Got backups?

[picsfor]

to access dos on boot up press f8 and then enter the option for dos with or without network options.

it's not the best falvour of dos ever issued forth by ms - but beggers can't be choosers...

[oRGie]

thanks Pics, didnt realise xp had a dos window..  mind u, thinking about it, how long is is since I navigated dos lol...  just stopping by, I disabled the usb controllers in the bios, was just checking everything is working, it is, before I go and see if I can now use device manager to delete the drivers   I'm goin in !! 

[Darren1978]

Happypaddler...thanks for the info, very useful and gives me a few places to start looking 

[hevans]

oRGie,

you could also try to install and boot from a Ubuntu CD or USB stick. Then use this to check out the windows file system.

If the system boots from the USB stick, then it should show that it's not a hardware fault. (then again, I've only managed to boot the laptop from the USB stick, the two desktops seem resistant to the idea, while seeming to provide the functionality in the boot menu options).

BTW. have you tried it with a different mouse? I had one that developed a short, it took down the USB hardware controller when plugged in, but everything worked fine when it wasn't.

H.

[oRGie]

Thanks Hugh..  I have a feeling that the usb controller on the mobo is fried, when I boot up it stops and clearly due to a problem with the usb controller because of what happened when it died, the mouse suddenly stopped working and now to boot with the USB enabled in bios I have to plug in the usb mouse, then windows starts, but the mouse still doesnt work. I have a ps2 adapter with the mouse in that and that works perfectly, so mouse is ok..  Windows is freezing because it is trying to communicate with the controller.

I was pushing lots of files around and when I unplugged the ehd the ehd light flashed momentarilly and I have an inkling that something happened at that moment, the ehd is ok in another pc btw... and I did let windows shut it down and waited for the lights to go out before I unplugged it, but I have read that if it was running when I unplugged it, that can fry the controller and even mobo sometimes...

With the controller enabled in bios, when I get windows up I get the message usb device not recognised, but thats with no usb devices plugged in ! the message keeps popping up like there is a short somewhere. Disabling the controller lets windows boot normally and no pop ups about usb problems. Sadly with it disabled it doesnt show in device manager so I still cant delete all the drivers to let windows rebuild them on boot up. But my gut is saying hardware fault anyway.

I am going to pull the pc apart and clean everything, slots, ram etc as that could be a problem, then if that doesnt solve the problem I will try to delete the drivers in dos, if thats doesnt solve it I will get a pci-e i/o controller card, I dont have fw or usb2 at the back anyway, so that will be handy, hopefully that will bypass the onboard controller... 

[hevans]

If the USB on the MB is fried, then you could try to get a USB PCI card and try that out. Shouldn't cost too much, and if it rescues an otherwise defunct system, a bargain. That's similar to what I did when the onboard audio circuits died - plugged in an USB audio device.

Unless you feel you want to upgrade at this point ;-).

H.

[oRGie]

wooohooo      Well i was right that it was a hardware problem, but instead of a fried controller it was a short!!!   the dust bunnies had congregated behind a glued in panel on the front panel where the on button and front panel usb/firewire ports are. I clean the inside of the pc a couple of times a year, but I had to force the plastic cover off to get to where the problem was. The cover is not airtight, so the suction caused by the rear fans was pulling dirt in there and I can only guess that because it has been quite humid for the past week or so, the dust retained enough moisture to cause a short.

My mobo has front usb2 and rear usb1.1 so I got a pci usb2 controller card with 5 ports so I will hopefully be able to transfer files from one ehd to another without having to copy to desktop first, was a right pain..  ok off to install the new card now...  soon my backup plans will be complete, decorating is all done, so maybe I can finally get out with my new camera lol

[picsfor]

Just become very glad about my back up strategy - had to re-build the Mac to get rid of the issues caused by installing LR3 Beta.
Also think i suffered a bit of corruption when i uninstalled CS4...

Chose the option to manually build it instead of just performing a system restore to a date before installing LR3 Beta. I know all those Time Machine fans are asking why?
I've never seen a Mac install from cold so thought i'd have another learning exercise whilst i had the 'excuse'.
But at least i only had to plug in the time machine EHD and recover the data. Lost 1 or 2 files and e-mails in the process but nothing major and i've discovered the odd weakness in my strategy.

Glad you're all sorted out Orgie - frustrating not having access to your compy. What does that say about 'us' or 'society'?

[hevans]

Lost 1 or 2 files and e-mails in the process but nothing major and i've discovered the odd weakness in my strategy.

So, what were the weaknesses? I'd be interested to see if it's something I'm susceptible to/hadn't thought of as well.

H.

PS. Orgie, glad to hear it's working again.

[picsfor]

OK, when the EHD used for Time Machine gets to its limit it automatically deletes previous back ups. No warning or request - just does it all by itself.
It should be understood here that whilst the hard drive was only just over half full when starting, by the time it hard performed a complete back up of the 'new mac' it was running out of space.
I hadn't cleared the 'old mac' files because i was using them as an easy form of recovering data to the 'new mac'.

Now the data has been recovered etc i have deleted all of the 'old mac' files and were are running without plenty of space. It should be remembered that just about all my files were back up to a second point, but apparently one or two hadn't. A couple of pictures and a few e-mails seems to have been the victims here. I just thought it would be easier and more convenient to use Time Machine.

Next, Mail does not have a back up point - so you have no point that i can see of exporting e-mails. If you perform a system restore with Time Machine they are all recovered up to 'restore' point with the rest of the system. However, if you perform a fresh build like i have, you can not restore those e-mails as data from a Time Machine back up. You can export the Address Book details but not Mail stuff. As i have MS Office for the Mac installed with Entour i will be using this for my e-mails and contacts in future because like Outlook you have an additional point of back, like a .pst file (i think it's an .rfg format on the Mac). This can be backed up to a second EHD or CD/DVD with out any effort as often as you like. As the e-mails were the same ones that went to my Windows Laptop i have a back up of Address book stuff and incoming e-mails and a few sent e-mails, but not all.

That's really about it. As i said, minor points that have already been put right. The system is just about fully rebuilt to how i want - so i'm about to instruct Time Machine to fomrat and start with a fresh back on the chosen EHD to recover space and simplify future back ups.

[anglefire]

I had a WD MyBook 1TB EHD - which worked fine until I wanted to pull the files off it - then anything above about 10Mb might corrupt and not copy back. So I bought the QNap NAS and solved it that way.

Since then I have now got a further 1.5Tb drive (Which I had to format with Qpart - a Linux based program - as Windows wouldn't!) and due to it not working in my Dad's PC a 1TB drive monted in a Ebuyer External case.

Yesterday, I thought I'd take apart the MYBook and see if the drive its self is ok. Well, formated it and did a drive check and all appears to be fine. So now I have a total of 3Tb external, and 2.5TB internal (Plus the 640Gb boot disk!) Now I jut need to sot out how it will hang together.

Looks like the MyBook was simply under powered - it went no quicker on a 1Gb LAN connection than a 100Mb one, which probably says it all.

[alan1572]

i hope that i dn't need need to find out but if i do i hope that my new mac with time machine will be able to get me uop and running again, i don't know much about things and stuff with PC's so if it did happen it would be back to Aplle to get sorted.

[picsfor]

Alan, rest assured that Time Machine is an extremely robust back up application.

When my wife accidently downed the Mac earlier in the year i had it rebuilt in less than half an hour.
I was performing a custom build this time and things are a bit different then.
As i said, the niggles were minor and the lesson from your point of view is to watch your Time Machine EHD. Once it gets over 50% start to consider a format and starting with a fresh image.
That was all that was needed in my case. Mine had back ups on for about 4 months and if i hadn't tried to perform a rebuild how i did it would have been good for another 3 or 4 months.

[alan1572]

what's the quickest way to check how full my EHD is?

[oRGie]

what's the quickest way to check how full my EHD is?

In windows, right click on the drive icon, open properties...  mac, not sure, you guys only get 1 mouse button dont you