jaclaz

Who knows? Now that we have found a "common language" to exchange ideas and reports, it is time to troubleshoot Test #1 FORGET the hard disk Connect the CD/DVD drive (to the black connector AND jumpered as "Master") with a "single" cable to IDE0 (the blue side to the motherboard) Does the BIOS see the optical drive? Test #2 FORGET the hard disk Connect the CD/DVD drive (to the black connector AND jumpered as "Master") with a "single" cable to IDE1 (the blue side to the motherboard) using the SAME cable used in test 1 Does the BIOS see the optical drive? Test #3 FORGET the CD/DVD drive Connect the hard disk (to the black connector AND jumpered as "Master/single") with a "single" cable to IDE0 (the blue side to the motherboard) using the SAME cable used in tests 1 and 2 Does the BIOS see the hard disk? Test #4 FORGET the CD/DVD drive Connect the hard disk (to the black connector AND jumpered as "Master/single") with a "single" cable to IDE1 (the blue side to the motherboard) using the SAME cable used in tests 1,2 and 3 Does the BIOS see the hard disk? jaclaz

Sure , JFYI, I personally "abandoned" quite a few distro's the exact moment they became "gnome" only, as I personally prefer (and have always preferred) KDE (though what I actually use is blackbox and/or Enlightenment, even on Windows I use bblean on quite a few machines) Also, not really "news", in the sense that Linus' perplexities (IMHO well justified) on Gnome date to at lest more than one year ago: http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/linus-ditches-kde-and-gnome-so-what jaclaz

Unfortunately, yes. For the record a thread dedicated to the "green" series does exist: and the *NOT* confirmed method DOES HOWEVER SAY: page__view__findpost__p__990707 The general idea is to ask for help/suggestions BEFORE doing something that is IRREVERSIBLE or that you are anyway not sure, double sure AND triple sure about.. jaclaz

Also WHY there are so many keyboard shortcuts (undocumented officially)? NIce list here thanks to wimb: jaclaz

Oh, yes, it is mentioned alright in the given links: http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/conf_Cable.htm http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/confCable80-c.html 18"=457.2 mm jaclaz

Besides the fact that you failed to provide a link to your "reputable source", no actual problem, it's most probably this one : http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/other/52 I will re-state the whole base idea. You come here with a problem. You ask for suggestions on how to solve the problem. <- Mind you that the sheer fact that you are asking for these suggestions here implies, that you are NOT able to solve the problem yourself AND that you trust the knowledge/experience of other members to be superior than your own one. You are given a suggestion and some links to read that are by definition the most reputable/reliable ones available. If you prefer, by definition it is assumed that we are right and you are wrong (if and when doing anything not suggested) These links tell you to connect a Master to Black (end), a Slave to Gray (middle) and the motherboard to Blue with 80 wires cables, going into even the smallest details, including pinouts, history of the interface and what not. You would then be supposed to just §@ç#ing jumper and connect the drives as explained in the given links. What you do INSTEAD? You insist on connecting the cables "casually" and find a "reputable" source that is much more vague than the given one (and it is clearly referring in the "main" part to the 40 wires cable), and that you ADDITIONALLY FAIL to READ accurately. Here is the part that you completely missed: EDIT: @submix8c No, no, NO. 40 wires cables: one end to motherboard, other end to slave, middle master. 80 wires cable: Blue end to motherboard, other end Black to master, middle Gray slave. You know, like in the above: or in: To re-cap: With 40 wires cable in case of cable select the end is slave, the middle is master and the "further" end goes to the motherboard (ONLY on 40 wires cables the three are interchangeable if you don't use cable select though in practice when you mount drives in a traditional cabinet it will come "natural" to connect the lower hard disk to the middle connector and the higher CD/DVD drive to the end one and the motherboard to the further end) With 80 wires cable in case of cable select the Black end is master, the Gray middle is slave, the Blue end goes to the motherboard. (even if you do not use cable select you should NOT change these connections, you can actually exchange Black with Gray BUT it is very likely you will have signal issues as current disk drives in use are using ATA 5 or 6 which use DMA modes 3 or 4 times faster than what originally prompted for use of the 80 connector cable with the master device on the end) In practice, initially fake that you are setting up a cable select system and connect connectors as per specs , then do not trust the devices , nor the cable, nor the BIOS, nor anything else but the jumpers of the devices and set anyway the jumpers properly. jaclaz

@CharlotteTheHarlot Re: facepalm You are missing the point completely jaclaz

You may know , but unfortunately you completely fail to show your knowledge , in the sense that you haven't (yet) found a way to properly communicate your experiments. Because they tend to NEVER work properly/because it's not just your motherboard IDE ports (or BIOS) that are particularly fussy. Thus DO NOT use Cable Select, in most cases it resolves to a vain attempt. WHICH colours are the connectors on that single cable? WHICH colours are the connectors on that double cable? ALL THESE make little of NO sense: Examples of something I (and I guess I am not the only one complòetely failing to make head or tail of yourt reports) can understand: or: jaclaz

Another reason to read the given post and links. 80 wire cables are colour coded, you cannot "invent" a master or slave, if the connector is gray, it is for a slave device, if it is black it is for a master device, the blue ONLY goes to the motherboard and still using cable select is NOT recommended (by me). jaclaz

I thought that .net shouldn't even be. Yes, last character in the above is a dot, or full stop or period. jaclaz

No, actually we do , issue is with the reliability of those thingies. @vipejc READ this: AND links in it. jaclaz

Carpenter's comparison : The car engine model or serial would not be a problem as I always have 1 hammer in the toolbox . The only time when an engine gets replaced with a new one is when it starts making an odd noise. I really need to study this subject, but feel - having not yet studied/understood ANYTHING about engine replacement or mechanics in general and what is involved in them, that I can hammer the new one into place allright. Really, you should READ the given thread: and if you have doubts on what is written there, ask about those doubts (as opposed to insist in making guesses - BTW wild ones - assuming - BTW wrongly - or downright do things that you may later regret). More or less the idea of coming to a forum and ask a question, is to get answers to the question and learn (by listening to advice and doing your own experiments, as you should not trust anyone, EVER) how to do things from people that should know more than you do on the specific matter. Please consider how this does not in any way limit your freedom to do or not do anything (right or wrong) that crosses your mind, but you could show at least a very minimal form of respect for the time people spends in trying to explain to you the matter by actually reading and try to understand the suggestions given to you. jaclaz

NO, you cannot. You can restore the contents (files/directories) to a NEW (smaller) partition, using robocopy, which AGAIN is short for robust FILE copy. It copies files, and NOT filesystem/partitions/volumes. Namely you will lose: Volume Serial (you are not restoring a partition, you are restoring the contents of the old partition to a new one) PBR/bootsector code (unless the original has the "standard" code of the OS you are creating the NEW (smaller) partition Any contents of the "reserved sectors" more likely than not creation date/times of folders (it depends on version of robocopy and of course on the switches used) Of course if it is just a data partition this may have no consequences whatsoever. You are doing FILE BASED save and restore, NOT partition/volume/filesystem based save and restore (they are NOT the same thing). jaclaz

Probably not what Mr. Ballmer expected from Consumer Report: http://news.consumerreports.org/electronics/2012/12/why-you-might-want-to-stick-with-windows-7-for-now.html For NO apparent reason: jaclaz

Probabilities is a tricky field. If you assign a very high percentage to the probability of a CD drive to NOT work, when you try first one you have 50% possibilities. So if first one fails, when you try the second, you are doing that because you fell in the 50% of the first one failing. Then when you try the third, you are doing that because you fell in the 50% of the second failing, thus in the 50% of the intial 50%. i.e. 25% Then when you try the fourth, you are doing that because you fell in the 50% of the third failing thus 50% of the 25%, i.e. 12.5%. With a fifth you are at 6.25% With a sixth at 3.125%. With a seventh at 1.5625%. With an eigth at 0.78125%. Hence you need to try 8 CD drives to have probabilities less than 1%, assuming that there is a 50% probability that a CD drive got for a few bucks on e-bay or similar actually works. BUT, if you assume that the probability of a CD drive not working is lower than that (i.e. you trust in the good faith and honesty of the sellers, let's say that they are 80% like that) like 20%, you have: second 20% of 20%= 4% third 20% of 4% = 0.8% fourth 20%of 0.8%= 0.16% jaclaz

For NO apparent reason : jaclaz

Mind you not necessarily the case at hand, but I translate "before" as: "when the card was new and there was no dust of any kind on it, all contacts were clean and cold solderings (if any) had not enough time to oxidize" jaclaz

You don't need to "see" it, you have to either believe it or not. Rest assured that dust/dirt is one of the major causes for malfunctioning of any electronic card, expecially high frequency ones (no not particularly audio frequency, usually much higher ones such as TV signals), but contacts are affected in any case.. First google result for "dust electronic failure": http://www.computerdust.com/downloads/special_report_on_the_effect_of_dust_on_electronics.pdf a few results below: http://www.ipcoutlook.org/pdf/impact_of_dust_ipc.pdf No, that's up to jumper. jaclaz

IF 80 wires cables are used, which additionally are colour coded: http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/confCable80-c.html Older 40 wires cable did not have this limitations: http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/conf_Cable.htm unless you were using a Cable Select setting (strongly discouraged by me): http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/conf_CS.htm In case of cable select, often the Slave/Master are INVERTED when compared to the 80 Wire cables. jaclaz

Sometimes "washing a card" means simply "washing a card". Unlike most people thinks, electronic cards can be washed (of course using some common sense). See: http://www.forensicfocus.com/Forums/viewtopic/t=10038/ In your case actually washing it may be overkill, but taking it out of the case, carefully and thoroughly cleaning it from dust with compressed air, then use some isopropyl alcohol to clean contacts could be advised. There are mainly two kinds of dust, one that is dry (which goes away easily with compressed air or with a soft brush) and one that is "oily" and that doesn't go away with compressed air. When this latter kind is on a card, the easiest way is to wash the card with some mildly hot water and some soap. (and of course thoroughly rinse and let it dry afterwards) jaclaz

The image in the signature of Ultimatesilence is a seemingly plain .jpg hosted there: hxxp://yyyy.freeimagehosting.net/newuploads/7preh.gif If that is the culprit, each and every page where there is a post by that member should give you that same warning. jaclaz

But have you SHOUTED at them hard enough? jaclaz

Sure it won't . jaclaz

Sure, it was additionally before the iPad RELEASE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPad but I doubt that the good Apple guys managed to get the idea on the 22 January 2010 and released a finished product (including BOTH hardware and software) in the millions in two an and a half months . Specifically the iPad has been one of the most talked about before release products in the history of electronic devices: http://billpetro.com/history-of-the-iPad This is from September 2009: http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/backstage/comments/ten-new-details-on-the-apple-tablet/ three months later at MS they tested a Windows NT OS on a touch screen device, I mean WOW, original idea, they forecasted that their competitors already had ready for the market a kick a** device and did some tests about possibly doing the same? (and then it took them almost two years to actually release a product) Prototypes and tests should be compared to prototypes and to tests, as well released products should be compared to released products. jaclaz

You do understand how: bound to a given HAL/driver set only (moved or plain sysprepped XP) offline syprepped XP Win7 Win8 Universal lie on a logarithmic scale, don't you? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logarithmic_scale jaclaz