HoppaLong

I'm a partner in a small business. We have a dozen desktops all running XP Pro_SP3. This morning I tested my new eSATA drives on three of the desktops in our offices. Both drives worked perfectly. The problem I'm having is running these drives on a desktop at home. If I try to copy a file that's more than a couple of megabytes the drives literally vanish completely from Windows. I've got XP Pro_SP3 at home too. Here's the error message that appears in the system tray or notification area: Windows - Delayed Write Failure Windows was unable to save all the data for the file . . . . . . The data has been lost. This error may be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or network connection. Please try to save this file elsewhere. My home desktop has a dual port eSATA controller card. Naturally, I wanted to blame the card or its drivers. I removed the card from Device Manager and pulled it from the mobo expansion slot. I substituted a dual port pass-thru adapter bracket. It plugs directly into two of the SATAII connectors on the mobo. I checked the BIOS setup. It looked good. During bootup I was waiting to see each drive listed as JBOD or "just a bunch of drives." They were. As soon as XP finished loading, I tried copying a 100 MB file to each of the drives. Nothing had changed. I was hoping the solution would be to junk the controller card and buy a replacement. No such luck. It's obviously not a hardware problem, which leaves the system itself. Are there any XP configuration changes or registy hacks that might fix this problem? This desktop is less than a year old. I'm ready to wack the darn thing with a sledge!

I've got broadband, but I keep my old dialup service with Juno. Its $9.95 a month. Very cheap insurance. Broadband where I live is not completely reliable. If a client wants to contact me and the broadband service is down, I can still receive emails. As slow as dialup is, it never fails to get me connected. Juno has been a rock for me, so I'm very reluctant to dump their service. Their servers have been prompting me to install a new version. I don't like to install software when I'm connected through dialup, so I tried to find a link to download the new version. I actually had to email them to get the link. Normally, when there is a new software version for any ISP, the URL is displayed very boldly on their homepage. Very strange! The installer package is screwed up bad. It does not detect the old version, or prompt you to uninstall the old before installing the new. Instead, it immediately starts the install of the new version in the default, C:\Program Files. Previous versions would simply overwrite the old with the new files. Imagine the mess you would have if two versions of the same app were installed in different partitions. I used one of my image backups to restore the system. (There is no such thing as too many backups.) The installer package is not a self extracting executable. I wish it was. At least I could use a compression app like WinRAR to extract the files manually. I contacted Juno about this problem, but I'm not sure there is anything they can do. Someone needs to fix this installer, and that could take months. Is there any app I can use to assist in the extraction and installation of this package to the correct location?

Acronis True Image and Disk Director have always had an applet that created boot disks. In the eary days of these apps it was done with floppies. When I created bootable CDs for both apps I got an error message. I found out that lots of folks who had XP Pro were having problems booting from these disks. I can't remember the exact error message. It has something to do with the XP kernel. I had never heard of BartPE until someone suggested that PE Builder would allow you to run almost any app from an XP environment, without actually booting into the system. I like that idea a whole lot! Boot disks have always caused problems. If I can resolve this problem with BartPE, I won't have worry about the reliability of my boot disks in an emergency.

(I'm very aware of that "other" forum that specializes in BartPE. They are having major problems of some sort. When I login successfully I can't post. By the time they fix whatever is wrong, the earth may stop revolving on its axis!) XP Pro_SP3 BartPE v3.1.10a DiskDirector v10.0.2160 I downloaded a file from Acronis with the procedure for creating a DiskDirector plugin for BartPE. The instructions I downloaded are similar to this kb article: http://kb.acronis.com/content/1752 When I loaded DiskDirector I was prompted for a password. I never created a password when the app was installed. The next thing I tried wasn't logical, but sometimes dumb solutions work with Windows. I created a simple password and tried it a few times to make sure it worked. I changed the string value in DiskDirector.inf and copied a fresh set of files into the BartPE plugin directory. After burning another CD I ran DiskDirector again. It rejected the password, even though it worked fine in the "real" XP environment. I'm trapped in a classic Catch-22 situation (dog chasing its tail, etc.). The app prompted for a password when none existed, and rejected a password that should have worked when I burned the replacement CD. I don't know enough about BartPE to resolve this problem. Is there a solution?

Obviously, they don't want you to cancel or not renew your subscription. The final printed edition of PC Magazine was a complete surprise to me. There may have been info on numerous sites that PC Magazine was about to quit publishing. I didn't come across anything until the last editorial said "goodbye and have a nice day!" There are ways to use some of the better screen capture software to convert these ZNO files to PDF. Its a tedious process. Its almost like they want to dump all their loyal readers who subscribed to these publications for decades. When a publication is converted to a proprietary ZNO file it becomes a form of protected software. It is no longer a magazine that makes its revenue from advertising. If PC Magazine had been converted to a downloadable PDF file it would retain loyal customers like me. I don't want to subscribe to any publication that makes me feel like I've purchased software, instead of a periodical. Anyway, thanks for your replies, Zenskas and Tripredacus.

I'm reluctant to renew my subscription to PC World. The April edition of PC World is more like a fat pamphlet than a magazine. The same thing happened to PC Magazine before it stopped publishing. My feelings about online publishing were neither positive or negative. I had never heard of Zino Reader until PC Magazine quit. Think of how strange this proprietary ZNO format really is. Since the invention of the printing press us humans have purchased all kinds of printed documents. If I allowed several others to read my newspaper or magazine was I committing a crime? The first "real" job my father had was selling advertising for several trade magazines. The rates they charged were often based on something called the "multiplier effect." If one issue of Time or Newsweek is read by 50 people rather than 5, they can charge more for the advertising. Why should it be any different with an online publication? Once you pay for a subscription to an online magazine it should not be restricted or controlled. For years I've had a magazine rack in my office. Should I have installed the equivalent of a gumball coin collecting machine before my clients could read a magazine? Is PC World about to be converted into another ZNO file? If it is, I want to know before I renew my subscription.

All I can do is apologize, Redhatcc. 2209WA is a very nice monitor at a reasonable price. It does not, however, have a glass screen. I've looked at so many monitors my brains may be scrambled for life! Here's a link to a Google shopping page: http://www.google.com/products?hl=en&q...=4&ct=title As you can see, the 22" model with a glass screen is extremely expensive. Most of the reviews about this model usually say something about a rich guy who wants to impress his friends. In other words, if you have to ask the price, you can't afford it! There is something I just don't get. Despite the ecomonic decline here in the USA, we still are the largest market in the world for products manufactured in other countries. During all my useless searching I kept coming up with listings in European countries for 22" monitors with glass screens. None of them are sold or shipped to the USA. If someone has an explanation, please enlighten me. Again, I apologize for posting the wrong model number.

I've searched for several hours, looking for a 22" monitor with a hard glass screen. As far as I can tell, only the Asus LS221H and Dell's 2209WA are sold in the USA. I found several 22" glass monitors available in the UK only. For about five minutes I thought about having one shipped from the UK. I can't even guess what the shipping costs would be! The Dell monitor is incredibly expensive, so the only real choice I have is the LS221H which you can get for under $300.00. There are costly glass screen protectors which are clamped or strapped to the monitor screen. I'm a partner in a business that makes various custom parts from metal or plastic. I simply do not believe that you can make a "one size fits all" glass screen protector. The glass protector would have to fit your brand of monitor almost perfectly. A custom made protector is the only kind I would trust. Are there any other 22" glass screen monitors available in the USA, besides the two I've listed? I'm 99% sure the answer is negative. I don't follow the endless flow of new hardware like some of you do. That's why I'm asking. Thanks!!

(Operating System is XP Pro_SP3) I recently built a desktop with a Gigabyte mobo. I have several USB and USB + eSATA external hard drives. The SATA internal drives consist of two in a RAID 0 configuration. There is only one operating system installed on the RAID 0 internal drives. Naturally, I set the RAID 0 drives to boot first in the main BIOS setup. 99% of the time that's where the boot begins for most of us. I've got the usual seperate boot menu that allows you to boot from another device. On the next reboot it reverts back to the normal boot order. I found out too late the this mobo randomly changes the boot order. If one or two external drives are turned on the boot order will be scrambled. This is beyond insane because you cannot boot from something that has no operating system, active partition, etc. Google turned up a long list of posts on other forums about this problem. It occurs with other mobo's besides Gigabyte. Someone suggested checking out BIOS Overlay's and bootloader programs. The only thing I remember about overlay's is that they were used with an older BIOS that would not recognize a partition over a certain size. A few years ago hard drives capacities exploded but a lot of folks had older mobo's that couldn't "see" these big drives. Bootloaders or boot managers are usually used when you've got two or more operating systems installed. Could this type of program lock my system so it would always boot from the active partition, even though I have only one operating system installed? If the BIOS setup is always scrambling the boot order, I don't see how a boot manager could resolve this problem. I've got double backups of everything. I'm willing to try anything that one of you BIOS gurus might suggest!

Thank you Glen9999. I just downloaded the full NET Framework package yesterday. I should have realized that the patches are needed only with earlier downloads of NET Framework 3.5_SP1. Still, when you read those two different sets of instructions it makes you wonder about how Microsoft creates these pages. It looks like they cut and pasted some stuff together. Would any of us write such confusing instructions? I hope not! Thanks again.

(Operating System is XP Pro_SP3) I downloaded NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 full package. Now, I'm looking at this page: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...;displaylang=en Three updates are listed. 1 and 2 are for earlier versions of NET Framework. Number 3 is for NET Framework 3.5_SP1. The instructions are confusing, to say the least! Under "Additional Information" it says, "Please download and install all 3 updates available in the section titled Files in This Download. These updates should be installed in the following sequence:" When you scroll down the page to "Files in This Download" it seems to contradict the instructions under "Additional Information." It says, "The links in this section correspond to separate files available in this download. Download the files most appropriate for you." Which instructions are correct? Do I install all three updates or only the one specifically for NET Framework 3.5_SP1?

Here's the story from a friend who backed up everything on a USB 1.1 external hard drive, before he wiped out the partition and created a new one. If the external drive is running, Windows 98SE will not start. All you see is the "Windows is Starting" logo screen. It does start normally, if the drive is off. After several startup attempts, I got past the splash screen. When the desktop appeared it was almost completely frozen. The Task Manager lists msgsrv32 as "not responding." Before I abandoned this system years ago, I can vividly recall that these kind of conflicts are usually never resolved, because the possible causes are endless. I removed all the drivers and other files related to this external drive. When I put fresh copies back, it didn't help. I extracted a new copy of msgsrv32, just to safe. The System File Checker applet didn't find any corrupt files. My friend tells me that once or twice the system completely loaded with the external drive running. The Device Manager showed no problems. Unfortunately, the other 99% of the time the system will not start if this external drive is running. I started 98SE normally, with the drive off. I waited several minutes and turned the drive on. Almost immediately, the system froze up because of msgsrv32. Finally, I tried installing some different USB mass storage generic drivers that are suppose to be compatible with 98SE. The system will not let me install these drivers. I haven't tried copying them manually into the proper directories. I doubt if the system would load them anyway. Is there a solution?

It looks like you're creating vastly improved versions of 98. I've got to resolve a serious problem, maybe one of you can help me. My dad purchased a Gateway desktop many years ago. Each time it broke I fixed it. He doesn't use the internet. (Hard to believe, I know!) He sits in front of this horrific old desktop everyday typing letters with Word 97. Occasionally, he'll use Excel. The last time he asked me to fix this power hogging monster I said no. I told him I would build a new desktop and install his old software. I'm building a MicroATX desktop, which is all he needs. Abandoning 98 was a great relief for most folks. Unless Microsoft creates something better than Vista, XP may be looked back upon as their most stable operating system. It would be great if I could install a "souped up" version of 98 that would be more compatible with the new Gigabyte mobo I'm using, as well as all the other new hardware. I see a list of patches, updates, etc. It would take me a long time to really understand what you guys have done with this old system. Can someone point my browser to a complete package I should download, or a list of updates and patches that I could slipstream and burn onto a CD. Thanks guys!

I made a rule for myself that I have rarely strayed from over the years. The rule is never give advice to family, friends, or business associates about software. Well, I recently attended a conference where I met several of my clients. Without thinking I mentioned Spyware Doctor, and now I'm paying the price! I received about a dozen e-mails from clients using different Windows systems (98SE, 2K, XP). They all received the same error message after installing Spyware Doctor v3.8.0.2582. LOADER ERROR The procedure entry point LZOpenFileA could not be located in the dynamic link library kernel32.dll Is there a solution?

I never realized how many file managers there are until I tried to find one that will work with a script that I'm building. The script is about 90% complete, but I need a small command style applet that will do two things: 1 - Get the creation date of a file specified in the script, and add that date to the folder containing the file. If a directory is named "John's Updates" I want the directory renamed "John's Updates_mm/dd/yy." 2 - Scan a group of folders with the same name but different dates and delete the oldest in the bunch. Again, if there are a group of folders named "John's Updates" that all have different dates I want the applet to dump the oldest one into the Recycle Bin. I've come across file managers that can do hundreds, even thousands of different file operations! All I need is command utility with no console or window that can do the two things listed above. Thanks to all at MSFN!

My dad still uses 98SE. He was having a problem with the latest version of Spy Sweeper (4.5.8.683). I relayed the problem to a computer nerd colleague. He told me that he had the same problem when he installed Spy Sweeper with XP. He found a solution with XP, but wasn't sure how to implement the same fix with 98SE. _______________________________________________ Here's the problem: Before the main window opens a dialog box appears stating, "The Spy Sweeper installation has been damaged. Please reinstall the product." You can download the latest definitions update, but as soon as the download completes the error message appears again. Under the "Home" button this is what it shows: Spyware Definitions: Unknown Defintions Last Update: Unkown Spyware Protection Details WARNING: No definitions file loaded ________________________________________ Here's the solution my friend came up with: 1) Click on START 2) CONTROL PANEL 3) ADMINISTRATIVE TOOLS 4) SERVICES 5) scroll down to "Webroot Spysweeper Engine" and RIGHT-CLICK 6) select PROPERTIES 7) click "START" service Now try opening/launching Spysweeper. It should now work. IF NOT.....set the "start-up type" to MANUAL, START the service and try again. ________________________________________________ Since you can't follow this procedure with 98SE, I was thinking that the same steps might be accomplished with a few registry edits. Can someone show me the way?

I used an older version of Spy Sweeper for many months without any problems. During the last definitions update an error message appeared. It said the new update was corrupt so it would restore the backup file. It also mentioned a possible conflict with my firewall. I haven't made any changes to the firewall. Spy Sweeper never had any problems downloading and installing it's updates until a few days ago. I decided to completely uninstall the app and try the latest version. I've got software that tracks each install so when you're ready to remove the app you have a complete record of all folders, files, and registry entries. After you uninstall the app you can eliminate anything that was left behind. When I installed the latest version a similar error message appeared. This time it said I should try installing the app again. I think I know what's going on, but I don't know how to fix the problem. Spy Sweeper will successfully download the latest masters.mst file, but if you click on "Home" or "About" (depending on your version) its obvious that the app is not loading the definitions file. Instead of seeing the update version number it says something like, "no definitions file loaded." If Spy Sweeper didn't get such high marks in the computer mags as the best spyware killer I think I would just abandon the app. I really would like to resolve this problem, so I can continue using Spy Sweeper.

I'm using PartitionMagic_v8.0. The external disk is 20 Gigs. That actually seemed large when I first started using Win98. (My dual boot XP/Linux Desktop has 300 Gigs internal and 200 Gigs external.) The PartitionInfo table shows the old original partition is solid, as well as the one I created a few hours ago. It says "no partition errors detected" for the new and old partition. Windows 98SE has always reacted strangely to all USB external drives. Several of my colleagues have had similar problems. For instance, if you attempt to defrag the external drive partitions you might end up with unallocated space! When power is applied to the drive after Windows starts the partition loads and a window opens. Its like you have selected the partition with your mouse or keyboard. If you power the drive down before Windows shuts down you get a "blue screen of death," even if the drive has been quiescent for a couple of hours! The list of oddball things people have told me about when you plug an external USB hard disk into a Win98 system is too long for me to remember. Why do I still use Win98? At least half of my clients still use 98. If it were up to them, they would stay with 98 permanently. In a way, I don't blame them. Its true that XP doesn't crash as often, and you can keep it running much longer between reboots. That doesn't mean it isn't loaded with problems, just like the earlier versions of Windows. HoppaLong

Without an external drive plugged into my older 98SE Desktop I would run out of space real quick! All partitions were created with PartitionMagic. I've had one partition on the external drive for a long time. It uses about two-thirds of the total drive capacity. I decided to create a second partition with the remaining unallocated space. The new partition is about 8 Gigs. I rebooted a few times but the new partition does not appear in My Computer or in System Information (msinfo32). HoppaLong