Tag: grrrrr

I’m pissed.

I got home from work today, thinking I would simply install a new CD-RW device and things would be hunky-dory on my new machine. I have Windows XP Home. I saw the icon for a Windows Update. Installed that; it was something about a malicious software detector from Microsoft. Shut down the system completely. Installed the CD-RW. Rebooted. The system came up, and the CD-RW appeared to work, but couldn’t close the CD. Tried to go to the internet. It couldn’t find any hosts. There was also something new showing up in the icon tray called “Network Bridge”. Tried all sorts of stuff: checking the network settings, enabling and disabling the network bridge. Nothing worked. Tried to restore to a restore point. Wouldn’t work. Removed the new CD-RW and put back in the old CD-ROM. Rebooted. Network still didn’t work. Tried the system restore. Still didn’t work. Grrrrrrr…..

We’ve called our service technician from Compunerds. I hope he can fix it; if not, it will be a system restore and reinstalling *everything* (except for data files).

Update: I did try deleting the network bridge. It still can’t get an IP address, and I did verify that the DSN settings are correct. Double grrrr.

I’m pissed. This is just what I needed.

Today’s been a busy day: we hit the home show with ellipticcurve, and then went to the soda fountain in South Pasadena and had an egg cremes (ellipticcurve), root beer float (me), 2c plain (gf_guruilla), a banana split (shared), and a cherry rickey (S&F). A fun day.

But that’s not why I’m writing. I’ve been dealing with more hardware problems, this time on my daughter’s machine. First, I had a few bad sectors on the main drive (we got the machine in 1997, so that’s not too much of a surprise), which have been marked… two of which were in the Windows Swap File. I was also getting an address fault when some program was starting up via RUNDLL32 (most likely the ICS sharing patch). I’ve used winconfig and cut down most of the startup programs, scanned the disk for further surface problems, and ran a speed disk which relocated the swap file. So far, so good. However, I’m still having a problem with the Symantec AntiVirus Corporate Client (Build 8.1.1.319): I’m getting an error in VPC32.exe whenever I try to start it up, and I can’t uninstall it, and I can’t reinstall it. I’ve posted a question to their Technical Support Board, but I was curious if anyone else who reads this was running into a similar problem.

If you recall, I wrote last Saturday about I had just ordered a copy of Easy Media Creator 7.5, primarily to get the upgraded version of Backup MyPC (BUMP), which I’ve been using as my backup solution all the way back to when it was Conner Backup Exec.

You may ask: Why did he want to upgrade Backup Exec. The answer is simply. With BUMP 5.1, I had lots of trouble creating CDs: I would get “media errors” and the backups would fail. This would happen with both Memorex and HP media. I should note that my drive is an HP DVD Writer 400c, and HP has been less than useful in the support department. I could do backups that took less than a full CD. I’ll also note that I had similar trouble when I created the system recovery CDs.

So, when reading up on the new version of BUMP, I noted they were promoting “Failed backup recovery (no need to restart due to a media fail)”. So, I upgraded the easy route: Instead of buying just BUMP for $79, I bought the entire EMC 7.5 suite, which included BUMP, for $79 with a $30 rebate.

Well, I tried it last night, on a backup that should take 3 CDs. Guess what? Media Error, at the end of the first CD, when closing the backup session.

Grrrr. I’m now convinced it is the drive (as I haven’t seen a firmware upgrade for it). I’m a software weenie and absolutely hate futzing with hardware. So, I’d like your opinion on my options. My system (an HP Pavillion, so the front is all pretty) has two drives: an HP DVD Writer 400c, and a ASIS CD-S480/AH CD only drive. The questions:

• Which drive should I replace: The DVD Writer drive or the CD only drive?
• What drive should I look for? Recommendations?
• How much will the screw up the looks of the front?
• Does anyone want to do it for me 🙂 [just joking, but I do hate futzing with hardware. I need to open the machine anyway to blow out the dust]

Thanks for your advice on this. I symphathize with you, japlady, about your Palm trouble. Hardware problems are a PITA.