Rob00GT

I just created an unattended install DVD with all my programs on it. When windows has problems or I screw it up, just pop in the disk and an hour later I've got my original build again.

Way back in February I posted a question about converting my DVD collection to a hard drive for "on demand" viewing. Didn't find a good way to make it happen with Media Center due to digital rights and all that so I've been playing with some software for Windows XP. Trial and error experimentation has led me to a solution that works. Please note: I'm not looking to copy DVDs or steal anything. I just want the ability to play a DVD by clicking on an icon instead of digging through a cabinet for the disk. This is the exact same thing I did to my CD collection using Apple iTunes software. My CD collection is packed up in the back of a closet even though I enjoy the music almost daily. Software used: DVD Shrink 3.2 WinDVD 4 (Or any DVD playback software that allows you to select the location of the DVD files) First insert the DVD in the drive and start up DVD Shrink. You don't want to watch the movie so close any other players that open automatically. Click "open disk" and select the correct drive. On my pc this process takes about 2-3 minutes and I usually disable to video preview. Once that's completed you get a listing of all the menus, lauguages, subtitles, etc. that are on the DVD. You can remove some of these if you like, purely a personal preference. I leave them intact. I also make sure "No compression" is selected in the dropdown box. If I need to compress movies later to save space I will, but for now I want the best possible copies. Now just click on "backup", select your region if asked, and on the final screen you want to select your destination as a folder on your hard drive. I name the folder according to movie title but again personal preference. I leave the box checked that says "create audio and video folders". Depending on the amount of data on the DVD and the speed of your computer you can probably take a break now. A fully loaded DVD takes about 30-40 minutes on my pc. When finished, close DVD Shrink. Now open WinDVD 4 (or player of your choice). In WinDVD 4 the option you want is "open file". Select the folder where your movie is stored, open the "video" folder and select the very first file listed. This should open the root menu on the movie. You can now navigate the screen just like you would if the original disk were in the drive. I haven't verified the 5.1 digital sound works yet (hope to soon) but playback looks great. I've also taken the next step and saved a couple of movies to my server. I was able to successfully playback two different movies at the same time on two different PC's over my home network. I have the standard 100Mb wired network in my home and bandwidth was not a problem. Hope this helps someone else. Title Edited - Please follow new forum rules from now on -- Martin L

OK, I think I screwed up and need help. On my "old" server I had my critical files stored on a pair of MIRRORED hard drives using Windows dynamic volumes. When I built my new server I made backups of all files, or so I thought. Anyway, after the new server was finished everything seemed to be fine so one of the old MIRRORED drives was reused in another computer. Not one hour after I did this my wife pointed out that pictures of our daughters from July-November 2005 are missing. Looks like there's one folder I forgot to back up before the server move. So now I've got one hard drive (half of the mirrored array) that's untouched and still has the data on it. How do I get the data off of it? According to the Windows help files a dynamic RAID 1 volume may be transferred to another pc only if all drives are moved at the same time. Since one of the drives has been formatted and reused I don't have both dynamic volumes. Any suggestions?

You might also make sure you computer's BIOS is up to date.

Been seaching this forum but nothing mentions iTunes 6 yet. Any recommendations for what switches to use to include it in my start.cmd batch file? And yes I know this is the "old" way of doing an unattended install but I've already done all the heavy lifting and all my other apps are setup correctly. Don't want to reinvent the wheel just to add iTunes. Any help is appreciated.

I'm trying this again. After saving my nickels and dimes (and catching a sweet sale at Frys) I now have 4 Maxtor 200GB IDE hard drives. They are now running in a RAID 5 array controlled by the Server 2003 operating system. I'll let you know how it works out. The "synching" of the drives took a couple of hours and it'll take a few hours more to tranfer all my data to the array. Current setup: OS: Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition SP1 Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-7VT600 1394 CPU: AMD Athlon XP 3200+ (400MHz FSB) Memory: Kingston KVR400X64C3A 512MB x2 (1GB total) Video Card: ATI Radeon 9500 Pro DVD-ROM: 16x DVD-ROM Floppy Drive: 3.5" 1.44MB Floppy Drive Power Supply: Enermax 450W Case: Chieftec Full Tower IDE Expansion Card: Silicon Image 680 PCI RAID *C: drive is a SATA Maxtor 200GB plugged into the motherboard at SATA0. *RAID array is 4 Maxtor 200GB drives plugged into IDE1 and IDE2 on the motherboard. *DVD-ROM drive is plugged into the Silicon Image card as master in the primary IDE channel. *The second IDE channel in the Silicon Image card is connected to two removable hard drive bays for backup purposes. * Total installed storage is 1 terabyte. When my two Western Digital drives are placed in the removable drive bays the total goes up to 1.4TB. *Every molex connector from the Enermax power supply is used. No room for further expansion. My next purchase? An APC UPS/battery backup. Any glitch in power means the drives have to resynch and that take hours. No thanks.

I've been thinking about D-LINK's gaming router. Here's a review of the wireless capable version but I don't need wireless. Here's a decent price on the wired version. I have no experience with D-LINK. I'm currently using a Linksys BEFSX41 (10/100 but no gigabit) router with built-in firewall/VPN for a couple of years with no trouble. If you go the gigabit route you need to decide ahead of time if you want/need large frame support. If so, your NIC and any other devices on your network will need to support it.

Just to clarify, all computers are not on the same network? Are they two separate networks at different locations that require connectivity over the internet? Or is there a central "home" network and a bunch of individual clients dispersed all over the place that must be connected over the internet?

OK, this is just a hypothetical question for now but as my network utilization gets heavier I'll need to have a plan. First, the backstory: This week I'm expanding the storage on my home server (Windows Server 2003 SP1) from 200GB (200GB x 2 in a RAID1 array) to 600GB (200GB x 4 in a RAID 5 array). I recently figured out how to store my DVD collection on a hard drive and view it from any computer in the house. This means my server will have a shared folder full of movies that will be accessed mostly from a home theater pc in my living room. I currently have a 100Mb/s wired connection that's been fine for streaming music and sharing files. Streaming movies might tax this a bit. I won't know for sure until I rip some more DVD's and monitor just how much bandwidth is used when streaming the movie to the pc. If I start streaming movies to other rooms I'm not sure if the single NIC currently in the server will be able to handle it. Questions: *Does anybody know offhand if I'm going to get into a problems with my "limited" bandwidth? A 100Mb/s connection is pretty standard these days, but not everybody streams movies. *Would a gigabit router solve this problem? *Would a gigabit router with large frame support be an even better solution? Is it really that much faster? And no, none of my current pc's or the server have NIC's that support gigabit connections so a significant monetary investment would be required. If it matters, my current router is a Linksys BEFSX41 that works great. I like the built in firewall and VPN capability, even though I haven't gotten around to actually using the VPN part. Feel free to recommend affordable alternative routers. I do want an integrated firewall, for me it's cheap insurance and keeps my static IP somewhat anonymous from those scanning the net.

Has anyone else had difficulty connecting their iPod to a computer running Server 2003? I can install and run iTunes but when I plug in my iPod it will not work properly. Can't see it as an external hard drive and iTunes doesn't recognize the connection either. My setup is I have all my mp3 files stored on the server in a shared folder. I normally connect the iPod to a pc running Windows XP Pro SP2 and it works great. I have iTunes on the pc with the music library pointed to the network share. iTunes works fine this way, but when transferring a large number of songs it would be faster using the firewire port on the server than waiting for all the songs to transfer over my network to the pc and then onto the iPod. 40GB of music takes forever this way, I just want to speed it up a little.

OK, I think I may have missed something so I may be stating the obvious. If the broadband modem does not have a DHCP server built into it you can only attach one computer no matter if you have a switch or hub. This is why plugging a router into it works when the other devices do not. A router provides DHCP service, turning the one IP address your ISP provides into hundreds of IP's using the magic of NAT (Network Address Translation). Once you have a router, you can start plugging switches into it to expand the number of ports available. Most home routers support over 200 devices so feel free to wire your whole house. For example, the computer in my garage has to pass through two switches and a router before it even gets to my DSL modem. And yes, it has full-duplex connections all the way. Don't spend money on a hub unless it's free. It will slow down the network connection speed of everything plugged into it. Pick up a no-name 5 or 10 port switch for about $10 and enjoy all the benefits of full wire speed.

Had it for a year. Love it.

I've got an ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe so I'd recommend the non-SLI version. It's my second ASUS board and after trying Gigabyte and ECS I'm sticking with ASUS from here on out.

What caused the computer to crash? You're saying your hard drive had 20GB of space on it before the crash, but now has 16GB... and it still works? That's a tough one. If you can post a pic of your Disk Management screen that might help. Right-click "My Computer" and select "Manage" then click "Disk Management". Post a pic of what it says and we might be able to figure out what happened.

Seeing as you aren't doing too many processor intensive tasks, go for the cheaper one and save your money for something else. And just so we're clear we're talking about 256 vs. 512 kilobytes of cache on the chip, nothing to do with DDR memory.

OK, so you installed a 160GB drive and partitioned it. You then tried to copy over some games and the system failed. Are you trying to copy games that you've installed on your pc or just copying files? If a game is installed on your pc you can't just copy it over to another hard drive. If you think it might be the formatting and partitioning that are causing the problem, why not just use WinXP to format the drive? Right click "My Computer" and click "Manage". Select "Disk Management" and then format and partition all you want.

I'm sorry I don't have an answer to your problem. But I would offer a bit of advice. If you take a little extra time when posting your question to actually spell out each word it makes it much easier on your readers. Some people who would normally be happy to assist will give up trying to read your post and just move on to the next one. This is the second post of yours I've tried to read, but I only make it halfway through before my eyes start to hurt. I'm not flaming you, just offering a suggestion that might get you a little more help.

Since it sounds like you haven't purchased the new tv yet, why not just buy one with a PC input already built in? For example, I'm looking at the Samsung line of DLP monitors with 1080p resolution for myself. Here's a 61" model that goes for about $4k. It's got a PC monitor input (D-sub 15 pin), a pair of HDMI inputs, and all the usual composite, component, and S-video connections. Just plug in your PC and set the resolution to 1920x1080.

Do you meet the minimum hardware requirements Microsoft recommends? How does your hardware compare to the Microsoft hardware compatibility list? I've had success installing Server 2003 SP1 on all kinds of PC's, including crappy old eMachines boxes. Bad memory has been the only thing to cause install failures for me.

OK, I've been running Server 2003 for a while as a file server with my data stored on two Western Digital 200GB IDE hard drives in a RAID 1 (mirrored) array. The drives are attached to a Silicon Image RAID 0/1 PCI card that I'm using only to add IDE channels (no hardware RAID in use). The OS is on a separate 10GB drive attached directly to the motherboard. What I'd like to do is add two more 200GB drives (attached to the PC via the Silicon Image card) and arrange all four drives as a RAID 5 array using dynamic disks and Windows 2003 built in functionality. Frys put their Maxtor drives on sale for $69 (no rebates!) so I bought a pair. I installed all the drives, promoted them to dynamic, created a new volume, and formatted them in NTFS. One thing I was not expecting was that after the new volume is formatted, Windows has to "synch" the drives and it takes a couple of hours. A single RAID 5 volume at about 550GB resulted. The big problem is that every time I reboot the computer I get a warning that one of the drives has failed, and it's always one of the Maxtor drives. I even reinstalled the OS, switched the drives around, and finally just plugged them right into the motherboard (in case it was the PCI card that was having issues). None of this helped. I tried building a RAID 5 array with just 3 drives (2 Western Digital, 1 Maxtor) and that Maxtor failed every time. After the "drive failed" message I can always successfully add it back to the array in the computer management window, but the drives have to re-synch and it takes hours. When I use the Maxtor drives as "basic" disks they perform flawlessly. I've tried them in other PC's and tried reading/writing hundreds of gigabytes of data to them and they work great by themselves. I'm at the end of my rope and can see only two possibilities: 1) Windows 2003 requires the same BRAND as well as size hard drives to create RAID arrays. 2) Maxtor drives just suck as dynamic volumes. Any suggestions??

If you're running Windows XP why not let the operating system do it for you. By making both your Western Digital drives "dynamic drives" you can span them, create a RAID 0 or RAID 1 array, etc. Just install the drives, click Start, right-click My Computer, click Manage. When the Computer Management window pops up, click on Disk Management. Right click on the drive you want and convert away. The disadvantage is that it takes some cpu cycles to manage the drives. An advantage (beyond the cost savings of not buying a RAID controller) is that if your computer crashes and you reload Windows you can still access those dynamic drives. You can even yank 'em out and put them in another computer. Try that with a RAID controller! Just a suggestion.

Last time, any more suggestions?

No camera, but a Blackberry 7100 will do most everything else. I've got a 6510 myself (7520 on the way) and love it.

OK, so I guess the most important question is: can a media center extender play a DVD from the servers hard drive (if the DVD has been ripped using DVD shrink)? If I can't convert my DVD collection to some format that can be efficiently saved on a hard drive then then viewed remotely there is no point in going forward with this. If it isn't possible using the media center extenders, what about using another type of "thin client" instead? Anybody with any experience doing this?

I saw this thread and it got me thinking, so I went home and did some experimenting. I've got a stack of old hard drives that are not in use, they range from 2.5GB to 10GB in size and I've been looking for a way to put them to use. I decided to build a pc using all of them. Here's what I did. I have a "test" pc that I built from parts not in use. It's an old Socket A mobo made by ECS that I picked up from Fry's on the cheap a few years ago. It has an AMD Athlon XP 2000+ cpu and a single 512MB stick of memory. Video card is an old SIS PCI video adapter with 8MB. I also have an ATA expansion PCI card with two channels (for up to 4 hard drives). I bought this card for $5 at a swap meet in the hopes that it had RAID functionality, it didn't. Finally (and perhaps most importantly) I had an old 230W AT power supply lying around in addition to the 250W ATX power supply that was in the case. This AT power supply (not the ATX one) has the on/off switch attached to a cable about a foot long and doesn't rely on any connection to the mobo. You turn it on and turn it off with the switch, it cannot be powered up or down by software. Once assembled the ATX power supply had clearance problems with the cpu cooler so I ended up sitting it on top of the case. So, I put the pc together just like any other using an old case that was gathering dust in the garage. I installed 3 hard drives and a 48X CD-ROM in the case and loaded up Windows XP to one drive and Server 2003 to another so I can boot from either one. The third drive is just for storage. When everything was up and running I added the ATA PCI card. Attached to the card by IDE ribbon cables are 4 additional hard drives of various sizes. Power for these 4 hard drives comes from the AT power supply which sits next to (not inside) the computer case. Now to boot up I first turn on the AT power supply and allow the drives to spin up, then hit the power switch on the case to fire it up. Since the 4 additional drives are pretty small I used the disk management tool to make them all "dynamic" drives and created a spanned volume between them. The result is Windows see them as a single ~20GB drive. I can post a couple of pics if anyone is interested. It's not real pretty with the ATX psu sitting on top and the AT one sitting next to it. The case didn't have any mounting spaces for the four drives attached to the PCI card so they are sitting in the bottom of the case. The whole thing is virtually immobile due to wires hanging out everywhere but it works. I've never seen a pc with 7 hard drives until I built one. All together it still has less than 40GB of storage, it was purely an exercise in experimentation....and I had nothing better to do at that moment.