foudn Windows totally back to normal to the extent that the faulted ECP port in Device Manager got found after I forced a DOS rollback of registry to Aug 22 with the 'scanreg /restore' command and using arrows keys and enter key to choose what was what.
Lessons:
If windows is not ever online, you have a box that loses its IDE functionality adn loses talking to a printer prot all at once, or other real weird things you are fairly sure you did not change, MSI might have shipped you a long in the tooth CMOS battery with your new mobo and the clock does not pull much amperage at all to run but the BIOS CMOS combined chip DOES pull significant amperage compared to clock.
PM can fix things you never know it was fixing, and things it warns about but does not keep you from working on might get fixed so it is worth a try before trashing Widnows and AFTER checking CMOS settings.
Oh, the board also S1\STRs now and I can wake Windows 98SE on box with tap of power button the way I set it-- been off for hours except for RAM trickle, windows restores working to lkast place I was working and then I move mouse and video gets reset and monitor goes live (about 30 seconds total). Oh, one tiny other thing, 98SE can use an 80 GB WD SE if parts are 20GB or less each.
Done it five times since 3 AM. Business box is sleeping to RAM now. Box shows no LEDS when STRing either and only powers RAM enugh to refresh it. NEAT!
No Windows reinstall and recover, big time bonus.
style fixes number one. 0
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