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Jan 20, 2001, 8:07pm

This is really driving me insane......i cnat run ANY version of AW for ANY
universe! it loads, and then when i try to do something simple like type a
message, it quits without warning! same goes for the following:
AW 3.0
AW 2.2
Vectorscape 2.2


PLEASE help me......im addicted to AW and can not take this much
longer......

UEAK RaptorFox
Public Relations, United States World Federation (USWF)
raptorfox at uswf-aw.com

Jan 20, 2001, 11:01pm

Sounds like you haven't rebooted in forever. Try that first. Then end tak
everything not neccessary for your computer's operation (systray, explorer,
rundll, rundll32, rnaap [My dialup networking doesnt work without these
three]) and then try to run AW. If not, run scandisk, repeat the above and
try again. If that doesnt work, try defragging. Finally, if that doesnt
help, its time to reformat.

--
Wing
This little spot is dedicated to my girl, Jessie.
It's a CLOSED beta ya morons.
AW Citizen 305004 "Wing"
bathgate at prodigy.net
eyemwing at teleport.com
ICQ #101207433
[View Quote]

Jan 20, 2001, 11:12pm

Dies ist eine mehrteilige Nachricht im MIME-Format.
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Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

For the 2.2 browsers disabling all accellerations might help.


ueak raptorfox schrieb:
>
> This is really driving me insane......i cnat run ANY version of AW for ANY
> universe! it loads, and then when i try to do something simple like type a
> message, it quits without warning! same goes for the following:
> AW 3.0
> AW 2.2
> Vectorscape 2.2
>
> PLEASE help me......im addicted to AW and can not take this much
> longer......
>
> UEAK RaptorFox
> Public Relations, United States World Federation (USWF)
> raptorfox at uswf-aw.com
--------------F051BBCB6212F1528B2AF023
Content-Type: text/x-vcard; charset=us-ascii;
name="vha.vcf"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Description: Visitenkarte für Volker Hatzenberger
Content-Disposition: attachment;
filename="vha.vcf"

begin:vcard
n:Hatzenberger;Volker
x-mozilla-html:FALSE
url:oct31.de
adr:;;Bornheimer Strasse 15;Bonn;;53111;Germany
version:2.1
email;internet:vha at oct31.de
end:vcard

--------------F051BBCB6212F1528B2AF023--

Jan 21, 2001, 1:10am

You can also go to find in the start menu, and type in msconfig, open that,
then click on the startup tab...You'll find a bunch of stuff you don't need
most likely.

Jan 21, 2001, 10:22am

No need to reformat. After all of wings suggestions. Also go to the
c:\windows\temp folder and delete EVERYTHING in it. And check to make sure you
don't have any tmp files in your windows folder. If you do, delete them too.
That should fix you up.

Holistic1

[View Quote] > Sounds like you haven't rebooted in forever. Try that first. Then end tak
> everything not neccessary for your computer's operation (systray, explorer,
> rundll, rundll32, rnaap [My dialup networking doesnt work without these
> three]) and then try to run AW. If not, run scandisk, repeat the above and
> try again. If that doesnt work, try defragging. Finally, if that doesnt
> help, its time to reformat.
>
> --
> Wing
> This little spot is dedicated to my girl, Jessie.
> It's a CLOSED beta ya morons.
> AW Citizen 305004 "Wing"
> bathgate at prodigy.net
> eyemwing at teleport.com
> ICQ #101207433
[View Quote]

Jan 21, 2001, 10:55am

may i ask what does windows temp have to do with aw 3.0 2.2 or any other aw
version.
aw doesnt use this dir at all. at one point on my 6.4 gig hd i had nearly a
gig of junk in their and it didnt effect aw at all
[View Quote]

Jan 21, 2001, 11:10am

yep doesnt hurt any thing to reformat but you left one step out wing he
should also try just reinstalling windows thing is though after trying all
that he will have spent hours longer on trying to fix it. when he could have
simply reformated after backing up every thing he needs to.
heheh after reformating it still suprises me how much faster my puter runs.
my sugestion make your self a schedual for refromating and stickl to it i
try and do it every 6 months some do it ev 3 months.
defraging is the bigest waste of time if you dont do it daily if you wait.
even if you try and do it once a week it can take hours to defrag a 6.4 gig
hd.
i could start reformating now 8am and be fully back on line by 930 or 10 or
i could start defraging now and bew back on line by 6 7 8 pm i run 20 gig
hds.
[View Quote]

Jan 21, 2001, 1:30pm

nova, I have gone over this before. You should never have to reformat or
reinstall windows unless you have had a harddrive failure. Even then you
shouldn't have to if you do your backups on a regular basis. However, as far as
the temp files go, I will explain it again. Ever since windows first came out,
it has created temp files in a directory named temp in the windows
subdirectory. Windows uses this directory(folder) to cache out any programs
that might be open or running. This is ok except that sometimes these programs
don't clean up after themselves and they leave temp files. This includes
windows itself. The next time windows starts, it looks in that folder to see if
there are any files it thinks it need. If windows sees a temp file there, it
will try to use it, thus recreating any error conditions that may have existed
when the program failed. This is the way it has always been and is even now
with win2k win me and even win nt. If your system still runs even with alot of
temp files, it will run alot better without them, and, you will gain alot of
disk space too. These files are not needed. I clean mine using a bat file when
I start my system.

Hope this helps,

Holistic1

[View Quote] > yep doesnt hurt any thing to reformat but you left one step out wing he
> should also try just reinstalling windows thing is though after trying all
> that he will have spent hours longer on trying to fix it. when he could have
> simply reformated after backing up every thing he needs to.
> heheh after reformating it still suprises me how much faster my puter runs.
> my sugestion make your self a schedual for refromating and stickl to it i
> try and do it every 6 months some do it ev 3 months.
> defraging is the bigest waste of time if you dont do it daily if you wait.
> even if you try and do it once a week it can take hours to defrag a 6.4 gig
> hd.
> i could start reformating now 8am and be fully back on line by 930 or 10 or
> i could start defraging now and bew back on line by 6 7 8 pm i run 20 gig
> hds.
[View Quote]

Jan 21, 2001, 4:14pm

Use a decent defrag tool. The default windows defrag tool is a slow piece of
crap. Norton has a good one. But if you insist on using the windows defrag,
NEVER let it rearrange the programs on your disc, this slows down
enormously.

Rolu

[View Quote]

Jan 21, 2001, 4:26pm

Actually Windows uses the Temp folder to cache files needed during most
program installs not while running programs..the Windows swap file is where
info is cached during memory overloads.
Try doing a file search in your drives for *.swp.

btw I delete my temp files "after" a succsesful re-boot so I'm sure no files
from there are needed,and i wipe my swap file at least twice a day,it can
hold very personal info like passwords.

[View Quote]

Jan 21, 2001, 9:09pm

thats corect windows temp dir is for installs updates etc and that is it.
now some programs for scanning etc also use the windows temp dir but even
thoose are nothing more than bmps.
as for reformating i supose you will try to tell me that this does damage to
your hd??
guess what i know for a fact that it does no such thing period.
as for backing up you system files thats foolish.
reason lets see you back up your hd and systme files regualry.
then you start getting crashes and restore you most recent back up of your
system files guess what you just restored the cause.
back up down loaded programs only the installers and zips your docs and
maybe your ini and config files.
never back up system files less you want back in the same deal again.
as for reformating it cleans up your hd and can even fix some bad areas on
the hd.
i have been working on puters sence 486 dx 4 100s were still considered mid
and high end puters.
so dont try telling me reformating a hd will damage it in any way shape or
form.
as i know better.

[View Quote]

Jan 21, 2001, 9:52pm

Nova,
Yep thats true also..one time all within a week I reformated hy HD 6 times
except for the partition I use to save all my programs and docs.

[View Quote]

Jan 22, 2001, 11:18am

Erm, WHO exactly are you replying to? Would you mind trying to actually
reply to the post you are replying to next time? You don't even seem to be
replying to me, yet you replied to my post.

[View Quote] It does take up a lot of space after a while, and it can slow things down a
bit. Therefore it's a good idea to wipe it every now and then.

> as for reformating i supose you will try to tell me that this does damage
to
> your hd??

No idea who you think would try to tell you that, but I didn't even saw
someone make a hint in that direction in this thread.

> guess what i know for a fact that it does no such thing period.

Normal formats won't, they just write data to your disk. A low-level format
can do damage, as every HD manufacturer can tell you. And even they don't
really "do" damage. Every modern HD has bad pieces of surface. These are
detected by the manufacturer, and the HD can work around them transparently.
But a low-level format can accidentally mark some of the bad pieces as good,
and therefore screw up your HD. By the way, if you actually start seeing bad
sectors, this means the surface of the HD is damaged so much at that point
that it couldn't work around it anymore.

> as for backing up you system files thats foolish.
> reason lets see you back up your hd and systme files regualry.
> then you start getting crashes and restore you most recent back up of your
> system files guess what you just restored the cause.

Or maybe you didn't. If you seriously back up everything, you can always
restore multiple dates. Suppose you install a program, and start getting
problems just after. If uninstalling the program doesn't work, you can just
put a backup in place you made before you installed the program. Putting a
complete backup in place costs way less time than formatting your HD,
reinstalling windows, reinstalling all drivers windows missed (sound card,
joystick, TV card, video card, network card), reinstalling all programs and
messing with the windows settings so they are back to what you wanted.

> back up down loaded programs only the installers and zips your docs and
> maybe your ini and config files.
> never back up system files less you want back in the same deal again.

Do your backup work right and you won't have that problem.

> as for reformating it cleans up your hd and can even fix some bad areas on
> the hd.

"fix" bad area's? No it won't. It will only mask them. And if you have bad
area's format detects, it's time to see whether you can trade it in for a
working one.

> i have been working on puters sence 486 dx 4 100s were still considered
mid
> and high end puters.
> so dont try telling me reformating a hd will damage it in any way shape or
> form.
> as i know better.

Lame argument. There are people who drive cars for over 25 years, and don't
have the slightest idea of how an engine works. If you touched your first
computer 3 days ago, it's quite certain that you aren't experienced. On the
other hand, if you are working with computers for 6 years or so, that
doesn't mean you are experienced.

>
[View Quote]

Jan 22, 2001, 11:58am

yeh sorry bout that my mouse cursor freeked was ment to be a reply to
holistic
[View Quote]

Jan 22, 2001, 12:15pm

as for not knowing puters i know them more than most as i work on them and
with them daily ive taken the pratice test online for the a+ cert and passed
easly.
evne though passin it doesnt realy mean much. ive met a few a+ certified
techs that know less than my brother and he isnt very good at working on
puters yet.
so yes i do know what im talking bout and yes a low level format can damage
a drive unless you know what your doing.
ive seen many drives that have been relowleveled work perfectly i my self
wont touch a drive with lowlevel format cause i dont know how to do it
right.
i do know the biggest danger is haveign the power fail while low leveling a
drive if it does it realy screws things up with the right programs you can
recover a drive like that sometimes.
[View Quote]

Jan 22, 2001, 3:39pm

nova,
What? Try punctuation. I haven't the foggiest idea what you are trying to say.
But, sonny, don't think you are gods gift to tech support just because you have
worked on a few computers that are from the 486 days. I beta tested MSDos 2.0
on IBM's PCXT. (Yes, Eep, I know IBM had PCDos) and have worked on them, with
them, in them and every other way since then. And why would anyone need to low
level format a drive just to fix a software problem I won't even take a guess.

Holistic1


[View Quote] > as for not knowing puters i know them more than most as i work on them and
> with them daily ive taken the pratice test online for the a+ cert and passed
> easly.
> evne though passin it doesnt realy mean much. ive met a few a+ certified
> techs that know less than my brother and he isnt very good at working on
> puters yet.
> so yes i do know what im talking bout and yes a low level format can damage
> a drive unless you know what your doing.
> ive seen many drives that have been relowleveled work perfectly i my self
> wont touch a drive with lowlevel format cause i dont know how to do it
> right.
> i do know the biggest danger is haveign the power fail while low leveling a
> drive if it does it realy screws things up with the right programs you can
> recover a drive like that sometimes.
[View Quote]

Jan 22, 2001, 6:15pm

yeh well i have worked on ny and all puter from that time till present and
im not saying that my option is the only option.
reofrmating in many cases will be a faster way to get rid of a problem than
defraging.
and you can now get programs like ghost and make a ghost image of your hd
right adter you install your main programs and all your hard ware.
after reformating you install ghost and tuse the image you made to restore
your hard ware configs as well as your main programs.
for example mine would be true space 4.5 , 3d max 3.1, sitepad pro and pkzip
for windows.
to reinstall all them from a ghost image file it takes me like a hour and a
half max.
then i just install any other program i have as needed all you have to do is
back up your downloaded files when you get say 100 250 or 650 megs depending
on what you use to back up your downloads i my self use a cd burner so its
every 650 megs for me.
any way you look at it it is faster to reformat than to defrag.
if you cant agree with that then no big deal i think every one is alowed to
have their opinion.
and i never said you should lowlevel
and i guess youve never seen a oem scsi hd they dont come preformated you
have to lowlevel them be for you can even use them.
[View Quote]

Jan 22, 2001, 7:28pm

[View Quote] Reformatting wipes your complete drive, defragging just rearranges stuff on
it. So technically, defragging should make absolutely no difference at all.

> and you can now get programs like ghost and make a ghost image of your hd
> right adter you install your main programs and all your hard ware.
> after reformating you install ghost and tuse the image you made to restore
> your hard ware configs as well as your main programs.

That's a backup, yes.

> for example mine would be true space 4.5 , 3d max 3.1, sitepad pro and
pkzip
> for windows.
> to reinstall all them from a ghost image file it takes me like a hour and
a
> half max.
> then i just install any other program i have as needed all you have to do
is
> back up your downloaded files when you get say 100 250 or 650 megs
depending
> on what you use to back up your downloads i my self use a cd burner so its
> every 650 megs for me.
> any way you look at it it is faster to reformat than to defrag.

Defrag is faster than reformat + reinstall, if you use norton's defrag tool.

> if you cant agree with that then no big deal i think every one is alowed
to
> have their opinion.
> and i never said you should lowlevel
> and i guess youve never seen a oem scsi hd they dont come preformated you
> have to lowlevel them be for you can even use them.

I doubt that. Some year ago, ok. But not nowadays. I've looked it up at the
Seagate website:

All Seagate SCSI drives are low level formatted at the factory and should
not need to be low level formatted.
(http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/howto/scsi_install_tshoot.html)

I assume this is the same for other manufacturers. Seagate also has some
good info about low level formatting at their site:

What does "low level formatting" mean?

Actually the term "low level" is a bit of a misnomer. The low level process
first used years ago in MFM hard drives bears little resemblance to what we
now call a "low level format" for today's ATA (IDE) drives. A better name
for today's low level formatting utility is intermediate- or mid-level
formatting. This is sometimes referred to as the "initialize" or
"re-initialize" process. The basic purpose of a mid-level format is to erase
everything currently on the drive.

(http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/low_level_ata.html)

This is why all HD manufacturers provide utilities to low level (or actually
mid-level) format their HD's, it's quite specific to the drive. Now, if you
would do a real low level format, you'd destroy all information about bad
surface parts on the drive. Some of these parts can be detected by the drive
itself/the software. But some of them can only be detected by advanced
machines (as they have at the HD factories). And since SCSI drives use the
same platters as IDE drives (and usually even higher density ones), they can
have bad parts too. So, if you get an oem scsi drive that's not low level
formatted yet, it's actually already low level formatted, what you have to
do is the mid and high level formats.

[View Quote]

Jan 22, 2001, 9:13pm

last time i messed with scsi was like 2 years ago i was useing that as a
example only at that time they came with specilized util programs.
and bout nortons defrag tool ive never used it but have heard some good
things bout it and may give it a shot my self and see how well it does do.
i my self prefer ghosting and reformating my self as i know im what ill get
after words alot more hd space as i never reinstall all the programs i had
previously.
after my last reformat i had 2 gigs used after i got done installing every
thing i used alot compared to like 18gig used on one 20 gig hd not
includeing downloaded installers etc.
after my next rf i figure ill have bout 2.5 gig used as i gen go up by bout
500 megs of progys i use often enough to keep around and reinstall.
in all honesty i havent tryed nortons defrag sence i have tryed other norton
utils only to end up haveing to reformat to fix problems that norton utils
caused.
hehe some of them like to take control away from the user and i dont like
that i want control over what my puter does.
i rember one time i installed i think it was net zip i had one hell of a
time getting rid of it never could get my puter back to normal after that
program finaly i said the hell with it and reformated.
basicly i want control of my os i dont like automation utils i disabled
windows own automation util
tash scedualer
dang i typoed the hell out of that didnt i o well that what happenes when
you eat with one hand and type with the other :)
[View Quote]

Jan 23, 2001, 11:26am

Um,

You don't low-level format drives anymore. That was for pre-IDE stuff. Doing a
new format on a HD is done at the OS level, won't hurt anything but basically it
is the last refuge of the incompetent.

What it doesn't work? Reformat the HD, reinstall all yer apps, that should take
weeks...when you call tech support again hopefully you'll get someone else. :)

RF

[View Quote] > as for not knowing puters i know them more than most as i work on them and
> with them daily ive taken the pratice test online for the a+ cert and passed
> easly.
> evne though passin it doesnt realy mean much. ive met a few a+ certified
> techs that know less than my brother and he isnt very good at working on
> puters yet.
> so yes i do know what im talking bout and yes a low level format can damage
> a drive unless you know what your doing.
> ive seen many drives that have been relowleveled work perfectly i my self
> wont touch a drive with lowlevel format cause i dont know how to do it
> right.
> i do know the biggest danger is haveign the power fail while low leveling a
> drive if it does it realy screws things up with the right programs you can
> recover a drive like that sometimes.
[View Quote]

Jan 23, 2001, 2:39pm

funny thing is after reformating i find out that theres only like 500 megs
worth of apps that i realy use extra sence the last reformat i dont bother
with uninstallers less the app realy suxx like net zip did (NOTE) never
uninstall net zip less you like missing system files . better yet never
install it to begin with hehe :)
what im saying is 90% of the apps you have on your hd chances are you never
use them you downloaded them tryed them maybe even used them for a little
while then they just sit there and eat up space.
uninstalling can and will delete systme files includeing norton clean sweep
what ends up happening after that you have to reformat.
as for lowleveling being pre ide fraid not end users just dont have to do it
its done at the factory
and up to bout 2 maybe 3 years ago oem scsi had to be lowleveled to be used
when you got them im not sure bout scsi today in the oem market they may
still need to be lowleveled i havent been working in a puter shop steady for
a while.
any more i just keep up with the odm market though i do buy oem hds ram etc
as the guy i get it from does burn in test on bout every thing he buys oem.
kinda of a tech choice table cept his whole shop is tech choice :)
and yes formating hds is done at the os level.
there are some great utils out there to do as i belive rolo said mid level
format basicly they make sure theres abso nothing left on the hd and can
delete partions that cant be goten rid of any other way etc.
the one im talking bout is drive pro i use it my self great little progy
right up there with trouble shooter ez drive and the like.
as of a year ago drive pro and trouble shooter both required a a+ cert to
get.
i dont know bout now though.
i do not sugest you use trouble shooter or drive pro unless you know what
the hell your doing else you can litterly destroy hard ware.


[View Quote]

Jan 23, 2001, 4:11pm

[View Quote] Defragging is *not* a substitute for wiping and reinstalling. It will only
make disk stuff faster. It is optimalisation, not repair.

> after my last reformat i had 2 gigs used after i got done installing every
> thing i used alot compared to like 18gig used on one 20 gig hd not
> includeing downloaded installers etc.
> after my next rf i figure ill have bout 2.5 gig used as i gen go up by
bout
> 500 megs of progys i use often enough to keep around and reinstall.
> in all honesty i havent tryed nortons defrag sence i have tryed other
norton
> utils only to end up haveing to reformat to fix problems that norton utils
> caused.

I'm a bit sceptical... I've heard a lot of people claim this-and-that
program caused them problems and is bad, but after asking some questions it
was usuallly stupidity on their side. Something like 1. start resizing a
partition with Partition Magic, 2. accidentally flip the power switch while
it is going, 3. reboot and discover that everything on that partition is
lost, 4. claim it's all Partition Magic's fault, even though the program
clearly states you should have backups of *everything* you are going to mess
with.

> hehe some of them like to take control away from the user and i dont like
> that i want control over what my puter does.

All norton utilities programs I tried asked me before they tried to take
control of anything, and if I said I didn't want them to do so, they didn't.
Give examples of what program gave you problems.

> i rember one time i installed i think it was net zip i had one hell of a
> time getting rid of it never could get my puter back to normal after that
> program finaly i said the hell with it and reformated.

reformatTed, double t.

> basicly i want control of my os i dont like automation utils i disabled
> windows own automation util
> tash scedualer

So you say you had a problem with Norton's automation program? Well, you can
easily tell it to bug off. Setup even asks you if you want to run it or not.
Just say no and you won't be bothered with it.

> dang i typoed the hell out of that didnt i o well that what happenes when
> you eat with one hand and type with the other :)

I've seen people type with one finger, and they made less typo's.

[View Quote]

Jan 23, 2001, 4:46pm

[View Quote] What's so funny about that?

> i dont bother
> with uninstallers

That's your problem.

> less the app realy suxx like net zip did (NOTE) never
> uninstall net zip less you like missing system files . better yet never
> install it to begin with hehe :)
> what im saying is 90% of the apps you have on your hd chances are you
never
> use them you downloaded them tryed them maybe even used them for a little
> while then they just sit there and eat up space.

Normal people uninstall those programs. And there is stuff like cleansweep
to help those programs that don't do a really good job at it (most of them
actually).

> uninstalling can and will delete systme files

No, really. You know why it deletes system files? Because those programs you
installed there came with a bunch of system files. No decent uninstall
program will take system files with it that don't belong to the program
itself.

> includeing norton clean sweep

If you don't look at what happens, and tell it to. Cleansweep only removes
files of which it is certain that they aren't important anymore. It gives
you the opportunity to make a backup copy of EVERYTHING it deletes/changes.
So if you ran into trouble and couldn't fix it, *you* did two things wrong:
1. you told the program to delete yellow or red files, and 2. you didn't
make a backup. Therefore it's all your fault, not cleansweeps fault. If you
use a program like this with care, you will rarely get into trouble, and if
you do you will almost always be able to recover from it.

> what ends up happening after that you have to reformat.

Wrong. If you miss some important parts of windows, just pop in the cd and
install windows without reformatting or deleting anything. It will restore
windows, but you will have most settings still intact, and all programs will
still work.

> as for lowleveling being pre ide fraid not end users just dont have to do
it
> its done at the factory

He didn't say that. He said "You don't low-level format drives anymore."
with you being you as an end user. It doesn't matter what happens at the
factory then. You don't low level format drives, you don't bake bread, you
don't make your own furniture, that's all done at the factory. Of course you
can still do so if you want, but usually you don't.

> and up to bout 2 maybe 3 years ago oem scsi had to be lowleveled to be
used
> when you got them

Sure it wasn't mid level too then?

> im not sure bout scsi today in the oem market they may
> still need to be lowleveled i havent been working in a puter shop steady
for
> a while.

As seagate writes, they lowlevel all disks at the factory. The only thing
you possibly do as an OEM is the mid level format. But probably not even
that anymore, as they probably combine the low and mid level formats at the
factory.

> any more i just keep up with the odm market though i do buy oem hds ram
etc
> as the guy i get it from does burn in test on bout every thing he buys
oem.
> kinda of a tech choice table cept his whole shop is tech choice :)
> and yes formating hds is done at the os level.
> there are some great utils out there to do as i belive rolo said mid level

It's rolu, I'm not some kind of candy. The utilities can be downloaded at
the website of the HD manufacturere of your choice.

> format basicly they make sure theres abso nothing left on the hd

That can be done without mid or low level formatting. But iirc, the Seagate
utilitie lets you do this too.

> and can
> delete partions that cant be goten rid of any other way etc.

You can always get rid of partitions without mid level formatting. If you
can't, blame the utility you use and try another one.

> the one im talking bout is drive pro i use it my self great little progy
> right up there with trouble shooter ez drive and the like.
> as of a year ago drive pro and trouble shooter both required a a+ cert to
> get.
> i dont know bout now though.
> i do not sugest you use trouble shooter or drive pro unless you know what
> the hell your doing else you can litterly destroy hard ware.

You mean physically? And how were you planning to do this, then?

>
>
[View Quote]

Jan 23, 2001, 6:20pm

Reformatting an HD and reinstalling apps shouldn't take weeks if you make
backups. I DO NOT mean of the entire HDD. I personally keep CDRWs of my all
the .ini files that I have custom edited (fills approximately an entire CD),
all the large programs I've downloaded (400+ meg COMPRESSED) get their own
CDs, and then theres the last CD which has installers for handy little
things like AW, the compressed windows update files (including IE5.5),
DRIVER UPDATES (IMPORTANT!) and WinRAR. Saved games, etc. don't get backed
up to CD because I mirror them to another HD elsewhere on my network, which
is actually a pretty simple matter to do and if you do lots of singleplayer
gaming and have even one other computer connected over a LAN, I highly
suggest it. I run a 20 gig hard drive on this computer. I back it up once
monthly. I hasn't saved me any data loss yet, but since I disassemble and
reassemble monthly as regular maintinence (keeps dust out and lets me make
sure nothings been damaged or melted) it doesn't really make any hassle for
me. Making backups of one computer to CD would take an hour at most with a
burn speed of 8x. Out of 15 gigs of data, I normally only back up maybe 1500
megabytes (1.5 gigs) because that's all that's really truely needed.
Reformatting isn't really even a big deal. Quit windows after making the
neccessary backups to the media of your choice.
format c: /q
[wait]
format d: /q
[wait]
Takes a whole minute or two (BTW, thats a dual drive setup, not gay
partitions. Partitions=BAD). Then popping in the windows CD and floppy and
installing on a relatively mid range computer (32x CD read, mid range HDD,
Duron 700, 64mb RAM) takes a whopping 30 minutes. Then install drivers, then
UPDATE THEM!! and install the rest of your software, update it, and restore
the ini files and savegames AS YOU NEED TO USE IT. Don't restore everything
at once, it's just a pain in the ass to do it that way. By the time you're
back up and running it's been an hour or two. Certainly not weeks.
Installing your average software title from a CD takes a couple minutes.
Installing FF8 or Microsoft Office can take ages though LOL.

--
Wing
This little spot is dedicated to my girl, Jessie.
WHAT TIME IS IT? GAME TIME!
Ravens are goin Festivus Maximus on Purple Sunday
AW Citizen 305004 "Wing"
bathgate at prodigy.net
eyemwing at teleport.com
ICQ #101207433
[View Quote]

Jan 23, 2001, 8:02pm

woops sorry bout that
but ill still stick with reformating for me its still the fastest most
reliable way to get rid of errors that creap up here and there and get rid
of junk i never use
[View Quote] it
you
seem
that
> but
things
does
even
low-level
they
These
pieces
> as
that
up
> can
> HD,
(sound
> wanted.
> all
drive
> docs
bad
> have
in
way
> and
your
experienced.
> that
tech
what
> repairing
> im
> down
> they
can
> all
> cause
> out
> after
when
faster
> my
daily
> if
by
i
first.
repeat
if
> version
> this
>
>

Jan 23, 2001, 8:08pm

i think after my last rf for total reinstall
total being all the progys i use all the time and dual boot windows 98 and
win2k took me 2 hours thats reformat and reinstall
the main progys i use true space 4.5 ,3dsmax 3.2 pkzip for windows cute ftp
juno mozilia seamonkey broswer and opera browser + many misc apps and of
corse aw.
obviously this includes all my drivers that i have on 2 cds.
im kinda wanting to give my first ghost from cd to hd a try realy.
ive already done it on my brother 450 pii took a little over a 15 mins for
os
[View Quote]

Jan 23, 2001, 8:12pm

[View Quote] And do you have any reason for that? By the way, you always have at least
one partition on a drive if you use it. I can think of several good reasons
to have multitple partitions on a large drive, but only a few minor ones to
keep all space in one single partition. Claiming "partitions=BAD" is
outright bullshit. Please explain your view.

Rolu

Jan 23, 2001, 9:20pm

Multiple partitions on a drive is only necessary now if you have multiple OSs
and want to use, say both FAT32 and NTFS or whatever. And that's
complicated...overly complicated for most folks.

One partition makes sense since you won't run out of space on one and still
have space on another...

[View Quote] [View Quote]

Jan 24, 2001, 3:23am

[View Quote]

Jan 24, 2001, 4:21pm

[View Quote] That's one reason. But if you learn to estimate how much space you need this
shouldn't be a problem, and otherwise you can use stuff like partition
magic.

Now, suppose you have a bunch of movies, mp3's, games, whatever and put them
all on your c drive. Windows deceides to screw up royally and you have to
wipe and reinstall (happens sometimes). Now it becomes quite complicated,
you can't do a quickformat or you would loose all nice stuff. If you had all
your data and programs that don't need to be reinstalled after a reinstall
of windows on a different partition and make sure you don't put anything
important on your c, you can wipe it as you please without having to worry
about anything. You need only two partitions for this, but it can save you a
whole lot of trouble.

rolu

[View Quote]

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