bphlpt

I forget. Isn't the 8-bin ATX connector the same as (2) 4-pin ATC connectors side-by-side, assuming his PS has those, or am I thinking of something else? Cheers and Regards

What is "whereisit"? Do you mean this - http://www.whereisit-soft.com/? How exactly would that help you "see which files are safe to remove"? I'm confused. Cheers and Regards

For those that are absolutely forced into using Win 8, watching this video should be mandatory. Learn Windows 8 in 3 minutes (OK, it's really 4) If you watch this Win 8 will be much less frustrating. Don't get me wrong, it still sucks, I still hate it, and I disagree with many/most of the design choices, but at least it's now almost marginally usable. Cheers and Regards

From my previously referenced link - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_ATA[ Yes, the article also talks about CS, and yes, it is supposed to work. But I, and apparently jaclaz and submix8c, have had enough problems with it over the years, even with hardware that was specified to use CS, that I do not trust it. Problem I had were only solved by not using CS. No reason why was ever found by me or explained by the manufacturer. And you are trying to fix your problem, right? So why not do what has proven most reliable? Once working, if you want to go back and switch the jumpers on everything back to CS you can, and at that point it might work. But in the meantime, please eliminate as many possible trouble points as possible. It will make our, and your, job easier. Cheers and Regards

He now works for them and had to sign a non-disclosure. Cheers and Regards

Dumb noobie question. How can you tell? Cheers and Regards

Since your used space is only 13 GB, I would try to shrink the partition down to 20 GB to make your Macrium image from, but that's just me. You can always expand it back to 40 GB or even 160 GB after your image is made. Cheers and Regards

And nowhere else on this site either. Cheers and Regards

The exact mechanism that vLite uses has never been published. The code is closed and the author has never made it public. You can not get in touch with the author about the vLite code any longer, and even if you could he is now prevented from speaking about it. Sorry. Cheers and Regards

That sounds like one of the arrangements I suggested. How were you trying to connect it that didn't work? What was different? And what did this mean anyway, just out of curiosity? (I don't know what "upper and lower filters registry entries" are.) Cheers and Regards

I NEVER use CS at, at any time, on any cable, an any connector, on any device, ever. I manually jumper the devices to Master and Slave, and connect only to 80-pin IDE cables. Assuming your motherboard has two IDE connectors, it shouldn't make any difference whether you connect your HDD "C" and your DVD both as Master on separate cables connected to your motherboard, or if you connect your HDD "C" as Master and your DVD as Slave on the same cable, but you could try it both ways. In both cases, swap the motherboard connectors you use and see if that makes a difference, but the HDD "should" be connected to the IDE motherboard connector with the lowest number, 0 or 1, depending on how your motherboard is marked. In all cases check if the BIOS is picking up the devices correctly or not. If not, it is extraordinarily doubtful, if not impossible, that Windows will be able to do any better. If the BIOS is not picking things up right, if possible, plug the cables and HDD or DVD into another computer and verify it is picked up correctly there. If the other computer picks it up right, then the problem is on your motherboard or in a BIOS setting. (If it is able to disable an IDE channel perhaps, I'm just guessing here.) If the other computer does not pick it up right, I'd bet it is the cable. Try swapping the cables from the HDD to the DVD to confirm. You should also look very carefully at the connectors on the back of the DVD and on the motherboard to make sure that in your plugging and unplugging that you didn't bend a pin by mistake. It's happened. The connectors should all have either 39 or 40 pins. The only one that should/can be missing is pin 20 which is sometimes used as a key. See - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_ATA That's all I've got for now. I'd delete all except C: and let it rediscover everything else when it needs it. Yes, leave the BIOS settings for all IDE channels on "Auto" Cheers and Regards

If I understand what you last said: you are coming around to what I first suggested: I really think this is indeed your best, safest, most flexible and reliable option. I also agree that it will be best to do a good, thorough, defrag and system cleanup beforehand, including moving things off the system disk that are better kept on a separate data disk, deleting temporary files that are no longer needed, etc. There are many free partitioning programs out there, including GParted. I'd be glad to tell you which one I've used in the past when I have had to shrink a system partition, but I no longer remember. It can be done successfully with no data loss. Once shrunk, Macrium Reflect should be able to do a good job for you. I have used it successfully in the past myself. One thing to be aware of, if you are not already, is that when Macrium Reflect clones a partition/disk, it really duplicates it. In other words, you can't have both the original and the restored clone both in your system at the same time, because they both will have the same "Volume ID"(??) and Windows will not be able to tell the difference between them. Sorry I'm not sure about the exact terminology, my memory is not what it used to be, but I had this problem a few years back when I tried to reuse the original disk, for other purposes, in the same system I had installed the clone. I found a utility that was able to reset the "Volume ID"(??) so all ended up good in the end. Cheers and Regards

Ditto as well. Thanks Geej. Cheers and Regards

Did you find a tutorial that spelled out the steps involved that you can share the link to, or, just for future reference, can you enumerate further? Cheers and Regards

I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday season and 2013! Cheers and Regards

Which was?? (For other's benefit, it is the Christmas season after all. ) Cheers and Regards

From the link trip provided above - http://www.intel.com/support/motherboards/desktop/sb/cs-015851.htm : and since from referring to the above link and Trip's analysis of the info you provided above: it seems you should be able to just connect the motherboard to your front panel and give it a try. At least that is the way I interpret things. As to why your "system has no sound from the analog desktop speakers connected to the rear green output port", I have no idea at all. Cheers and Regards

What Andre was suggesting is to use a "Win7 with an ISO which has Sp1 included" such as listed here - http://www.wincert.net/forum/topic/8906-official-windows-7-sp1-disks/ - to minimize some of your issues and time wasting installs. Cheers and Regards

Thanks Yzöwl! Same to you my friend! Cheers and Regards

Looks like it is time to strip the broken computer down to bare metal, clean everything, check all wires and connectors, reset the BIOS, and start over from scratch to get it back together. Cheers and Regards

The Classic Shell metro app menu, when I saw it at a neighbor's, is just a simple alphabetical list of all the metro apps. In the area where the "All Programs" link is, is another parallel link for "All Apps". When clicked, the alphabetical list flies out, similar to the All Programs list. Classic Shell is easy to try and remove if you desire. It can also be used in conjunction with StartIsBack. And in all cases, you always have access to the Start Screen if you prefer to use it as a metro app launcher. Access to it is not blocked. Cheers and Regards

Since the OP apparently has access to another computer: he should be able to put the 4 "broken" CD-ROM drives into the other computer to verify that they truly are broken. We are assuming that he will be careful that they will be plugged into an appropriate cable and that the jumpers on the HDDs and the CD-ROM drives will be set to not conflict in any way. Cheers and Regards

You must have pulled the "one with the _u" because I never saw it, and don't see it now in any of your posts above. It has been so long since I used nLite that I totally forgot about the _u file, and since that wasn't the one you were asked for... You have always only been asked for Last Sessions.ini, and that one, which you attached to post #58, is the one that finally shows the updates etc that you added in that last run of nLite. There was no "come on" that you fell for. The ipaddress is not unique to you in any way, so it is not, in my opinion, considered your personal info. It is the default address used to access your router, and it is probably the same address used for at least 25% of our members, and we currently have 103,313 of them. The Last Sessions.ini does not contain any personal identification info, unless you are referring to your name since you used your desktop as your nLite building area. That's not a direct result of Last Session.ini, but rather an indirect result of where you ran it. And I guess you were referring to that since you asked "how many casual members names are broadcast to all casual readers of this Forum?" Sorry I didn't warn you about doing that. For many new users who come to the forum for questions, if we insisted that they read, and agree that they understand, a full list of every possible warning that we can possibly think of before we begin offering them advice, I would guess that many if not most would either a) say sure they read the warnings when they really didn't (like most do for EULA statements), or b ) say forget it it's not worth the trouble, or c) fall victim to something we forgot to warn them about. (Sorry, but we're not perfect.) And, as you say, you learn by making a lot of errors, and you remember those lessons better as well. Also, many folks that I know don't use their real, or least not their full, name on their computer for this type of reason. I don't on mine. If it will make you feel any better, my real name is John Welch. Now we're even. Feel any better? As far as the names being "broadcast to all casual readers of this Forum", that will happen any time the person includes their name inside a text file that they choose to post on the forum. Since Last Session.ini was a text file that you were encouraged to look at yourself before posting, and you said you did that, you had the opportunity to edit that file, deleting any info that you didn't want to share, before posting it. Also, nLite is not a simple, harmless program like Notepad. It is a powerful, complex program that assumes that the user has read everything that they can find about the program. It is also assumed that the user has a certain amount of general computer knowledge, though no, the exact prior knowledge assumed is not specified. It is recommended that you not use your desktop for your nLite work. It is better to use a folder located on the root of your drive, such as C:\nLite. There are three reasons for this that I can think of: 1) No risk of personal identifying info in the file path. 2) No spaces in the file path 3) Not a long file path (2) and (3), spaces in the file path and long file paths, have caused problems with many programs in the past, including nLite. Most programs have been fixed so this is not an issue, but why take a chance? At this point, I think we're waiting for you to ask us another question. Is there anything that you think you already asked that you are waiting on us for an answer? Cheers and Regards

As to the ipaddress, I assume you are connected to the internet through a router? http://www.ip19216801.com/ Cheers and Regards

LMAO One of the best reviews and explanations of the problems with Win 8 I've ever seen! Cheers and Regards