TechMike

Using Windows 10 on a certain machine where I work when I go to the icon to eject the drive it is greyed out. It is also greyed out for USB thumb drives but I can right click and choose eject on the drive under “Computer” for those I have checked and the drive is set for quick removal. I can remove them on other Windows 10 PC’s I own but not this particular one. Thanks

gpedit.msc didn't work on my windows as I only have Home Premium and need Professional or higher. But I found a registry file for Windows 7 on how to disable thumbs.db, I think it is working.. If anyone needs it, add this to a .reg file - Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer] "NoThumbnailCache"=dword:00000001

Hi I have a lot of photos on my laptops hard drive that I regulary back up to an external 2.5 portable drive. I check the file sizes in properties of each to make sure that both are the same, with the same amount of files etc. However it always includes thumbs.db (with show hidden files off), so I delete them all but its getting annoying. I read I can turn off thumbs.db with gpedit.msc but I can't seem to find it on my laptop (win 7 home premium x64). Or is there a better way/program I can use to make backing up of photos more easy? Thanks

OK I'll run that imagex /info to see what I have. I think I know what I was doing wrong though, I was using my Home Premium retail disc to install and I wasn't paying enough attention when I was installing so it installed Home Premium (duh!) then I was trying to make a professional image out of that. ei.cfg was still set to home premium and retail, so I'll try changing it or not using it.

Hi Thanks for the reply. I'm sure I tried that, but perhaps I haven't! I downloaded a frontend program for autounattend.xml for windows 7 and one of the options was Business so I thought it was still the same in Windows 7. Theres no documentation of the Windows 7 imagex flags on microsofts site, but there is with Windows Vista. Thanks I'll try it later and hope I don't make another coaster!

Hi I'm trying to create a reverse integration windows 7 professional disc with SP1, ie9 and .net 4. I have 2 retail versions of windows 7 home premium. I am using this disc to install and then ctrl+ shift + f3, install the updates, run dism, reset to system oobe, I use : imagex /compress maximum /flags BUSINESS /capture E:\ “C:\Win7\SP1\sources\install.wim” “Professional x64 SP1” I made a mistake in using my normal /flags HomePremium on the first disc. I create a .iso with oscdimg, burn it, it works fine and boots into the windows setup program, but then says I have no image to install. I thought the problem could have been in Autounattend.xml as I still had : <cpi:offlineImage cpi:source="wim:/sources/install.wim#Windows 7 Home Premium" xmlns:cpi="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:cpi" /> but I changed it to Professional but made no difference (isn't it just an internal label?) (does it need to be Professional x64 SP1? as thats what I wrote in imagex) I just remembered my laptop did come with a professional disc so I could use that, but I'm curious as to why it doesn't work with a home premium disc, it should contain every version of windows 7 shouldn't it? Regards Mike

Hi I have a "review" (prototype type board) that I bought on eBay (which shouldn't have been sold!), I didn't know it at the time until the manufacturer told me. Anyway I wanted to update the bios so I went to the MSI webpage, its a P55a-G55. I download the latest bios, 1.4 and tried to update it in the BIOS but it wouldn't let me do it (I have a cpu problem that freezes the pc sometimes) so I downloaded Afuwin64 and flashed it, it did warn me and say that it should add a paramater so I let it add it, then when I restarted it went into BIOS recovery mode, so it read from the flash drive Bios 1.4 and flashed it again I presume (it seems to do it rather quick). Then it didn't start up at all. I tried going to the Recovery mode again (Ctrl+Home) and tried all the BIOS's from 1.0 to 1.4, also tried renaming to AMIBIOS.ROM and AMIBOOT.ROM but it justs says no file found. It will only flash the 1.4 bios filename (A7668IMS.140) so I renamed previous BIOS's to the same filename but it still won't start. I did try to backup the previous BIOS from within the bios but it froze the computer again, but it did write to my flashdrive, however the BIOS was only 2MB when all the BIOS's downloaded from the MSI site are 4MB so either it didn't fully write properly or the board is using some sort of pre-retail beta bios. But I deleted it as I thought it was unrepairable and can't seem to find it with undelete. Anyone have any ideas?

Hi Yeah I tried lowering the multiplier but it didn't work

I found out that if I set "Active Processor Cores" to 2 then it will boot up and works fine, except only 2 cores and 4 threads obviously. Nothing seems to work with the setting on "All". I think the CPU is slightly damaged.

Yeah, I decided to take it out and clean all the paste off, gave all the contacts a clean, put some new paste on, tightened the backplate screws and put on the heatsink and fan, but it was still the same. Memtest has been running lately, although sometimes when I press escape to quit it freezes at "halting". Memtest still is the only thing that will run though, I tried ubuntu x86 and x64, dban (uses linux) and the windows 7 disc. As soon as the animation starts on the Windows 7 "starting windows" screen it resets,

Hi I have tried that but it still just restarts as soon as starting windows comes up.

Hi I have a problem with my PC. Its a core i7 860, 4GB 1600mhz DDR3. I have two p55 boards, one a p55a-g55 (msi) and one a asrock p55 pro, also two sets of memory a Gskill 4GB kit and a Cosair 8GB kit. The problem is as soon as it gets to starting windows (win 7) the animation starts then half a second later it will either freeze (rarely) or restart it self. I can get into the BIOS. I can sometimes run memtest, but sometimes not. I can never load from the windows startup disk to reinstall, It shows the grey bar twice (it goes quick, then next one takes a while longer) then it restarts. It also freezes if I try and update the bios using the inbuilt program in the bios. I have tried Every setting nearly on 2 motherboards 2 graphics cards that I know to work 2 psu's that I know to work 2 sets of memory that I know to work (both memtest fine and prime95 blend fine, though I had a bit of trouble at one time with the 4GB on a different board, but I think I had some wrong bios settings) Every option under safe mode 2 linux ubuntu dvds, which just restart too I think its something to do with the CPU now. The board is getting enough power the 24pin and CPU power are fully plugged in. I'm setting the memory to 1600mhz, using XMP profile. I've gave the cpu and memory more volts up to the safety limits. I have tried at 1333mhz (spd) and still the same. I guess the only thing I can do is buy another CPU to test it unless someone knows something! Thanks

I recently made up a new computer and decided to go for a WD Black SATA 3 7200RPM 1TB 64MB cache, I used to use the Samsung F3 (SATA 2, 7200RPM 1TB 32MB cache) I have been a bit disapointed with the results My new hard drive is : Maximum : 132mb Average 104mb Access time : 12.3 Burst : 208mb My old samsung is : Maximum : 143mb Average : 115mb Access time : 13.8 Burst : 158mb Which one would you consider better? The WD is about £25 more than the samsung too, so considering sending it back and getting another samsung. I'm also looking towards getting a SSD, particulary the Agility 3 60GB, since I have a z68 motherboard that can speed up hard drives too? I've never used a SSD before, its quite a lot of money, are they worth it? Or should I forget a SSD and get 2 samsungs for raid 0?

Hi This is probably a simple question, but I have Win 7 Retail on a fast 1TB HD, I also have a average 500GB HD not doing anything. I'm wondering if its possible to install Windows 7 on the 500GB disk too, so I have two installs on two different disks on one computer? Would I run into activation problems? I want to keep my 64bit Win 7 install on the 1TB for games, fraps and a few other things and have another install on the 500GB for testing software/trying out linux (500gb probably in 2 partitions) Could I put 32bit Win 7 on the 500GB drive? I do have 2 copies of Win 7 retail but want to only use one really, if I can't, I do have Win XP OEM I could use. Is there any trouble getting a bootloader to recognise two different hard disks? I have lots of spare sata ports. Thanks

Ah finally figured it out, I started a game of quake 4 and noticed the lighting and textures messed up, I googled it and found something about ati and quake 4 rendering issues, I tried 3 settings and the last one worked seta r_renderer ARB2 Now its letting choose 1920x1080 and keeps it. Worked for Doom 3 too but can't put AA on, as it resets autoexec config. UI and text isn't as good as a normal 1920x1080 resolution but ok.

Ah yes I already tried that one, still no luck. I'm wondering if my monitor is strange, when you go into the bios on most monitors I've used it will stretch it to fill the whole screen, but when mine starts up the motherboard graphic and going into bios it has black boarders, I'm assuming its not going into a lower resolution? Its a syncmaster 2333HD I have played other games like unreal tournament 3 and Aion fine at this resolution, but they are newer games developed when widescreen monitors were out, doom 3 and quake 4 are 4:3 games and only support 16:9/10 by stretching

It seems Epic has decided to give away the UDK aka Unreal Engine 3 for free (no source code), which allows you to create standalone games for non commercial use, this could be huge! http://news.bigdownload.com/2009/11/05/dow...evelopment-kit/

Yeah I tried in game settings, it doesn't change from 640x480. Its also not letting me put AA on, but will let me put vertical sync on. I installed Quake 4 which has the same engine, installed the latest patch which allows 16:10 and 16:9 and even has my resolution of 1920x1080 but still it doesn't use it, the highest it will use is 1280x720. Looks like I will have to try my monitor with my old Win XP Intel/Geforce PC then I can determine if its the monitor or the ATI/Win 7 PC.

Hi I used to play this on my old Intel/Geforce system on a widescreen monitor, 1680x1050. I wrote down the settings I needed to add to the doomconfig.cfg seta r_mode "-1" seta r_customaspect "1" seta r_customwidth "1920" seta r_customheight "1080" Obviously I had 1680x1050 as the customwidth and height, it used to work fine. Now I have an Amd/Ati system with a 1920x1080 monitor and I can't seem to get that resolution. I tried putting it in autoexec.cfg and doomconfig.cfg but no joy. I have seen it set to 1920x1080 at startup then go back to 640x480 very quickly (with no error message), I've tried a few extra commands instead of customaspect, forget what they are now. I haven't tried putting it in the console and binding it to a button as I forgot what button brings the console up. Someone mentioned this could be a ATI thing on one forum, I have a 4890 with latest drivers, 9.10 with Win 7 64. Anyone have any ideas?

Ah I managed to flash it, seems there was something wrong with my DVD writer, as I tried a USB DVD writer I have and set it to boot from that and it worked OK. Still can't figure out why my SATA one wouldn't go past FreeDOS

Hi I have a ST3500320AS in my system, I checked and it has firmware SD04, I've had it for about a year and no trouble yet, I put in my serial number into seagates website and it said my drive is not affected. Do you think its OK or should I flash it? Anyway the main thing was I also have an IOMEGA 1TB External USB Drive, its ST31000333AS and it has the dreaded SD15 firmware. I also typed my serial number into seagate and it said it was affected. It hasn't had much use yet but after some searching I found the firmware upgrade for it on the site, its called Brinks-3D6H-SD1B.ISO, so I burn it to a CD but it doesn't boot up, it gets to FreeDos then nothing happens. Yes the CD is the first boot device, I tried other bootable disks and they are fine. My DVD writer is SATA but its found fine and so is the HD (for now it still works). I've tried it without the ST31000333AS plugged in, with my regular ST3500320AS but still no luck. I tried CD-R DVD-R DVD-RW and they burn and verify OK. Not sure what else it could be except a faulty image on seagates part. I heard some mention of a firmware they will give you if you request it?

Hi I bought a SATA HD a while ago now, a 7200.11 actually, I ran it for a while in IDE mode because I didn't know better, then I found out to run it as AHCI (now I found Intel recommend RAID) so I did that and reinstalled Windows XP. Is it normal to get "Serial ATA AHCI BIOS iSrc" come up, it takes about 10 seconds and finds my HD and DVD writer fine. Do all motherboards have to go through this or can some detect the SATA drives directly in the bios without having to search for 10 seconds at every boot up? My motherboard is a Gigabyte G33M-DS2R. I can find one reference in the bios to the hard drive as SCSI-0 P0-ST3500320AS under Hard Disk Boot Priority, but you can only get to the bios after it ran the 'search'. Only other computers I've used with SATA drives are laptops that just find the drives in the bios and start up without having to search for them, but I guess they can only use SATA drives. I'm wondering if all motherboards do this or its a Gigabyte only thing!

I've activated via the web lots of times and never had to ring up yet despite changing my computer quite a lot. I think I've only activated twice in between 120 days, I just wondered if there was a limit on the whole product ID or between 120 days as to how many times you can activate on the web. I'll try it on my NC10 that uses a VLK but I'm sure I had to activate it when I reinstalled from the samsung CD

Hi Thanks all, I just stuck to using the recovery partition in the end. Had to uninstall some junk from that but was OK in the end, didn't even have to reactivate yay.

Hi Is this possible? How about if you use volumeid to change the hard drive back to the original volume serial so every piece of hardware is the same? Also is there a limit to how many times you can activate over the internet before it asks you to ring them up?