Random computer problems on an in-law's computer

Hi all,

The other night (well, actually day turned into night) I was going to
help an in-law install a video card and migrate a windows 98 se system
to a larger hard disk drive. I was told that everything was working
fine, it just needed a better video card to play a new(ish) game. So, I
made some ghost boot floppies and a backup of my win98se install cdrom
(they had their manual with the license but couldn't find their cdrom)
and headed over. The computer was working fine, right? That's where the
fun starts, and I was hoping for some feedback as to the likely cause of
the problems I'm about to describe. I didn't bring my tools with me to
test things because everything was working...riiiiiight....

So, I can't fit both drives in at once because the Gigabyte micro ATX
motherboard (in a full size ATX case with 300W Auriga power supply)
doesn't allow enough room to fit a drive in the second hard drive bay
without removing the P4 2.4GHz CPU (the shop they went to and bought the
new hard drive from said it would be fine, but they obviously didn't try
a test fit). So I removed the old drive and set it up on a static bag
outside the case as master on IDE 1 after installing the new drive as
master on IDE 2 (I disconnected the cdrw and dvdrom drives). All set to
ghost, right? The floppy doesn't see boot media.

I connect up another spare demonstrably working floppy on the same power
connector and floppy cable (same spot), resulting in the same error. So,
maybe the power supply is messed up or the floppy controller on the
motherboard is gone or there's a problem with the floppy ribbon. They
never use the floppy, so they didn't know of the problem.

So I reconnect the optical drives and put the hard drives on the same
channel, boot into win98se, and use the Western Digital clone utility
from a cdr I brought along to clone C: to D: and everything goes fine,
with the program reporting a successful clone and that the 7 files it
did not copy over would be replaced by the operating system (files such
as cookies.txt and the like). I disconnect the old drive, put the new
drive as master, and try and reboot. The system POSTs but doesn't boot,
just hanging right before it should go to win98se.

Now I'm getting a little frustrated, so we've got a backup copy of my
win98se and the in-law's license for his win98se, and the next step we
decided on was a clean install. Unfortunately the system would freeze
after asking if we wanted to boot from the cdrom or the hard drive with
the backup copy of win98se in the old dvdrom. In the old cdrw drive it
doesn't even get this far, complaining of not liking the boot media. A
second backup of win98 (original) is tried in both drives and the
results are worse with neither drive 'seeing' the cd. Booting into
win98se from the original drive works fine, and again the drives can
read and transfer data from all cdrs.

Wondering about the PSU, I put all the devices on the same branch of
power connectors from the PSU (there are two branches). Now even the
floppy works! I'm able to do a successful clone with ghost (after
disconnecting the optical drives and putting the old drive as master on
IDE 1 and the new drive as master on IDE 2, just like I had set
originally) and the system boots into win98se. Everything is working
(beyond it identifying an unknown device in the system devices list as
well as a conflict with the haupage TV tuner card and a driver problem
with the modem wave device) and so I install the new video card and the
ATi drivers. Everything works. We install his new game, and it works on
the new card where it wouldn't with the old card. I even put the floppy
back onto the original branch of the PSU that it was on at the start
(leaving the other drives alone) and now the floppy works again and will
boot with several different boot floppies where at the beginning it
wouldn't see any!

I'm wondering what the hell happened? Is this a flaky old PSU getting
ready to die? I kept having to try and retry things and sometimes they'd
work, sometimes they wouldn't, and in the end they were working when an
hour before they were dead or functioning improperly. I didn't have my
tools or backup hardware to test these things, and it was a real hassle.
It may be working now, but I'd really like some input as to what may be
the problem or problems with this system, as most of the trouble was
well outside of windows so I can't blame it on a user screwing up the OS.

Cheers,

Ari


--
spammage trappage: replace fishies_ with yahoo

I'm going to die rather sooner than I'd like. I tried to protect my
neighbours from crime, and became the victim of it. Complications in
hospital following this resulted in a serious illness. I now need a bone
marrow transplant. Many people around the world are waiting for a marrow
transplant, too. Please volunteer to be a marrow donor:
http://www.abmdr.org.au/
http://www.marrow.org/

spodosaurus wrote:

Hi all,

The other night (well, actually day turned into night) I was going to
help an in-law install a video card and migrate a windows 98 se system
to a larger hard disk drive. I was told that everything was working
fine, it just needed a better video card to play a new(ish) game. So, I
made some ghost boot floppies and a backup of my win98se install cdrom
(they had their manual with the license but couldn't find their cdrom)
and headed over. The computer was working fine, right? That's where the
fun starts, and I was hoping for some feedback as to the likely cause of
the problems I'm about to describe. I didn't bring my tools with me to
test things because everything was working...riiiiiight....

So, I can't fit both drives in at once because the Gigabyte micro ATX
motherboard (in a full size ATX case with 300W Auriga power supply)
doesn't allow enough room to fit a drive in the second hard drive bay
without removing the P4 2.4GHz CPU (the shop they went to and bought the
new hard drive from said it would be fine, but they obviously didn't try
a test fit). So I removed the old drive and set it up on a static bag
outside the case as master on IDE 1 after installing the new drive as
master on IDE 2 (I disconnected the cdrw and dvdrom drives). All set to
ghost, right? The floppy doesn't see boot media.

I connect up another spare demonstrably working floppy on the same power
connector and floppy cable (same spot), resulting in the same error. So,
maybe the power supply is messed up or the floppy controller on the
motherboard is gone or there's a problem with the floppy ribbon. They
never use the floppy, so they didn't know of the problem.

So I reconnect the optical drives and put the hard drives on the same
channel, boot into win98se, and use the Western Digital clone utility
from a cdr I brought along to clone C: to D: and everything goes fine,
with the program reporting a successful clone and that the 7 files it
did not copy over would be replaced by the operating system (files such
as cookies.txt and the like). I disconnect the old drive, put the new
drive as master, and try and reboot. The system POSTs but doesn't boot,
just hanging right before it should go to win98se.

Now I'm getting a little frustrated, so we've got a backup copy of my
win98se and the in-law's license for his win98se, and the next step we
decided on was a clean install. Unfortunately the system would freeze
after asking if we wanted to boot from the cdrom or the hard drive with
the backup copy of win98se in the old dvdrom. In the old cdrw drive it
doesn't even get this far, complaining of not liking the boot media. A
second backup of win98 (original) is tried in both drives and the
results are worse with neither drive 'seeing' the cd. Booting into
win98se from the original drive works fine, and again the drives can
read and transfer data from all cdrs.

Wondering about the PSU, I put all the devices on the same branch of
power connectors from the PSU (there are two branches). Now even the
floppy works! I'm able to do a successful clone with ghost (after
disconnecting the optical drives and putting the old drive as master on
IDE 1 and the new drive as master on IDE 2, just like I had set
originally) and the system boots into win98se. Everything is working
(beyond it identifying an unknown device in the system devices list as
well as a conflict with the haupage TV tuner card and a driver problem
with the modem wave device) and so I install the new video card and the
ATi drivers. Everything works. We install his new game, and it works on
the new card where it wouldn't with the old card. I even put the floppy
back onto the original branch of the PSU that it was on at the start
(leaving the other drives alone) and now the floppy works again and will
boot with several different boot floppies where at the beginning it
wouldn't see any!

I'm wondering what the hell happened? Is this a flaky old PSU getting
ready to die? I kept having to try and retry things and sometimes they'd
work, sometimes they wouldn't, and in the end they were working when an
hour before they were dead or functioning improperly. I didn't have my
tools or backup hardware to test these things, and it was a real hassle.
It may be working now, but I'd really like some input as to what may be
the problem or problems with this system, as most of the trouble was
well outside of windows so I can't blame it on a user screwing up the OS.

Cheers,

Ari



Always hard to tell when unable to see the system for one's self but it
sounds like drive master/slave configuration problems. Western Digital has
*two* master settings: master with slave and single drive.

David Maynard wrote:
spodosaurus wrote:

Hi all,

The other night (well, actually day turned into night) I was going to
help an in-law install a video card and migrate a windows 98 se system
to a larger hard disk drive. I was told that everything was working
fine, it just needed a better video card to play a new(ish) game. So,
I made some ghost boot floppies and a backup of my win98se install
cdrom (they had their manual with the license but couldn't find their
cdrom) and headed over. The computer was working fine, right? That's
where the fun starts, and I was hoping for some feedback as to the
likely cause of the problems I'm about to describe. I didn't bring my
tools with me to test things because everything was
working...riiiiiight....

So, I can't fit both drives in at once because the Gigabyte micro ATX
motherboard (in a full size ATX case with 300W Auriga power supply)
doesn't allow enough room to fit a drive in the second hard drive bay
without removing the P4 2.4GHz CPU (the shop they went to and bought
the new hard drive from said it would be fine, but they obviously
didn't try a test fit). So I removed the old drive and set it up on a
static bag outside the case as master on IDE 1 after installing the
new drive as master on IDE 2 (I disconnected the cdrw and dvdrom
drives). All set to ghost, right? The floppy doesn't see boot media.

I connect up another spare demonstrably working floppy on the same
power connector and floppy cable (same spot), resulting in the same
error. So, maybe the power supply is messed up or the floppy
controller on the motherboard is gone or there's a problem with the
floppy ribbon. They never use the floppy, so they didn't know of the
problem.

So I reconnect the optical drives and put the hard drives on the same
channel, boot into win98se, and use the Western Digital clone utility
from a cdr I brought along to clone C: to D: and everything goes fine,
with the program reporting a successful clone and that the 7 files it
did not copy over would be replaced by the operating system (files
such as cookies.txt and the like). I disconnect the old drive, put the
new drive as master, and try and reboot. The system POSTs but doesn't
boot, just hanging right before it should go to win98se.

Now I'm getting a little frustrated, so we've got a backup copy of my
win98se and the in-law's license for his win98se, and the next step we
decided on was a clean install. Unfortunately the system would freeze
after asking if we wanted to boot from the cdrom or the hard drive
with the backup copy of win98se in the old dvdrom. In the old cdrw
drive it doesn't even get this far, complaining of not liking the boot
media. A second backup of win98 (original) is tried in both drives and
the results are worse with neither drive 'seeing' the cd. Booting into
win98se from the original drive works fine, and again the drives can
read and transfer data from all cdrs.

Wondering about the PSU, I put all the devices on the same branch of
power connectors from the PSU (there are two branches). Now even the
floppy works! I'm able to do a successful clone with ghost (after
disconnecting the optical drives and putting the old drive as master
on IDE 1 and the new drive as master on IDE 2, just like I had set
originally) and the system boots into win98se. Everything is working
(beyond it identifying an unknown device in the system devices list as
well as a conflict with the haupage TV tuner card and a driver problem
with the modem wave device) and so I install the new video card and
the ATi drivers. Everything works. We install his new game, and it
works on the new card where it wouldn't with the old card. I even put
the floppy back onto the original branch of the PSU that it was on at
the start (leaving the other drives alone) and now the floppy works
again and will boot with several different boot floppies where at the
beginning it wouldn't see any!

I'm wondering what the hell happened? Is this a flaky old PSU getting
ready to die? I kept having to try and retry things and sometimes
they'd work, sometimes they wouldn't, and in the end they were working
when an hour before they were dead or functioning improperly. I didn't
have my tools or backup hardware to test these things, and it was a
real hassle. It may be working now, but I'd really like some input as
to what may be the problem or problems with this system, as most of
the trouble was well outside of windows so I can't blame it on a user
screwing up the OS.

Cheers,

Ari



Always hard to tell when unable to see the system for one's self but it
sounds like drive master/slave configuration problems. Western Digital
has *two* master settings: master with slave and single drive.


I was aware of that beforehand and made sure the jumpers were configured
properly on all drives throughout the 'ordeal' :-)

Ari

--
spammage trappage: replace fishies_ with yahoo

I'm going to die rather sooner than I'd like. I tried to protect my
neighbours from crime, and became the victim of it. Complications in
hospital following this resulted in a serious illness. I now need a bone
marrow transplant. Many people around the world are waiting for a marrow
transplant, too. Please volunteer to be a marrow donor:
http://www.abmdr.org.au/
http://www.marrow.org/

"spodosaurus" wrote in message
...
David Maynard wrote:
spodosaurus wrote:

Hi all,

The other night (well, actually day turned into night) I was going to
help an in-law install a video card and migrate a windows 98 se system
to a larger hard disk drive. I was told that everything was working
fine, it just needed a better video card to play a new(ish) game. So,
I made some ghost boot floppies and a backup of my win98se install
cdrom (they had their manual with the license but couldn't find their
cdrom) and headed over. The computer was working fine, right? That's
where the fun starts, and I was hoping for some feedback as to the
likely cause of the problems I'm about to describe. I didn't bring my
tools with me to test things because everything was
working...riiiiiight....

So, I can't fit both drives in at once because the Gigabyte micro ATX
motherboard (in a full size ATX case with 300W Auriga power supply)
doesn't allow enough room to fit a drive in the second hard drive bay
without removing the P4 2.4GHz CPU (the shop they went to and bought
the new hard drive from said it would be fine, but they obviously
didn't try a test fit). So I removed the old drive and set it up on a
static bag outside the case as master on IDE 1 after installing the
new drive as master on IDE 2 (I disconnected the cdrw and dvdrom
drives). All set to ghost, right? The floppy doesn't see boot media.

I connect up another spare demonstrably working floppy on the same
power connector and floppy cable (same spot), resulting in the same
error. So, maybe the power supply is messed up or the floppy
controller on the motherboard is gone or there's a problem with the
floppy ribbon. They never use the floppy, so they didn't know of the
problem.

So I reconnect the optical drives and put the hard drives on the same
channel, boot into win98se, and use the Western Digital clone utility
from a cdr I brought along to clone C: to D: and everything goes fine,
with the program reporting a successful clone and that the 7 files it
did not copy over would be replaced by the operating system (files
such as cookies.txt and the like). I disconnect the old drive, put the
new drive as master, and try and reboot. The system POSTs but doesn't
boot, just hanging right before it should go to win98se.

Now I'm getting a little frustrated, so we've got a backup copy of my
win98se and the in-law's license for his win98se, and the next step we
decided on was a clean install. Unfortunately the system would freeze
after asking if we wanted to boot from the cdrom or the hard drive
with the backup copy of win98se in the old dvdrom. In the old cdrw
drive it doesn't even get this far, complaining of not liking the boot
media. A second backup of win98 (original) is tried in both drives and
the results are worse with neither drive 'seeing' the cd. Booting into
win98se from the original drive works fine, and again the drives can
read and transfer data from all cdrs.

Wondering about the PSU, I put all the devices on the same branch of
power connectors from the PSU (there are two branches). Now even the
floppy works! I'm able to do a successful clone with ghost (after
disconnecting the optical drives and putting the old drive as master
on IDE 1 and the new drive as master on IDE 2, just like I had set
originally) and the system boots into win98se. Everything is working
(beyond it identifying an unknown device in the system devices list as
well as a conflict with the haupage TV tuner card and a driver problem
with the modem wave device) and so I install the new video card and
the ATi drivers. Everything works. We install his new game, and it
works on the new card where it wouldn't with the old card. I even put
the floppy back onto the original branch of the PSU that it was on at
the start (leaving the other drives alone) and now the floppy works
again and will boot with several different boot floppies where at the
beginning it wouldn't see any!

I'm wondering what the hell happened? Is this a flaky old PSU getting
ready to die? I kept having to try and retry things and sometimes
they'd work, sometimes they wouldn't, and in the end they were working
when an hour before they were dead or functioning improperly. I didn't
have my tools or backup hardware to test these things, and it was a
real hassle. It may be working now, but I'd really like some input as
to what may be the problem or problems with this system, as most of
the trouble was well outside of windows so I can't blame it on a user
screwing up the OS.

Cheers,

Ari



Always hard to tell when unable to see the system for one's self but it
sounds like drive master/slave configuration problems. Western Digital
has *two* master settings: master with slave and single drive.


I was aware of that beforehand and made sure the jumpers were configured
properly on all drives throughout the 'ordeal' :-)

Ari

heck for me this is normal having issues. *lol*

i work with ancient hardware.

i often tell the people i do it free for that they should go sacrifice a
goat and pray for the processes success at whatever altar they worship at.
as they are africans they love the sense of humor.

if a day comes along where a system upgrade just works i mark it down as a
miracle. *lol*

"spodosaurus" wrote in message
...
tools or backup hardware to test these things, and it was a real hassle.
It may be working now, but I'd really like some input as to what may be
the problem or problems with this system, as most of the trouble was well
outside of windows so I can't blame it on a user screwing up the OS.

I can't say what happened. What I can tell you is that you shouldn't put
RUNNING components on anti-static material. Anti-static material is
typically CONDUCTIVE. When I run hard drives outside the PC case
temporarily for ghosting I usually use a CD case or a cardboard box to set
the drive on. Who knows what would happen if the circuit board on the
bottom had all of the exposed solder connections connected through the
anti-static bag.

--Dan

spodosaurus wrote:

David Maynard wrote:

spodosaurus wrote:

Hi all,

The other night (well, actually day turned into night) I was going to
help an in-law install a video card and migrate a windows 98 se
system to a larger hard disk drive. I was told that everything was
working fine, it just needed a better video card to play a new(ish)
game. So, I made some ghost boot floppies and a backup of my win98se
install cdrom (they had their manual with the license but couldn't
find their cdrom) and headed over. The computer was working fine,
right? That's where the fun starts, and I was hoping for some
feedback as to the likely cause of the problems I'm about to
describe. I didn't bring my tools with me to test things because
everything was working...riiiiiight....

So, I can't fit both drives in at once because the Gigabyte micro ATX
motherboard (in a full size ATX case with 300W Auriga power supply)
doesn't allow enough room to fit a drive in the second hard drive bay
without removing the P4 2.4GHz CPU (the shop they went to and bought
the new hard drive from said it would be fine, but they obviously
didn't try a test fit). So I removed the old drive and set it up on a
static bag outside the case as master on IDE 1 after installing the
new drive as master on IDE 2 (I disconnected the cdrw and dvdrom
drives). All set to ghost, right? The floppy doesn't see boot media.

I connect up another spare demonstrably working floppy on the same
power connector and floppy cable (same spot), resulting in the same
error. So, maybe the power supply is messed up or the floppy
controller on the motherboard is gone or there's a problem with the
floppy ribbon. They never use the floppy, so they didn't know of the
problem.

So I reconnect the optical drives and put the hard drives on the same
channel, boot into win98se, and use the Western Digital clone utility
from a cdr I brought along to clone C: to D: and everything goes
fine, with the program reporting a successful clone and that the 7
files it did not copy over would be replaced by the operating system
(files such as cookies.txt and the like). I disconnect the old drive,
put the new drive as master, and try and reboot. The system POSTs but
doesn't boot, just hanging right before it should go to win98se.

Now I'm getting a little frustrated, so we've got a backup copy of my
win98se and the in-law's license for his win98se, and the next step
we decided on was a clean install. Unfortunately the system would
freeze after asking if we wanted to boot from the cdrom or the hard
drive with the backup copy of win98se in the old dvdrom. In the old
cdrw drive it doesn't even get this far, complaining of not liking
the boot media. A second backup of win98 (original) is tried in both
drives and the results are worse with neither drive 'seeing' the cd.
Booting into win98se from the original drive works fine, and again
the drives can read and transfer data from all cdrs.

Wondering about the PSU, I put all the devices on the same branch of
power connectors from the PSU (there are two branches). Now even the
floppy works! I'm able to do a successful clone with ghost (after
disconnecting the optical drives and putting the old drive as master
on IDE 1 and the new drive as master on IDE 2, just like I had set
originally) and the system boots into win98se. Everything is working
(beyond it identifying an unknown device in the system devices list
as well as a conflict with the haupage TV tuner card and a driver
problem with the modem wave device) and so I install the new video
card and the ATi drivers. Everything works. We install his new game,
and it works on the new card where it wouldn't with the old card. I
even put the floppy back onto the original branch of the PSU that it
was on at the start (leaving the other drives alone) and now the
floppy works again and will boot with several different boot floppies
where at the beginning it wouldn't see any!

I'm wondering what the hell happened? Is this a flaky old PSU getting
ready to die? I kept having to try and retry things and sometimes
they'd work, sometimes they wouldn't, and in the end they were
working when an hour before they were dead or functioning improperly.
I didn't have my tools or backup hardware to test these things, and
it was a real hassle. It may be working now, but I'd really like some
input as to what may be the problem or problems with this system, as
most of the trouble was well outside of windows so I can't blame it
on a user screwing up the OS.

Cheers,

Ari



Always hard to tell when unable to see the system for one's self but
it sounds like drive master/slave configuration problems. Western
Digital has *two* master settings: master with slave and single drive.


I was aware of that beforehand and made sure the jumpers were configured
properly on all drives throughout the 'ordeal' :-)

Ari


Figures. It's never the 'easy' one

Could be the static bag was a problem because they're slightly conductive.

dg wrote:
"spodosaurus" wrote in message
...

tools or backup hardware to test these things, and it was a real hassle.
It may be working now, but I'd really like some input as to what may be
the problem or problems with this system, as most of the trouble was well
outside of windows so I can't blame it on a user screwing up the OS.


I can't say what happened. What I can tell you is that you shouldn't put
RUNNING components on anti-static material. Anti-static material is
typically CONDUCTIVE. When I run hard drives outside the PC case
temporarily for ghosting I usually use a CD case or a cardboard box to set
the drive on. Who knows what would happen if the circuit board on the
bottom had all of the exposed solder connections connected through the
anti-static bag.

--Dan



What is your reference for this? Anti static materials are supposed to
be non conductive to prevent just the sort of things you're worried about.

--
spammage trappage: replace fishies_ with yahoo

I'm going to die rather sooner than I'd like. I tried to protect my
neighbours from crime, and became the victim of it. Complications in
hospital following this resulted in a serious illness. I now need a bone
marrow transplant. Many people around the world are waiting for a marrow
transplant, too. Please volunteer to be a marrow donor:
http://www.abmdr.org.au/
http://www.marrow.org/

David Maynard wrote:
spodosaurus wrote:

David Maynard wrote:

spodosaurus wrote:

Hi all,

The other night (well, actually day turned into night) I was going
to help an in-law install a video card and migrate a windows 98 se
system to a larger hard disk drive. I was told that everything was
working fine, it just needed a better video card to play a new(ish)
game. So, I made some ghost boot floppies and a backup of my win98se
install cdrom (they had their manual with the license but couldn't
find their cdrom) and headed over. The computer was working fine,
right? That's where the fun starts, and I was hoping for some
feedback as to the likely cause of the problems I'm about to
describe. I didn't bring my tools with me to test things because
everything was working...riiiiiight....

So, I can't fit both drives in at once because the Gigabyte micro
ATX motherboard (in a full size ATX case with 300W Auriga power
supply) doesn't allow enough room to fit a drive in the second hard
drive bay without removing the P4 2.4GHz CPU (the shop they went to
and bought the new hard drive from said it would be fine, but they
obviously didn't try a test fit). So I removed the old drive and set
it up on a static bag outside the case as master on IDE 1 after
installing the new drive as master on IDE 2 (I disconnected the cdrw
and dvdrom drives). All set to ghost, right? The floppy doesn't see
boot media.

I connect up another spare demonstrably working floppy on the same
power connector and floppy cable (same spot), resulting in the same
error. So, maybe the power supply is messed up or the floppy
controller on the motherboard is gone or there's a problem with the
floppy ribbon. They never use the floppy, so they didn't know of the
problem.

So I reconnect the optical drives and put the hard drives on the
same channel, boot into win98se, and use the Western Digital clone
utility from a cdr I brought along to clone C: to D: and everything
goes fine, with the program reporting a successful clone and that
the 7 files it did not copy over would be replaced by the operating
system (files such as cookies.txt and the like). I disconnect the
old drive, put the new drive as master, and try and reboot. The
system POSTs but doesn't boot, just hanging right before it should
go to win98se.

Now I'm getting a little frustrated, so we've got a backup copy of
my win98se and the in-law's license for his win98se, and the next
step we decided on was a clean install. Unfortunately the system
would freeze after asking if we wanted to boot from the cdrom or the
hard drive with the backup copy of win98se in the old dvdrom. In the
old cdrw drive it doesn't even get this far, complaining of not
liking the boot media. A second backup of win98 (original) is tried
in both drives and the results are worse with neither drive 'seeing'
the cd. Booting into win98se from the original drive works fine, and
again the drives can read and transfer data from all cdrs.

Wondering about the PSU, I put all the devices on the same branch of
power connectors from the PSU (there are two branches). Now even the
floppy works! I'm able to do a successful clone with ghost (after
disconnecting the optical drives and putting the old drive as master
on IDE 1 and the new drive as master on IDE 2, just like I had set
originally) and the system boots into win98se. Everything is working
(beyond it identifying an unknown device in the system devices list
as well as a conflict with the haupage TV tuner card and a driver
problem with the modem wave device) and so I install the new video
card and the ATi drivers. Everything works. We install his new game,
and it works on the new card where it wouldn't with the old card. I
even put the floppy back onto the original branch of the PSU that it
was on at the start (leaving the other drives alone) and now the
floppy works again and will boot with several different boot
floppies where at the beginning it wouldn't see any!

I'm wondering what the hell happened? Is this a flaky old PSU
getting ready to die? I kept having to try and retry things and
sometimes they'd work, sometimes they wouldn't, and in the end they
were working when an hour before they were dead or functioning
improperly. I didn't have my tools or backup hardware to test these
things, and it was a real hassle. It may be working now, but I'd
really like some input as to what may be the problem or problems
with this system, as most of the trouble was well outside of windows
so I can't blame it on a user screwing up the OS.

Cheers,

Ari



Always hard to tell when unable to see the system for one's self but
it sounds like drive master/slave configuration problems. Western
Digital has *two* master settings: master with slave and single drive.


I was aware of that beforehand and made sure the jumpers were
configured properly on all drives throughout the 'ordeal' :-)

Ari


Figures. It's never the 'easy' one

Could be the static bag was a problem because they're slightly conductive.


The new drive was never on the bag, though, only the old drive which
never missed a beat (neither did the new drive once the ghosting was
finished). It also doesn't explain the floppy drive and other weirdness
when no connected drives were on the bag (which was most of the time
that I was fartsing around, I just didn't list every last thing I did
during the hours of wanting to bash the PC with a hammer as my original
post was already long).

I've never heard that the static bags were conductive, though. I was
under the impression that they're quite the opposite to prevent charge
reaching the materials that they contain. Do you have a reference for
this? Like something general that might point out other interesting
tidbits that would be good for me to know? dg also pointed this out in
this thread.

Ari



--
spammage trappage: replace fishies_ with yahoo

I'm going to die rather sooner than I'd like. I tried to protect my
neighbours from crime, and became the victim of it. Complications in
hospital following this resulted in a serious illness. I now need a bone
marrow transplant. Many people around the world are waiting for a marrow
transplant, too. Please volunteer to be a marrow donor:
http://www.abmdr.org.au/
http://www.marrow.org/

spodosaurus wrote:
dg wrote:

....

I can't say what happened. What I can tell you is that you
shouldn't put RUNNING components on anti-static material.
Anti-static material is typically CONDUCTIVE. When I run hard
drives outside the PC case temporarily for ghosting I usually use
a CD case or a cardboard box to set the drive on. Who knows what
would happen if the circuit board on the bottom had all of the
exposed solder connections connected through the anti-static bag.

What is your reference for this? Anti static materials are supposed
to be non conductive to prevent just the sort of things you're
worried about.

I think antistatic material is supposed to be conductive to keep all
points at the same voltage. It would also help dissipate static
electricity arriving at any one point.

A very bright high school student said something like that to me
once, that he didn't understand why humidity would help dissipate
static electricity. Humidity (water vapor) is conductive.





--
Writing the first dynamically timed systemwide macro recorder for
Windows XP. Please see (comp.windows.open-look). Coding help is
needed, using VC++ 7.

spodosaurus wrote:

David Maynard wrote:

spodosaurus wrote:

David Maynard wrote:

spodosaurus wrote:

Hi all,

The other night (well, actually day turned into night) I was going
to help an in-law install a video card and migrate a windows 98 se
system to a larger hard disk drive. I was told that everything was
working fine, it just needed a better video card to play a new(ish)
game. So, I made some ghost boot floppies and a backup of my
win98se install cdrom (they had their manual with the license but
couldn't find their cdrom) and headed over. The computer was
working fine, right? That's where the fun starts, and I was hoping
for some feedback as to the likely cause of the problems I'm about
to describe. I didn't bring my tools with me to test things because
everything was working...riiiiiight....

So, I can't fit both drives in at once because the Gigabyte micro
ATX motherboard (in a full size ATX case with 300W Auriga power
supply) doesn't allow enough room to fit a drive in the second hard
drive bay without removing the P4 2.4GHz CPU (the shop they went to
and bought the new hard drive from said it would be fine, but they
obviously didn't try a test fit). So I removed the old drive and
set it up on a static bag outside the case as master on IDE 1 after
installing the new drive as master on IDE 2 (I disconnected the
cdrw and dvdrom drives). All set to ghost, right? The floppy
doesn't see boot media.

I connect up another spare demonstrably working floppy on the same
power connector and floppy cable (same spot), resulting in the same
error. So, maybe the power supply is messed up or the floppy
controller on the motherboard is gone or there's a problem with the
floppy ribbon. They never use the floppy, so they didn't know of
the problem.

So I reconnect the optical drives and put the hard drives on the
same channel, boot into win98se, and use the Western Digital clone
utility from a cdr I brought along to clone C: to D: and everything
goes fine, with the program reporting a successful clone and that
the 7 files it did not copy over would be replaced by the operating
system (files such as cookies.txt and the like). I disconnect the
old drive, put the new drive as master, and try and reboot. The
system POSTs but doesn't boot, just hanging right before it should
go to win98se.

Now I'm getting a little frustrated, so we've got a backup copy of
my win98se and the in-law's license for his win98se, and the next
step we decided on was a clean install. Unfortunately the system
would freeze after asking if we wanted to boot from the cdrom or
the hard drive with the backup copy of win98se in the old dvdrom.
In the old cdrw drive it doesn't even get this far, complaining of
not liking the boot media. A second backup of win98 (original) is
tried in both drives and the results are worse with neither drive
'seeing' the cd. Booting into win98se from the original drive works
fine, and again the drives can read and transfer data from all cdrs.

Wondering about the PSU, I put all the devices on the same branch
of power connectors from the PSU (there are two branches). Now even
the floppy works! I'm able to do a successful clone with ghost
(after disconnecting the optical drives and putting the old drive
as master on IDE 1 and the new drive as master on IDE 2, just like
I had set originally) and the system boots into win98se. Everything
is working (beyond it identifying an unknown device in the system
devices list as well as a conflict with the haupage TV tuner card
and a driver problem with the modem wave device) and so I install
the new video card and the ATi drivers. Everything works. We
install his new game, and it works on the new card where it
wouldn't with the old card. I even put the floppy back onto the
original branch of the PSU that it was on at the start (leaving the
other drives alone) and now the floppy works again and will boot
with several different boot floppies where at the beginning it
wouldn't see any!

I'm wondering what the hell happened? Is this a flaky old PSU
getting ready to die? I kept having to try and retry things and
sometimes they'd work, sometimes they wouldn't, and in the end they
were working when an hour before they were dead or functioning
improperly. I didn't have my tools or backup hardware to test these
things, and it was a real hassle. It may be working now, but I'd
really like some input as to what may be the problem or problems
with this system, as most of the trouble was well outside of
windows so I can't blame it on a user screwing up the OS.

Cheers,

Ari



Always hard to tell when unable to see the system for one's self but
it sounds like drive master/slave configuration problems. Western
Digital has *two* master settings: master with slave and single drive.


I was aware of that beforehand and made sure the jumpers were
configured properly on all drives throughout the 'ordeal' :-)

Ari


Figures. It's never the 'easy' one

Could be the static bag was a problem because they're slightly
conductive.


The new drive was never on the bag, though, only the old drive which
never missed a beat (neither did the new drive once the ghosting was
finished). It also doesn't explain the floppy drive and other weirdness
when no connected drives were on the bag (which was most of the time
that I was fartsing around, I just didn't list every last thing I did
during the hours of wanting to bash the PC with a hammer as my original
post was already long).

Sorry, I thought you had said the motherboard was on the "static bag."

I've never heard that the static bags were conductive, though. I was
under the impression that they're quite the opposite to prevent charge
reaching the materials that they contain. Do you have a reference for
this? Like something general that might point out other interesting
tidbits that would be good for me to know? dg also pointed this out in
this thread.

Conductivity is what makes them work. How conductive depends on the type.
'Anti-static' only is very high resistance and only protects from creating
static from the normal friction process. One that 'shields' from
electrostatic fields will have a much lower resistance.

The plastic 'bag' portion generally acts as a discharge barrier.

See here

http://www.3m.com/market/electronic/...rticle03.jhtml

I don't now which type yours is.