Pension the old girl off . . .

[Sutton Warrior]

Frusrtation . . . . Steves sugestion of the Explorer RAW/JPEG reader works with my D80, sorted I thought . . . not on your life, tried a new ScanDisk Extreme III 4Gb HC SD card, the camera can cope, but the computer simply crashed 'big time', went into check 'C' drive mode! I think I'v lost setting. Even tried a new reader that came with the card.

 

Its time . . . . Pention the old girl off, she is tryig but in truth, going round in circles, cure one problem, on a knifedge . . . bang!

 

I'm also looking at what Steve said re Vista, its picture viewer opens RAW/JPG on modern cameras? With the idea I might upgrade the camera at some time, have a hankering for the D90, essentialy a D300 with a plastic body, thats a Nikon plastic body of course! Or I can stay with XP on the new 'pooter' and down load Steves 'RAW/JPG reader for XP', after all the money I might have spent on a D90 is going to have to go on the new computer

 

Anyone got a view on XP v Vista, they say Vista has many of its problems sorted, but thats not the same as 'all of its problems'? . . . Even heard the other day, MS will dump Vista and are looking at a new operating system for 2010/11 ???

 

SW

[Westie]

Anyone got a view on XP v Vista, they say Vista has many of its problems sorted, but thats not the same as 'all of its problems'? . . . Even heard the other day, MS will dump Vista and are looking at a new operating system for 2010/11 ???

 

Hi SW. I had to get a tech guy round when we thought our hard drive had fried. Problem was sorted, but he mentioned that if I ever did need to rebuild, I'd be better off staying with the XP OS, as the Vista OS was likely to be replaced in the near future, as it had not proved popular/reliable. Ties in with what you are saying, but no idea about whether that means it's accurate info.

 

Westie.

[Sutton Warrior]

Hi SW. I had to get a tech guy round when we thought our hard drive had fried. Problem was sorted, but he mentioned that if I ever did need to rebuild, I'd be better off staying with the XP OS, as the Vista OS was likely to be replaced in the near future, as it had not proved popular/reliable. Ties in with what you are saying, but no idea about whether that means it's accurate info.

 

Westie.

 

Hi mate, Mmm, two independant 'techi' views, says a lot to me . . . no smoke without fire ??? thanks.

 

SW

[Sportsman]

Get a Mac

[Newt]

The short version of what I said on the tech topic SW - I really think for what you want to do, new (or at least much newer) hardware is the way forward for you. See that topic for details.

 

XP - if you have the choice, is still an excellent OS. Vista, if you buy a new system with it installed so that all the parts play nice together is stable and will do many things faster than XP can.

 

If you decided on XP, I'd suggest paying the extra for XP-pro (you have XP-home now) and for Vista, the Home Premium version rather than the Home Basic.

[Sutton Warrior]

I dont know about putting the old computer out to grass. I'v slept on the problems, had to have an extra day of work with personal presures that needed urgent attention this morning. So I sat down once again, verious bits of advise ringing in the head. First find the 7 'missing critical MS drivers' that 'Belarc System Analyser' said I was missing, found all but one. Ran a full scan, all 2 hours worth, in between dealing with the personal urgent matters. Fiddled, tweeked all day untill 2pm, then 'crash'!!!

 

Jumped streight in the car, headed to my tame, honest computer guru. His coments were reasuring, yes we can rebuild your computer but the cost will be close to half or two thirds of a new one . . . and thats using the original 'Pentium 4' if the mother boards are still avaliable??? But essentialy its still going to have a 6 year old feel about its operation, and there are no gaurentees on the future practical life???

 

So, we seem to have turned the clock back a few weeks to when the message on the screen was, 'the computer has encountered a problem and needs to shut down, sorry for the inconvenience', this hapens not too often and I'v heard of other with similar notes displayed? I'm waiting for Steve to email me a quote and spec., for an agreed performace, home/office type use with a strong ephasis on Photographic manipulation, and a dedicated quality graphics card. The realistic budget was set and we agreed the 2 Gb of RAM I bought there a couple or three weeks ago could be re stocked at a consoderation. Put the old 512Mb of RAM in and I have a spare computer.

 

Been at the key board since 3.30pm no sign of a glitch, in fact the patient is doing very well indeed.

 

Awaiting the email, by the way its still going to be an 'XP' machine, SW

Edited January 5, 2009 by Sutton Warrior

[Newt]

If you have all your important files backed up, this is an easy try at stopping some of the errors. It it usually harmless but once in a great while if the system is too torn up, it will remove too many damaged files and you'll need an OS reload. I've had that happen about twice in several thousand runs of this particular utility and only when the operating system files were damaged but still marginally operational.

 

Open a command prompt (the DOS screen looking thing) by start>run>cmd and OK

 

Key in chkdsk /f and press ENTER.

 

Answer Yes to doing the job at next reboot then reboot.

 

The repair will run for a while - hour or two is quite possible - and will reboot itself after it is done.

[Sutton Warrior]

If you have all your important files backed up, this is an easy try at stopping some of the errors. It it usually harmless but once in a great while if the system is too torn up, it will remove too many damaged files and you'll need an OS reload. I've had that happen about twice in several thousand runs of this particular utility and only when the operating system files were damaged but still marginally operational.

 

Open a command prompt (the DOS screen looking thing) by start>run>cmd and OK

 

Key in chkdsk /f and press ENTER.

 

Answer Yes to doing the job at next reboot then reboot.

 

The repair will run for a while - hour or two is quite possible - and will reboot itself after it is done.

 

OK Newt, sonds like a final ditch plan, worth a try at the weekend when I have some time. I have the whole system backed up on my Maxtor external HD, would you advise unpluging this 'Ex HD', to take it out of the loop? There is a restor option on the Matrox that I could use, infact I'm planing on using this to selectivly restore the 'new' machine to the way the old one is . . . 'with out the problem I hope'?

 

Switched on this morning . . . 'Windows has encounterd a problem' message came up twice in the first 15 minuits, but did not crash, simply closed the progam and went back to my 'desk top'?

 

SW

[Newt]

Oops - my bad. I posted the wrong 'switch'. It will only do a light duty fix-up that way. What you need is

 

chkdsk /r (and note the space between chkdsk and /r)

[Sutton Warrior]

Oops - my bad. I posted the wrong 'switch'. It will only do a light duty fix-up that way. What you need is

 

chkdsk /r (and note the space between chkdsk and /r)

 

 

OK Newt, backed everything up on the new Ex HD (beginig to apeciate it was money well invested, with its 'one button back up') then did the above, when I came in from work this evening. Rebooted, no dramas, it looked at 'C' drive for all of 20 seconds and pronounced it 'clean', then went back into normal Windows Welcome mode, a few clicks and flicks, they may have been the HD when I repluged it in? Back to normal. Re ran Belarc Advisor, still showing '1 MS update missing'

 

The 'crashes', to day (this morning, see what hapens through this evening) are more, gental bumps reverting back from the internet to my desktop, no system re boot. I have switch 'MS updates' to Auto, so that the suituation wont? get any worse, and see how it goes. I might be able to live with the od 'minor problem notice' as this seems to be a function of Windows in one form or another for as long as I have been using it; 'performed an illegal act' is another one I remember?

 

What do you think mate? Is there any spacific way of tracking that one missing update down, or would an entire system re install do it . . . does it infact need it I'm thinking? Thats got to be cheaper than a new computer, even if I get my friendly computer shop to do it? I might be gambaling with £100 or less?? for another couple of years operation, thats about as long as the last time she went in for a full clean up at the same shop, I do trust them.

 

SW