Treeman

O.K., I searched the forums but no luck. Fresh install of XP Pro w/ SP2. Created a restore point before handing over the computer to the new owner. He had the machine two days, got connected to dsl, so I tried to get him to create another restore point. System restore shows up, but when he trys to make a restore point this is the error message he gets: "System Restore cannot create a restore point, please restart your computer." I had him check services to see if system restore is set to auto, it is. From the command prompt I had him type in "net start," and system restore shows up. I googled this error message and it pointed to the Highpoint raid driver HPT372 which this Soyo board has. Microsofts fix is to nuke the htppro.sys file in safe mode. "It worked before, but not now!" Was it a Windows Update that screwed this up? I'm stumped. Anyone know the fix? Thanks, Treeman

Thanks but it seems folks are still having a problem with USB 2.0 being seen as 1.1 even after the update! It boils down to a licensing problem between Via & Microsoft. Treeman

It's from Startech, Startech combo usb/firewire pci combo card. Via chipset. MS doesn't support Via in SP2. Panasonic PV DV52 video camera & external firewire h.drive not funtional after SP2. In drive management, when looking for the external drive, the external drive would hang the computer then give this error message in drive management: "drive unreadable, 0bytes, 0data, this device is functioning properly." Like I said formatting, going back to Sp-1 everything workes perfectly. On my laptop with onboard firewire I had to rename SP2cab to SP2cabold, Install the Sp-1 drivers: 1394bus.sys arp1394.sys nic1394.sys ohci1394.sys Now it detects the camera & ext. drive as well. I figure if I don't let SP2 install the drivers in the first place, all will be fine. Treeman

Seems like you folks know about stuffing drivers, so here's my situation. Running SP-1 XP Pro right now but will be forced into SP2 by April. I know for a fact that the signed drivers for SP-1 works with my WHQL firewire pci card. I went to SP2 with my firewire stuff plugged in and disaster, nothing worked. No DV camera & no external f.wire drive. Format & install SP-1 XP Pro, everything works again. What I plan to do is take out (disconnect) anything that has to do with firewire. Update to SP2, rename SP2cab to SP2cabold, reboot, install f.wire pci card, let XP install the XP SP-1 native drivers for the pci card, plug in external devices, (camera & external h.drive) see if they work. Rename SP2cabold back to SP2cab. Your opinions on this proceedure are appreciated. Treeman

Try setting the bios to twice the ram of your adapter, not half. treeman

SP2 still hates firewire. Most folks have to rename SP2cab to SP2cabold, insert your firewire device, and you'll get the signed SP-1 drivers installed. there are a couple of patches out there, but once the install is dorked, folks still have problems accessing DV camera's & external f.wire drives. Some folks don't have any problem at all. Luck of the draw here for firewire. Treeman

Howdy, I use Casper XP, you'll have to install another ide drive that close in size to your main drive. This program let's you backup your entire hard drive to the extra hard drive within Windows! No dos disks or boot cd's. How do I know it works? I accidently unplugged one of my sata raid /0 drives while inside the case. After the warning message that raid wasn't functional, it found my spare ide drive and booted from that. Since it make an exact clone of everything, I was able to get the work done I needed, power off, and reconnect and rebuild the raid array. 5 Stars imho! Look at it here: Future Systems Treeman

No, that hotfix was to get your now defunct Maxtor drive to work! MS, It's not a bug, it's a feature!" Treeman

Jeremy how about giving me the specific camera make & model number along with the same for your pci card. Remember me telling you I gave away the external Maxtor drive to a friend, well it too worked out of the case. It's was SBP-2 port driver that was giving me trouble. Here is the MS KB & hotfix: Microsoft It's too late now since I gave the drive away. Maxtor took 4 months to post this hotfix. Notice the change to "Ohci1394.sys" The same may be true for your camera. Yes I realize you don't get that satisfying pop-up when you plug your camera in. I still believe it all comes down to the fact that MS changed the generic FW drivers with the WHQL signed drivers that has dorked things up. If not, why all the "hotfixes?" So where is the weakest link here? Is it your external drive & camera that worked with Sp-1 and not SP2? Me thinks it was overdone on the security side by MS. You see 1394 can be used as a networking protocol, so we must assimilate it and protect it at your cost. Don't give up hope, just keep trying until you do get that satisfying doink and your camera is finally recognised. Treeman

Jeremy, Try booting XP with the camera set to deliver data, it worked for someone else in the DV thread. Treeman

Jeremy, Here's a patch from Microsoft. Funny how they say there is no problem with 1394a or 1394b, then post this: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/885222 After you update your computer to Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), the performance of your 1394a or 1394b FireWire devices may be greatly decreased. A digital camera that uses S400 speed is an example of such a device. Since this involves messing with the registry, I'd back it up first. Here's a link to a DV forum that will show you the main thread about the Firewire issues:Firewire (Follow the thread to the end.) Hope you get it working. The only thing for me was to go back (format & Install XP/SP-1 Treeman

SP2 for Firewire Sucks. my2cents! The work around is this: Create a folder called Firewirefix on root of C: Copy these files from C:\WINDOWS\Driver Cache\i386 in the sp1 cab, copy the following files to that folder. 1394bus.sys arp1394.sys nic1394.sys ohci1394.sys Replace the new versions of them in the C:\WINDOWS\system32\dllcache and C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers To avoid having SP2 reinstall the new SP2 ieee drivers do this: - temporarily rename the XP2.cab file (e.g. to XP2old.cab) - doing the copy/paste as administrator under SAFE mode - rebooting Now you have the firewire SP-1 drivers running firewire instead of SP2's digitally signed drivers, your camera should work. Last ditch: Go to start, run, type in: regsvr32 %windir%\system32\qdv.dll hit enter (note: must be a space between regsvr32 and the first % sign.) Treeman

Jeremy, The Maxtor DV drive you have is easy to open. Just get a flat bladed screwdriver and start prying stuff. It will come apart eventually! This thread has gotten so long I didn't notice what version of XP your running. SP-1 or SP2? Also what kind of firewire card? Treeman

Hi Jeramy, I feel your pain! I too have a firewire card and an external Maxtor hard drive. When I upgraded to SP-2 this computer stopped seeing my external Maxtor drive. In drive management it would hang, then report the drive as, "unreadable, 0bytes, 0date, this device is working properly!" I feel the reason for this is because Microsoft is using, "certified digitally signed drivers for ieee." I tried renaming the SP2 cabs and reinstalling the old SP-1 drivers for firewire. (if you don't rename SP2 cabs it will still stick the digital drivers back!) I was able to then read, write, format, and copy files to the Maxtor from Windows Explorer, however the drive still showed up as unreadable in drive management. I have moved on, reformatted my hard drives and reinstalled SP1. Everything works except for the Maxtor which I gave to a buddy. I have a new Mercury external firewire drive hooked up now without any problems. Still I have until April to solve my problems before I'm forced to use SP2. I have ordered a new firewire / usb combo card that states that is has passed the WHQL specs. Before I update to SP2, I will remove the firewire card and external drive. (I believe SP2 dorked the Oxford 911 bridge in the external Maxtor drive) Then we shall see if SP2 & the new pci card will play nice. If it does I'll hook up my new external drive and see how that goes. Here is the pci card I'm talking about: Startech If you look under the Tech Specs tab, you will see "Microsoft WHQL Certified." I assume that since this card has passed the "Windows Hardware Quality Labs," designation it will accept the signed drivers. Your milage may vary! Good Luck, Treeman

Here's a small applet that might help: Keep Alive Treeman

prathapml, Not that I don't appreciate your advice, it's just that I'm tired of re-formatting my drive and all it's data because MS can't get it right. I'm going to try the upgrade first without the firewire card and drives/reader, then if it screws me again it will be time to slipstream and do a fresh install. Wish me luck, Treeman

Since Hearts is an integral part of the XP operating system, I thought someone might know the answer to this one. What do the little white dots in each players hand on the first deal signify? Thanks, Treeman

No seperate drivers, SP1 handled all that and the card worked flawlessly. The drivers in SP2 however are now digitally signed drivers. (I'll have to get a WHQL certified pci card) What I was mainly concerned about was how the registry would "feel," about me unplugging the card and drives. I say that because I think my computer is female and responds only to emotions, not logic. Thanks for the tips. Treeman

Ok, I'm not going to try and confuse anyone so I'll try to keep on subject: In my computer I have a combo firewire/usb pci card. The usb portion attaches to a 9 in 1 card reader which have drive assignments of let's say; F through K. The firewire card is connected to an external FW H. drive as "L" I was warned that before updating to XP-SP2, I should physically disconnect the pci combo card, along with the card reader, and external drive. This makes sense because of two facts: 1. The pci card isn't a WHQL certified item. (I'll have to update that) 2. The last time I tried to update to SP2 on this computer I had to reformat the drive back to SP-1 to get it to function again. My question is this: How nuts will XP get about missing drive assignments when I do this? And if I have a successful SP2 install experience, can I just plug things back in the reverse order I pulled them out and XP will automagically re-asign the drive letters? Thanks for your thoughts, Treeman

Just epoxy the new/old drive to the case. (grin) Treeman

Maybe this type of NAS backup solution would help, just a shot: Linksys Treeman

Just got the Shuttle XPC Mod. SB65G2 RT from NewEgg. I opened the box and was really surprised. The layout and attention to detail is amazing! The manuals are straight forward and very well laid out. Drop in a 3.0 CPU, 1gb. Ram, Floppy, Combo DVD burner, and a 256mb. ATi Video card then boot. This box even came with integrated wireless all for $199.00 I've been buiding large workstation computers for quite a while. Once I get this built, I may have to change my way of thinking about SFF. Cheers, Treeman

Thinking about buiding a small form factor bare bones computer. Wondered if anyone here has advice / tips on the best brand / model. I'll be using an Intel cpu. Looked at reviews till I was brain dead. This will be a general use computer. I looked at the Shuttle Model# SB65G2 at NewEgg for $199.00 I have an Intel P4, 2.2a Northwood that I can scavenge, and a WD1200Jb hard drive also available. My old machine has DDR266 Ecc ram, I suppose I will have to buy two faster sticks of valueram from Kingston. The specs for this SFF are here:NewEgg Thanks for any input, Treeman

I got into trouble using Hta Stop in the past. I forgot it was stopped! "HTAstop is a small, simple, free program for users of Windows95, 98, NT, 2000 or Windows ME which allows you to shut down Microsoft's "HTA" (Hypertext Application) capabilities in any version of Windows." You may want to download and run the applet from HTA Stop I think all you'll need to do is allow HTA to run, to get rid of the script running. Hope this helps, Treeman

Zxian, I think what your looking for is NAS (Network Attached Storage) Here is an example from NewEgg: NewEgg You can find other products that better suit your needs, Linksys is another one. This is just one product that may work for you. Treeman