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Hard-Drives
Running to FAT
Is it possible to convert my hard disk from NTFS to FATI6, or will I need to do a reformat?
It is possible to do this, but it isn't something I'd advise you do without making a backup of all the data, just in case it gets trashed during the change. You could use a program like PartitionMagic to do this, but even then there are limitations to the size of hard disk you can convert. Keep in mind that a FAT 16 partition can't be larger than 2Gb, so you're restricted in the size of drive you can convert.
I have a motherboard that only supports UltraDMA33. I want to upgrade to a larger capacity hard disk, but they are all UltraDMA66, or even UltraDMA 100. Do I need a new motherboard?
The good news is that you don't need a new motherboard. While almost all new IDE hard disks do indeed use the UltraDMA66 or even UltraDMA 100 interfaces, they are thankfully backwards compatible with older UltraDMA33 controllers. You can fit the drive and have it working perfectly, albeit limited to the UltraDMA33 bandwidth of33Mbytes/sec.
I have an ATA33 and ATA66 hard disk. Will the ATA33hard disk affect the performance of my ATA66 drive on the same channel? If so, should I put my ATA33 drive on the same channel as my CD-ROM drive, which it is currently sharing with an LS120drive?
Putting an ATA33 drive on the same channel as an ATA66 drive will force both to run at the ATA33 spec. Then again, this is still preferable to putting a hard disk with a CD-ROM drive on the same channel. Also, remember that even if both hard disks are going flat out, they'll still be comfortably within the ATA33 maximum bandwidth. If you've already got four IDE drives and fancy more, consider buying an UltraDMA66 PCI card, which will give you an additional pair of channels.
I recently purchased an 8.4GB hard drive and I would like to run it as a slave to the existing hard drive in my system. Unfortunately, my computer doesn't recognise drives that large. How can I get it to work?
Many large hard drives come with special software drivers that you can load to provide the BIOS extensions required to work with them. This approach can cause problems, especially when the disk isn't used as your boot drive. A better solution is to upgrade your system's BIOS. Most systems use flash memory for their BIOS code, which means you can download and upgrade the BIOS yourself. If such an upgrade isn't available for your motherboard or system, you can also buy a replacement IDE controller that has the required BIOS extensions onboard. Simply disable the motherboard IDE interface and install the replacement controller. You should then get both drives working at full capacity.
I want to buy a new hard drive but there is a problem! I've read a few articles about new hard drives not supporting old versions of Bios. Is this true? I've searched a lot of Web sites looking for the latest Bios for my computer, but I can't find it. The specifications of my Packard Bell Multimedia 2029 are: P166 MMX, Bios version 1.0011 DNOR (dated 19/05/97). My motherboard is a PB682. The hard drive I want to buy is an IBM Deskstar 22GXP 13.5Gb from Dabs Direct. However, will DriveSpace 3 on Windows 95b show the full13.5Gb or just 8Gb?
The first version of Windows 95 is limited by its use of Fat16 to a maximum partition size of 8Gb. This does not prevent the use of a larger hard disk, however, as it is possible to partition the drive into partitions smaller than 8Gb. Dos comes with its own partitioning utility, FDisk, but be careful when using this as it can be a little confusing to the beginner.
Though your motherboard will only support ultra-33 at most, this does not prevent use of a new ultra-66 hard disk, as they are backward compatible. It will only run at the maximum speed allowed by your hard disk controller, which at the moment is on your motherboard. To get the best out of a new hard disk you may wish to consider upgrading your controller. This can be done by adding a PCI ultra-66 controller such as the Promise 66, which will up the performance significantly and costs around £30.
I currently have a 133MHz Pentium machine with a floppy drive, CD-ROM, internal ORB drive and two hard drives (2Gb and 6Gb). I'm planning on having a custom PC made up and would like to keep these components and add a new hard drive of approximately 40Gb plus a CD-RW.
The reason for keeping the two old hard drives is that the 2Gb drive would be good left blank for data to be written to CD, and the 6Gb would be good for using as a multi-operating system boot drive; that is, have Windows 98, Windows 2000 and Unix. This would leave the new 40Gb drive for installation of software and for user files. My question is basically: is this possible? Can you have three hard drives or seven drives in total using a standard motherboard?
Most motherboards today have two IDE controllers on them, each supporting two drives. You can disregard the floppy drive, as it has its own connector and doesn't affect this discussion.
A very common configuration is to have a CD-ROM drive and a hard drive on one controller, with two hard disks on the other controller. If you want to install more drives, then you'll need to either install more IDE controllers on a daughterboard that occupies an expansion slot, or you can introduce a SCSI controller, which can have seven devices or more attached to it, depending on what one you choose. You'll find that SCSI devices (hard disks and so on) are generally more expensive than their IDE equivalents, so you might prefer to check the cost of an extra IDE controller as you already have a plethora of IDE devices. If you were just starting out, I'd have recommended SCSI from the start.
I'm experiencing extraordinary fragmentation of my hard disks. I'm running a small network consisting of three PCs and a laptop connected via an eight-port hub, all configured at 10BaseT full duplex. The laptop is a Pentium II with 64Mb of RAM; the PCs are Pentium IIIs with 256Mb of RAM and I'm using a 166MHz PC with 64Mb of RAM to run the hard disk with all my data on it.
I use Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional on all of the PCs and the laptop, and I'm running Microsoft Office 2000 Professional. My problem is that I'm suffering 22 per cent fragmentation on a regular basis (every two to three days). I have all my disks set to NTFS. Effectively, I see two symptoms: extremely slow network access to my data and extremely slow applications.
Fragmentation is awkward to solve, because there are many things that can cause it. Email servers suffer terribly from fragmentation, for example, as the emails thunder in every day and, even if you defragment them during quiet periods at night, fragmentation starts up again almost immediately the following day as the emails come in again. The built-in Disk Defragmenter in Windows 2000 is a cut-down version of the full Diskeeper product, limited in that it can't be scheduled, has no networking capabilities and doesn't defragment the MFT or Paging file.
A high level of fragmentation will impact on system performance as you've described. One solution is to run the full version of Diskeeper 6, and use the Smart Scheduling option to maintain the disk I/O at peak performance with the minimum of resources used for defragmentation. When Smart Scheduling is enabled, Diskeeper keeps track of the number of files defragmented every time it runs on each disk volume. Whenever the number of fragmented files encountered during a defrag run increases, Diskeeper is automatically scheduled to run more often: when it decreases, the time between defrags is increased again. You can also set exclusion times when Smart Scheduling will be prevented from scheduling a defrag, which avoids running the defragmentation process during your peak production periods. You can download a trial version of Diskeeper from www.execsoft.co.uk
In addition to Smart Scheduling, the full version of Diskeeper has Paging File and MFT defragmentation features that can't be performed using the built-in version. These files large split up the free space, causing your files to defragment faster than they otherwise would. I think that the Server version would suit you best, as you can install it once and have it control defragmentation on all three systems. I use Diskeeper all the time, and find it works extremely well provided I abide by one golden rule: keeping 25 per cent of my disk space free.
Your figure of 22 per cent fragmentation looks quite large, but could well be misleading. A better gauge of your problem might be how many files are actually affected -you may discover that the culprit is one large file, which has happened to me when I was low on disk space. I eventually copied the offending file off the disk, deleted the copy left behind, defragged the disk and then copied it back. Sometimes free space of 25 per cent is difficult to achieve, so help out the defragger by moving files for it.
If you think that fragmentation only happens to long established systems, think again. An analysis run by Diskeeper Server 6 just minutes after the creation of a brand-new Windows 2000 Server and the installation of its application software shows there's heavy fragmentation already, even before a single stroke of work has been done. If anything illustrates the importance of using a Defragmenter, this surely must be it.
As for the slow-running applications and network, there could be any number of reasons -get the fragmentation under control first and that might help you see what's causing your problem. Bear in mind that 64Mb of RAM is the recommended minimum for running Windows 2000 Professional, and that Office 2000 applications also require more RAM to work in, so you might need more server RAM: it really depends on how many other processes, services and applications you're running.
I'd like to finish by thanking Tim Payne of Diskeeper for the help he gave me in answering this question. Anyone who needs to look for the system requirements for Windows 2000 Professional, Server and Advanced Server will find them at www.microsoft.com/windows2000/upgrade/upgradereqs/default.asp
I have a Daewoo CB518X PC fitted with a Quantum Fireball 3.2 Gig Hard Drive and running Windows 98. You have probably answered this question before, but could you tell me why when I open My Computer and put the pointer over C: drive, it shows only a capacity of 1.99Gb of space? Can I get it to tell me the true space that my drive has?
The most likely explanation is that the drive was originally partitioned for Fat16, used by Dos 6.22 or earlier, and by the original Windows 95. This has a maximum capacity of 2Gb. Even if you subsequently installed Windows 98 and converted to Fat32 it would not increase the partition size.
To verify this, I would recommend going to an MSDos prompt and then running FDisk, choose option 4 to display current partition sizes. To change the partition size, you need to start afresh - the Windows 98 StartUp disk should contain the files you need including FDisk to set the partition size and Format to prepare it for installation of Windows. If you have a newer computer, with a Bios capable of booting from CD-ROM, OEM versions of Windows 98 (but not the retail versions) are on bootable CD-ROMs. Otherwise, you need to check that you have a working StartUp disk you can make one by going to Control Panel, Add/Remove Software and then the Windows Setup page.
Regarding your article 'Partition Tragic' (Helpfile, Shopper 143), you don't say that more recent versions of Partition Magic have (1) a diagnostic tool, which will print out information about your partitions and (2) a Partition Table Editor (PTEdit32.exe) that will probably do the jobs you mention. PartInfo (there's a version you can use from a bootable floppy) is supposed to be for the info of PQ support staff, but can also diagnose problems with both partitions and hard disk partition tables. If PM itself won't co-operate then partinfo can be a very good adjunct to FDisk.
I know that the Partition Table Editor is not mentioned in the PM manuals, maybe because they don't want the responsibility of clearing up the mess when people use it, but PT Info and Editor can't be riskier than Debug, and you do get the pretty interface. I have tried using them when I had a similar problem to the one you advised on. In the end I had to edit the Partition Table manually -and I lived to tell the tale. Got the partition back too.
Thanks for that information. As you say, it's not very well documented! However, having recently used these utilities, I am amazed at how crude they are and how they are totally separate, apparently written by separate programmers in different programming environments. The partition editor makes no attempt to check whether the values you have entered are correct or to warn of inconsistencies -you have to exit it, run PartInfo again and then re-enter PTEdit. Very disappointing
My new PC, which is due in a couple of weeks, has a 20Gb hard drive. My current PC has two hard drives, one of 3.5Gb as a single partition and a 6.4Gb, split into two roughly equal size partitions.
With the new drive, is it better to leave it as a single partition or create two or three smaller ones? I've spoken to the supplier who says that the drives are supplied preformatted and they can't partition them.
If it's better to create smaller partitions, how do I do this without wiping out Windows 98 and the drivers already on the drive?
It's all a matter of personal preference. There is no real technical advantage to partitioning drives, except in order to keep a Fat16 drive (Fat16, which only supports partitions up to 2Gb, is considerably faster than Fat32).
In fact, a single 20Gb partition, which will use 16K clusters, would be faster than two 10Gb partitions or three 7Gb partitions. While the larger cluster sizes waste a little disk space, less room will be needed for file allocation tables.
Since installing Windows 2000 Pro my system has slowed. It seems that the hard disk and its IDE channel are talking to each other in PIO mode. DMA mode does not appear to be available as an option. Also, the CD-ROM is temperamental when installing software. The error messages typically refer to ATAPI and other failures from the CD-ROM.
Windows 2000 works great with DMA but the setting is hidden! In Device Manager, open IDEATA/ATAPI controllers and select properties for the Primary IDE Channel. Click on Advanced Settings. Select 'DMA if available' for both devices. Do the same for the Secondary IDE Channel. Reboot and Windows 2000 will try to use DMA. Startup may be delayed.
Go into Device Manager/IDE.../Advanced Settings again, cross your fingers and check the CurrentTransfer Mode. If it isn't DMA then your PC BIOS may be set to PIO or the hard disk may not support DMA. For DMA to work, the operating system, hard disk and the IDE channels must be DMA-enabled. The Integrated Peripherals menu of the PC BIOS has Master and Slave settings for the Primary and Secondary IDE channel. Set all four to AUTO. Remember the old setting in case the operating system won't boot! UltraDMA66 presents a new set of constraints. The drive and BIOS must support it, you have to use a special cable and UltraDMA66 must be enabled with a Registry fix that you can find in KnowledgeBase article Q247951 (at http://support.microsoft.com). Some motherboard/drive combinations require a motherboard BIOS update and some won't ever work. For best performance attach hard drives to the Primary I DE channel and CD-ROM and other ATAPI devices to the Secondary. Incorrect Master and Slave settings on drives may also cause erratic performance.
After reading the article on UltraDMA (aka ATA66) in January's issue I had a go at enabling it on my Abit KT7 motherboard using the VIA 4-in-1 version 4.25a drivers. But, on launching the SETDMA tool after installing the VIA drivers it gives me a 'Can't find SCSI Base Key' error (I have no SCSI drives!) and then opens the SETDMA window with no drives present in it. Running the routine again to uninstall the drivers is unsuccessful, saying I need to install the driver before I can uninstall it! Help!
Clearly the VIA driver has failed to install. This invariably occurs when one or both of the EIDE interfaces in the Abit motherboard BIOS has been disabled. If the VIA installer can't find both EIDE interfaces it only pretends to install the ElDE drivers. This would also explain why the SETDMA tool failed to run.
At the time of writing, 4.25a is the latest official release of the 4-in-1 drivers. You may want to try a later version of the EIDE drivers from www.viahardware.com as VIA made some significant changes to the Windows 2000 support post-4.25. There's no need to install the entire set, only the EIDE drivers, which are available separately. If the drivers install correctly, after rebooting as requested you should see the 'Found New Hardware' window as the newly installed drivers cause
Windows 2000 to redetect your drives and EIDE interfaces. You'll also notice that the Primary and Secondary EIDE channels under 'IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers' in Device Manager have disappeared and been replaced by a 'VIA Bus Master Ultra ATA Controller'. In addition, two new SCSI/RAID Host Controller' entries will appear under 'SCSI Controllers'. Also, in driver releases subsequent to 4.25 the SETDMA utility developed for Windows 98 has been replaced with a more useful lDETool.
Okay, it's a problem of my own making. I admit liability and accept any appropriate criticisms. I also accept that, at a push, I can fix it. But there's a small matter of data loss to consider. Let me explain. My home PC has two 15Gb drives. It was delivered running Windows 95. I made it dualboot Windows 95 and NT. Later, to evaluate Windows 2000, I made it triple boot. Being happy with Windows 2000, I went back to single boot and dumped Windows 98 and NT
My son experienced problems running one or two of his games under Windows 2000, and I decided to go back to dual-boot Windows 2000 and 98. And this is where the fun began.
Before installing Windows 98, I did a certain amount of disk reorganisation, deleting/ merging/creating partitions and formatting with various file systems. Somewhere in the middle I've hit problems, and subsequent attempts to effect a cure have only dug me deeper into the mire.
I'm now at the stage where I'm trying to re-install Windows 2000 so that I can back up my data (I know -a bit late for that, isn't it?). I can access the data via the MS-DOS Prompt, so I know it's intact. However, as the CD-RW won't install under DOS, my only backup option is diskette. So before ordering a couple of truckloads of diskettes, I was wondering if you could help
Problem details: Windows 2000 installation asks to select a partition for installation. This I do and Windows responds with
'Partition not formatted, press F to format'. I press F and Windows says my drive C is damaged or inaccessible. Unfortunately, this is quite correct. According to Console/Map, my drives seem to be in random sequences, some are allocated question marks instead of drive letters, some share the same partition and some are zero length, although Windows install and LifeGuard don't seem to be able to see this. To illustrate, please see below:? 0MB \Device\Harddisk0\Partion0
I:FAT16 204 MB \Device\Harddisk0\Partionl
J:NTFS 3671 MB \Device\Harddisk0\Partion3
? 10786 MB \Device\Harddisk0\Partion0
C: 0 MB \Device\Harddisk0\Partion2
E:FAT32 10786 MB \Device\Harddisk0\Partion4
? 0 MB \Device\Harddisk1\Partion0
D:FAT32 4001 MB \Device\Harddiskl\Partion1
? 10660 MB \Device\Harddisk1\Partion0
K: 0 MB \Device\Harddisk1\Partion2
F:NTFS 8456 MB \Device\Harddisk1\Partion3
G:FAT16 2000 MB \Device\Harddiskl\Partion4
H:FAT16 204 MB \Device\Harddisk1\Partion5
I must admit this one worried me quite a bit, especially when I saw the state of those drives as reported by Windows 2000. One idea that sprang to mind was to run FDISK with the /mbr switch to repair the boot record, while another was to wield the wand of PartitionMagic, but in the end I think that performing any further operations on either disk might prove terminal for whatever data is left on the drives.
Accordingly, my suggestion is that you nip down to your nearest hardware supplier and sort yourself out a cheap IDE drive. Take it home, shut down your system and remove all the existing drives. After that, create a couple of partitions on the new drive, stick Windows 98 on one and Windows 2000 on the other, with both partitions formatted as FAT16: that will let you get your CD-RW drive working.
Once you've done that, switch your system off again and put one of the old disks back in. You can then restart and you should be able to access the data on that disk, copy it onto the new disk and thence to a CD-RW With any luck you should be able to retrieve all the data from both drives, then format them and use them again.
Does partitioning your hard disk (6.4Gb into one 400Mb and three 2Gb partitions) make it slower in overall access?
In Windows 95 this would have the effect of reducing the cluster size, which would actually slow disk access for a given number of files. This effect isn't likely to be noticeable and in Win 98 it wouldn't happen anyway, because cluster sizes grow much more slowly with disk size. It does make your disk less convenient to use, though, and I don't generally recommend disk partitioning on Win 98 systems.
I have a Dan Ultimate PC running Windows 98. I've successfully installed a CD-Writer and an additional hard disk. I want to change the drive letter assignment from D to another letter. The disk has been emptied and I've used FDISK and Format to get a clean second disk, but it automatically assigned the letter D, which I don't want. I managed to change the drive letter for the CD Writer without any problems by modifying the reserved drive-letter boxes, which then allowed the letter for the drive to be changed. But for the hard disk, the option to change the drive letter or reserved letters doesn't appear.
I want the main disk to remain as C drive, and the CD-ROM to stay as I drive as existing programs have entries for I in Registry /INI files. The second disk was initially partitioned as D, E, F, G, with a Zip drive as H. Now that the second disk is a single-drive letter, it's defaulted to D, but since I have a second machine which is networked to it I want a common drive letter, say L. I'd then be able to map to it as L on the other machine, and can install programs to L from both machines and share a common set of files.
While its indeed possible to change the drive letter assigned to a CD-ROM drive under Windows 98, it's not possible to change the hard disk mappings in a similar manner. There are a number of ways you could achieve this, including upgrading to Windows 2000, which does allow you to change drive letter mappings for hard disks. But I think the best solution for you here is to use the good old MS-DOS command, Subst. Short for Substitution, this command enables you to map a physical drive letter to a virtual drive letter. Its syntax looks like this:
SUBST [drivel: [drive2:]path]
where drive1: is the virtual drive letter you want to create, and [drive2:]path is the physical drive and the path you want to assign to your virtual drive. In your case, the command line you want would look like this:
SUBST L: D:\
If you fire up an MS-DOS Prompt and type that command line, you'll find that you'l1 now be able to navigate to L drive and that it will have the same folders and files as your physical D drive. Unless you want to type that command line in every time you log on to Windows, I recommend you put it into your
AUTOEXEC.BAT file, as it will then be executed every time you run Windows. To do that, follow these steps.
1 Head for My Computer, double-click on it and, when it opens, double-click on C drive.
2 Look for the AUTOEXEC.BAT file, hold down the Shift key and then right-click on it.
3 Select Open With from the pop-up menu, and then Notepad as the program to open it with when the dialog appears.
4 Type the command line above into the file on the last line, and then save the file and close it.
The next time you run Windows 98 you'll find that L drive will have been created for you automatically. Should you ever need to delete a substituted drive, this is the command line you would use:
SUBSTdrivel:ID
Of course, that would have no effect on the entry in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file, so you'd have to open that up again and delete the line if you wanted to stop the drive being substituted again the next time you reboot.
I should point out that Subst does produce some problems from time to time, so I can't claim this as the most reliable method of achieving what you want, but I don't know of another way that would allow you to do this. If anyone reading this does, email me and you'll see your name appear in a forthcoming Reader's tip.
Can you tell me more about SMART for hard disks? I know it is a way of monitoring a drive's health, and the spec sheet for my drive says it has this feature. Is there a way to keep an eye on what SMART is finding. or will I just get a warning when it detects something going wrong? I use Windows 98.
SMART stands for Self Monitoring And Reporting Technology and enables a drive to monitor certain indications of developing faults. To make use of SMART, you may find that support has to be enabled in the BIOS set-up screens. Additionally, a driver is required to allow the data to be read. Microsoft supplied one with Windows 98 and 95 OSR2. It's the file Smartvsd.vxd and must be located in Windows\System\losubsys. It's possible you will have to move it there from another folder. This driver enables applications to read SMART data from suitably equipped IDE drives. Without such an application you will get no warning of trouble and there is no way to see what's happening. There isn't a suitable program with Win95 OSR2 or Win98. Norton Smart Doctor (part of Norton Utilities) is one option. Intelli-SMART from www.lc-tech.com is another -there's a 15-day trial version, but before the company parts with it you are required to hand over more personal information than you might care to give.
At www.storagesoft.com/support/updates.asp you can buy EZ-SMART for $30, but there's no trial version. At www.storage.ibmcom/techsup/hddtech/welcomehtm is EZSMART5.024.IBM.exe, a version of EZ-SMART intended for people who bought IBM drives. It recognises my Seagates and my Quantum, but it's hard to say whether it has been nobbled to only give full functionality on IBM drives. One further option is SmartMon from www.santoolscom/smart/eval.html. There is a 30 day trial edition. SMART won't enable software to predict all kinds of failure. When monitored, it reduces the risk of being caught out but doesn't remove it altogether.
SCSI
IDE to SCSI
We have a large database system and are contemplating upgrading our pair of IDE drives to Ultra160 SCSI. What controller should I be looking at and are the devices as simple to fit as IDE drives?
In terms of installation, SCSI is as straightforward as IDE. Just make sure each SCSI device has a different ID number and that the ends of your SCSI chains are terminated - the interface card will have instructions.
If you intend to boot from SCSI, your motherboard BIOS will need to know. With up to 15 SCSI devices talking at once, the higher bandwidth of Ultra 160 SCSI over a maximum of four devices under UltraDMA66 becomes clear. For the greatest benefit, buy a pair of either Ultra2 or Ultra 160 drives and connect them both to the LVD connector on, say, an Adaptec 29160 card. Connect any non-Ultra2/Ultra 160 SCSI devices to the 29160's other ports as instructed.
Floppy-Drives
I just upgraded my hardware and am having a strange problem with my floppy disk drive. If I click on the drive in Explorer when there's no disk in it, the drive light stays on, but I never get an error about the drive being empty. If I put a disk in, I can see its contents.
If I then take the disk out and put in a different one, I still get the directory listing for the first one. What is going on exactly?
The most likely cause of your problem is that your floppy disk controller isn't getting a specific signal from the drive. This is called the Change Line signal and there are a few possible causes as to why it's doing this. The signal starts with a microswitch in the drive; if this stuck or defective, the signal won't be generated properly. In this case, you might be able to repair the switch, but a new floppy drive is probably the easiest solution.
The problem could also result if the floppy disk drive cable isn't plugged into the drive correctly. The connector could be loose or worse, some pins on the drive's connector might be bent. Check for bent pins and carefully straighten any as needed. Now reseat the cable.
The ribbon cable itself might have a nick that cuts through one or more of the conductors; try replacing it with a new one. Finally, the cable might have a connection problem at the floppy disk controller end. If all of these points check out okay, then the problem is probably in the floppy disk controller itself.
I have a report to create and estimate it will be about 40 pages in length. I must store the paper on a 1.44MB floppy disk. Will the completed report fit on one disk? Will more than one such document fit?
For the sake of argument, we'll assume that each page you print out holds around 4,800 characters (60 lines of 80 characters each). However, any real document should have fewer characters, due to blank and partially filled lines. If you save the report as a plain text file with no formatting, it will take, at most, 40 x 4,800 bytes, or about 188KB. You could fit seven such documents on a single floppy disk. .
The same paper saved as a Microsoft Word document should occupy two to three times as much disk space, depending on the amount of formatting. Be sure to disable Word's fast save option, as this increases document size. To do this, choose Options from the Tools menu, click the Save tab, then uncheck Allow fast saves. Also, avoid embedded images and objects, as these can bloat the size of a document.
CD's
I have an IBM-compatible system with an AMD.K6 3D processor and 64Mb of RAM running under Windows 98 version 4.10.1998. The system was running fine, until one day when I couldn't access the CD-ROM. In fact, when I run Windows Explorer it doesn't even list the CD.ROM (D drive) even if there's a disc inside the drive. I'm not sure if any new software I installed on the system caused this -the problem occurred when I installed some Disney software for my children.
I've accessed the System Properties from the Control Panel, and when I select Device Manager and click the + sign next to Hard Disk Controllers I get this information.
PRIMARY IDE CONTROLLER (dual fifo)
SECONDARY IDE CONTROLLER (dual fifo)
VIA BUS MASTER PCI IDE CONTROLLER
Next to the primary and secondary IDE controllers I have a yellow circle with an exclamation point. When I select either, I get the following message in the Device Status section.
THIS DEVICE IS EITHER NOT PRESENT, NOT WORKING PROPERLY, OR DOES NOT HAVE ALL THE DRIVERS INSTALLED (CODE 10) .TRY UPGRADING THE DEVICE DRIVERS FOR THIS DEVICE.
When I selected Update driver, I got the following message:
THE BEST DRIVER FOUND IS ALREADY INSTALLED FOR THIS DEVICE.
Checking the driver details, it shows that the provider is Microsoft and the date is 5-11-1998, File Version 4.10.1998. When I select Resources, in both cases under the section CONFLICTING DEVICE LIST the system shows NO CONFLICTS.
Basically, as Windows can't see the CD-ROM drive anyway, you may as well take the Remove option in Device Manager, restart your system and see if Windows detects the CD-ROM drive again as a new device. If it doesn't, use the Add/Remove Hardware Wizard, which you'll find in Control Panel, opting to choose it from a list when the Wizard gets that far. Don't forget to make a note of which CD-ROM drive it actually is so that you can pick it from the list if you have to go down that road. However, I first suggest you make sure that the IDE cable is securely inserted in the back of the drive, just in case the solution is that simple.
Each time I boot up, the computer has 'lost' my SCSI CD-R drive; it isn't in either My Computer or Device Manager. If I activate the Add New Hardware Wizard, then the CD-R is shown as an already-installed device. The CD-R mostly works fine but if I shutdown and then reboot, the CD-R is lost again and I have to go through the whole process again. Programs such as CDRWin3.8a and Xing AudioCatalyst often, but not invariably, completely ignore the drive. However, Adaptec EasyCD Creator 4.2 is always able to both detect and use the drive.
Under Windows 2000 on the old system, no programs had any problems with recognition. On the current system, no problems are seen with recognition under Windows 98. The system was recently upgraded to an AsusTeK A7V motherboard. When I resume from either standby or hibernate mode, the following error message occurs about twice a minute in the System Log in Event Viewer:
Event Type: Error Event Source: aic78xx
Event Category: None Event ID: 11
Description: The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Scsi\aic78xx1.
A processor usage spike accompanies each occurrence of this error message, along with a two-second 'freeze' of all system activity. There's also a blinking of the CD-ROM activity light: the interval of 0.8 seconds is described as 'powering up or error detected' in the manual. However, this message only occurs if the CD-R was present in Device Manager/My Computer when the computer entered standby/hibernate. If it wasn't present, then no problems are encountered on resuming. If the CD-R is installed after bootup, then it functions perfectly. Normal shutdowns/restarts don't cause the error.
Is it possible that ACPI is in some way causing the problem? The Windows 2000 installation on the previous system didn't install ACPI. When re-installing on the new motherboard, I pressed F5 and chose' ACPI Computer'. Therefore, I can't tell if ACPI would have caused problems on the old motherboard.
Is this a bug in Windows 2000? A problem with the CD-R? The SCSI host adapter? Or the motherboard BIOS? I don't really want to have to replace any hardware.
I can't point you to an absolute fix I'm afraid, but merely advise on some things you need to check through.
My initial feeling, had it not been for ACPI, would have been that this is possibly a timeout fault and I'd have suggested you look at cabling and termination. ACPI throws another spanner in the works, as does your AMD processor and new motherboard.
Start off with termination checks anyway: all the usual stuff, like is the last device in the chain terminated. Make sure no other devices are terminated, apart from the SCSI controller, of course, and you'll probably need to check in the system BIOS for that.
One thing you can try is to disable ACPI, just as part of a series of tests to try to isolate the fault-maker. It's known that errors can occur at times of heavy processor load, but I'd have thought a 650MHz processor would be able to cope with restart after a suspend. Make sure that you have the latest BIOS for your motherboard: these seem to be updated almost every day as new problems are found, and cured.
The proliferation of motherboards, BIOS's, processors and operating systems, coupled with the new advanced power management features, has become the source of many tech support problems recently, and I don't see things improving with so much more new hardware about to hit the streets.
Don't ignore cabling as a possible cause. Loose cables can be the problem, but even if they aren't loose try switching them for replacements if you have them. This has often worked for me, but highly frustrating when there appears to be nothing wrong with the installed cable. You might also want to check out the AMD and AsusTeK Web sites for support tips on the motherboard/processor you're using.
I really want to overwrite information on a CD-R so that it is no longer available. "OK," I can hear you saying. "Does this guy know how a CD-R works?" Yes, I do, I just want to block out data that has not been written properly to the disc for whatever reason. It seems stupid that if an audio CD fails halfway through burning a track, you have to abandon it. Why not just mark that part as bad, don't put it in the FAT table and rewrite the track in the next available space? Surely the laser can be told that a particular area should not be accessed, in exactly the same as a hard drive can be told. I know you're going to come up with some exotic reason why it can't be done, but surely in theory it can? The laser only reads where the FAT tells it to.
Sorry, I'm still not convinced that you know how CD-R works. There are three fundamental problems, all of them insurmountable, that together make your idea impossible. The first is that CD-R is a write-once format - once you burn a hole in the thin film of dye, you can't patch it up. The second is that the table of contents for a CDR is written at the beginning of the burning session, not the end. Because you don't know in advance that a particular track is going to fail, you can't actually include any such info in the TOC.
Finally, the Red Book standard for audio CDs is not multi-session, so any data that you add to the CD-R after the first burning session is ignored by all audio CD players.
I suppose that, in theory, you could write an audio CD player for the PC that did support multi-session discs, and keep the TOC in a file on your hard disk so that it could be patched as necessary. This would only be useful for playing partly damaged CD-Rs, though, and you wouldn't be able to play these discs on an ordinary CD player. Needless to say, I don't believe anyone has written such a player yet.
I am thinking about upgrading my NEC32 speed CD-Rom to a DVD-Rom. Currently I have my eye on the Pioneer 10x DVD 4Ox CD tray loading drive. What's preferred, tray or slot loading? Does it make a difference? If I also need a decoder, a hardware decoder is obviously better, but is it worth buying one such as the VideoLogic DVD player? Will it make a big quality impact compared with software decoding?
You sound like you've decided on the Pioneer drive, which is a pretty good player, so you're fine on that score. There is no real difference between tray and slot loading, but our personal preference is the tray mechanism, if only because you can more easily tell is there is a disk loaded -and of course you can tell people that stupid gag about it being a coffee cup holder.
As for the necessity of a decoder card, that rather depends on your current system configuration. If you have anything above a PII 300MHz, (or a Celeron 400MHz, K6-2 450MHz) you will be fine - no need to fork out for a decoder card. If, on the other hand, your system has a lower specification, you really would be better off with a decoder card. The VideoLogic DVD Player that you mention, weighing in at around £70, is a quality choice. If you aren't sure, you can always wait until you have tried the system without a hardware decoder and add one later. This will save you the embarrassment of paying £70 for a card that you don't need. You will certainly need a decoder card if you want to use your PC as a full-blown DVD player. Without some sort of hardware decoding you can't get at the Dolby Digital track which gives movies the full cinema feel.
I am probably not alone in being a happy user of Windows 3.1 who was being dragged into a Windows upgrade in order to get access to new application software. In order to achieve this 'advance', (Windows 3.1 to Windows 95) I am using my portable CD-Rom drive, which is connected via a PC Card to my Toshiba portable. While I can get Windows 95 to install and load, it refuses to recognise my portable CD drive. I have tried the automatic detection process as well as 'Adding new hardware' with drivers provided by the CD supplier but to no avail.
There could well be clashes between existing drivers and those installed by Windows 95 but there is no evidence of problems in the Device Manager. I suspect that a large part of my problem is that I do not understand the role of the various bits and pieces that make up Config.sys, Autoexec.bat, System.ini and so on plus all the new pieces introduced by Windows 95. I find that Wizards give up on problems at about the same stage as my knowledge runs out and it is not at all helpful to get advice like 'try changing the address of...'
It would help to know the exact model of Toshiba you have. Since the CD-Rom is attached via a PCMCIA card, the problems could be, and most likely are, caused by drivers for the 'PC Card socket services'. Most likely your Config.sys and Autoexec.bat files are loading Dos mode drivers and these then prevent the Windows 95 built-in card services drivers from installing themselves.
Without proper Windows 95 support for card services, the Windows 95 driver for the CD-Rom drive won't load. You could still use the Dos drivers for the CD-Rom but the Windows 95 installer will have commented out the line in Autoexec.bat which runs MSCDEX - the MSDos CD-Rom extensions.
My advice would be to go to the Start Menu Run command, type in Sysedit and press enter. This brings up a text editor with the four configuration files - Autoexec.bat, Config.sys, Win.ini and System.ini. All four of these files are hangovers from the old Dos/Windows 3.1 configuration but they do still play a role. Start with the two Dos files - Config.sys and Autoexec.bat and comment out (by placing the word REM at the start of a line) any lines that appear to relate to card socket services (often abbreviated to CSS) or to real mode CD-Rom drivers. If you are not sure which lines are the relevant ones, restart windows and press the F8 key as soon as you see the 'Starting Windows 95' message. Be quick, it only appears for a second. Then choose the Step by Step confirmation option. This will allow you to see the messages produced by each command line. Having removed the Dos card services drivers, the Windows 95 drivers should install themselves. You will probably be asked to restart your computer and when you do so, the CD-ROM should be detected - now is the time to install the CD-ROM’s Windows 95 drivers.
I have been shopping around for a CD writer, which I hoped to get for Christmas. I had found a number of possible suppliers that stocked the product at a price that I thought was very reasonable. I decided to wait and attend the local computer fair.
As an aside, the advertising posters dotted around town said 'Adults £2, children free'. When my dad and I reached the entrance the sign said 'Adults £2, children under 12 free'. So at the ripe old age of 13, I am considered to be an adult.
Back to the story. At the computer fair, at one stall the CD writer was £139 and at another stall £159.1 asked if they would beat the offer of £105 plus Vat -a total of £122.50 -from a reputable company (Dabs). The first seller (£139) offered to knock off the price of our admission to the fair which was still £12.50 over Dabs and the second seller (£159) said simply 'So what?'
I would just like to warn others that computer fairs don't always offer the best deals. So shop around and save yourself pounds.
There you go. Shop direct and save yourself time and trouble. That's one of the reasons Shopper came in to being -12 years ago this issue. Guess we'll have to start paying when we go to computer fairs soon...
Regarding Aubrey Jacobus's CD problem ('Grime And Punishment', Helpfile, Shopper 141) if a CD player becomes fussy as to which ones it plays, assuming the CD is clean, try this process.
Huff on the CD data surface. Produce a real mist. Quickly pop it in the player and go.
You'll have to do this each time you play the offending CD, but it's cheaper than buying a new CD player
.Well, it might work, but I'd be interested to know why.
In reply to ('Grime And Punishment', Helpfile, Shopper 141), I had the same trouble with a CD drive and tried numerous remedial tricks: diskette cleaners, the magic eye cleaning - nothing worked! I upgraded my system, adding a new drive, and hey presto! No more trouble. It's not worth messing with- buy a new drive.
Thanks for sharing your experience.
I have just acquired a 40x max CD-ROM from a car boot sale, but it did not come with any Dos drivers. I have used it successfully with Windows 95 but I cannot do anything with it when working from a Dos prompt outside Windows. The only identifying marks on the unit are that it is manufactured by LG and Windows registers the unit as LG CRD 8400.
Do you know an Internet site where I can download the drivers or a 'snail mail' address where I can request said drivers? I would not be bothered about Dos drivers other than for the fact that, in the event of a complete Windows lock up, I would not be able to access the CD-ROM to reload Windows.
LG stands for LG Electronics, the Korean company better known for its 'Goldstar brand name. It has a bunch of Web sites, but start at www.Igeservice.com/faqinfo.html
In general, though, most IDE CD-ROM drives will work with just about any Dos driver. The driver supplied by Oak Technologies is widely used by many different makers and comes on the Windows 98-startup disk.
What is the difference between all the different CD-R media colours?
Some co-ordinate better with your wallpaper. No really, that's about all there is to it. There is a lot of hokum mentioned in news groups by semiliterate computer artist types about how one colour is more reliable than another for a particular application. It's all completely anecdotal, though, and the real reason for the difference is that the dyes and manufacturing processes for each one are all patented. If you want to set yourself up as a new manufacturer of CD-R media, then you have to find a new combination of materials that conforms to the Orange Book standard. The final colour of the disc is a combination of the colour of the dye used and the colour of reflective layer beneath it. Cyanine dye on a gold reflective layer gives a green disc, for example, whereas colourless phthalocyanine dye on a silver alloy layer gives a shiny silver disc.
I have purchased an internal CD-RW drive, which is 2xW, 6xW. I wish to use this with my existing CD drive, which is 44x speed (so I can use one to read and one to write). The problem is that, when I attempted to connect the new CD-RW drive using a spare IDE connector, it failed to work and also failed to make the floppy disk work. This spare IDE connector was in the middle of an IDE cable from the floppy drive to the motherboard.
In the end, the only way I could get the CD-RW to work is by using the IDE cable from the existing CD drive, but this has left the latter drive inoperable. Could you please suggest a solution so that I can use both my CD-ROM and CD-RW drives together?
Would a new IDE cable from the old CD-ROM drive to my motherboard solve the problem (I have spare IDE sockets on the board)? If so, would Windows recognise my new two-CD system, and where can I get an IDE cable?
Floppy drives (except for the LS120 Superdisk) do not use IDE -the floppy cable connects to a separate floppy disk controller. This has fewer pins and is slightly narrower than an IDE cable. Most motherboards will have two IDE connectors and each cable can support two IDE devices. Usually, the hard disk is on one and the CD-ROM on the other. When you have two devices on a cable, one device must be configured as the 'master, the other as 'slave'. You will find small 'jumpers' on each device to select whether it is master or slave.
You may also find an IDE connector on your sound card. This is trickier to use as you will have to select hardware settings that do not conflict with the motherboard connectors and then load a special device driver that allows the system to recognise it. Check your sound card makers' site for a driver and details of how to configure it
I hope you can help me regain access to a CD-R disc.1 use a HP 7500 series CD Writer Plus with Easy CD Creator and Direct CD software. Over the past few months I have been scanning old photographs and saving them as JPeg and bitmap files on my HD. Every so often I have dragged and dropped them on to a normal 650Mb CD-R disc, leaving it 'open' so that I could add more. I find that I cannot now access the files on the disc and suspect my last drag-and-drop may have overfilled the disc capacity. Windows Explorer reports the disc is empty. Easy CD reports
'Free sectors 089794 175.38Mb (19:57), Written sectors 000360 720.00K (00:04)'. I know the disc to be full and, prior to the last addition, I could access the files on it normally. If I try to close the disc I get 'Fixation error 05/00/00 Unexpected error'.Is there any way I can recover any of the files saved or is it a case of throwing the disc away and starting again? I'd appreciate any advice you can give.
Usually when I get a disc like this it goes in the bin, but there is, in fact, a solution, which someone gave me after I told him I didn't know of one.
The most likely explanation is that the Direct CD software was attempting to write out new directory information when it ran out of disc space. While data already written to CD-R is never erased, the operating system normally only looks for directory information at the end of the disc -and data without a directory entry is invisible. However, that does not explain the apparent '175Mb free' reported by Easy CD. That would rather suggest that the directory information had become corrupted, making it look as if all the files had been deleted. Finally, like any CD, a scratch could have made data unreadable. Adaptec's Direct CD program includes a 'ScanDisc' utility, which may fix certain problems. Try this first, but I am afraid that its capabilities are rather limited.
Apart from that, the best solution I am aware of is a program called CD-R Diagnostic from CD-Rom Productions (www.cdrom-prod.com). This has the ability to read data from tracks that have not properly been closed and files that have been erased or have missing directory information. You can download a demo copy to see if it will solve your problems.
CD-ROM Productions also makes several other CD-related products. All of which are available for trial, including FileIdentify, designed to work with CD-R Identifier. This program helps you to identify the contents of all the files that have been given the title 'unnamed_nnnn' because the files' names have become disassociated from the files data - handy if you're into cutting CD-ROMs on any sort of scale.
I got a Time computer for Christmas and I want to buy a CD-RW for it, one that just sits on top. I would like to know if my computer has the ports at the back so I can connect it myself, or do I need to pay for a shop to install it?
It's pretty hard to tell from your description of the computer. Then again, if it is a Time computer it is most unlikely to have a Scsi port in place. External drives are more expensive, and most use the Scsi protocol to interface with the computer. A cheaper interface, unless you have Scsi, is the printer or USB ports. Almost certainly your computer will have both of these, but we recommend that the only thing you connect to your printer port is a printer. And while USB is a fine alternative to Scsi, drives using this interface are still strangely scarce and pricey compared to the internal drives.
Is there any particular reason why you need this drive to be external? If you have a free 5.25" drive bay then you could save yourself around £80 by connecting to the same E-IDE interface your computer’s hard disk uses. You will need to figure out how to open the computer, mount the drive and attach the cables, or know a man who does. You only need to find a mate who has managed to install a hard drive, and the installation will be sorted.
If you must have an external drive prices range from £170 to £280 - at least £60 more than a decent internal IDE CD-RW. Of the external drives those connected through the printer port are the cheapest, and among the most reliable of those is Hewlett-Packard's 7510e External. It writes at only 2x but costs £189 including Vat, and comes with a host of useful software including Adaptec CD Creator and H-P Disaster Recovery.
CDs with autorun scripts will now no longer automatically kick into operation on my Celeron/Windows 98 SE system. Can this function be re-enabled without having to reload Windows?
Yes, this can be done. Just follow these steps.
Click the Start button, select Settings - Control Panel and then double-click on the System icon. Alternatively, right-click on the My Computer icon on your Desktop and select the Properties menu item.
Click on the Device Manager tab, click on + sign by the CD-ROM entry to expand it and then double-click on the CD-ROM entry thus exposed, or select it and click on the Properties button. Make sure the Settings tab is selected and click in the Auto insert notification checkbox.
Close down all the dialogs and you'll eventually be prompted to restart your system. When this happens select Yes, and when your system comes back up, your CD-ROM player will autorun CDs when you insert them.
It can sometimes be handy not to have a particular CD autorun when you insert it into your drive, and the best way to do this is to hold down the Shift key when you insert the CD. Wait for the drive to stop accessing the disc (it usually has a couple of goes, so don't release the key too early) and then release the key and you'll find that it hasn't run. Another thing that can be annoying is if you want to look at the contents of a CD when autorun is set to on -so when you try and access it in My Compute! it launches whatever program is triggered by the AUTORUN.INF file. The way to get around this is to right-click on the CD-ROM drive rather than double-click on it. A pop-up menu appears and you'll see that the default action is Open, indicated by the fact that its in bold. Select the Explore item and the CD's contents will appear in Windows Explorer.
I think I have a problem with the auto-play function with Windows 98 CD Player. I believe that when I insert an audio CD, say, it should automatically play. I have gone through Folder Options in My Computer and set the file type details of AudioCD to open with CD Player. Now when I enter a CD the most I can get the program to do is to display the program window. I have tried using the Edit function through Folder Options as suggested in the help file but I am getting no further. The PC Plus cover discs auto-play but not audio CDs. Can you help?
There are two things to try initially. Press [Windows][Break] and locate the CD-ROM in Device Manager. On the Settings tab of its Properties dialog ensure that 'Auto insert notification' is turned on. It most likely will be, because data CDs are auto-playing. However, although auto-insert notification is a prerequisite for CDs to auto-play, it isn't the full story. Windows has two other settings which control it, one for data CDs, another for audio. The easiest way to get at these is to use TweakUI if you have it, or similar utility. On TweakUI's Paranoia tab is a 'Things that happen behind your back' section, containing two checkboxes - one to make audio CDs play automatically, and the other for data CDs.
These checkboxes change settings in the registry, and if you still can't auto-play audio CDs I would run RegEdit and open the branch MyComputer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AudioCD\Shell. There should be a (Default) string value set to "play" for auto-play of audio CDs. Going down to the Play key on the left, its (Default) value should be '&Play'. And the Command key should have a (Default) string value of 'C:\WINDOWS\cdplayerexe/play %1' There is another registry key involved in auto-play HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer\NoDriveTypeAutoRun. Unfortunately it isn't clear what it should be set to as I have seen different values on different machines. If all is in order in the registry, try typing this command line into Start/Run: cdplayer/play. It should auto-play a CD. If not, I would re-install CD Player from the Windows CD, in case the program file has become corrupted. If the command line works, add the /play switch to the shortcut to CD Player under Start/Programs/Accessories. Beyond that a quick refresh of your Windows installation (install it over the top of itself) may bring relief.
Right then, let's see how clever you are. I have an HP 7200 external CD-RW, and it's doing horrible things to my re-writeable discs. On three or four occasions, I've tried to eject the disc and there's been a long pause so long that I've sometimes rebooted the PC to get the disc out. The trouble is, when I open my E drive (the CD-RW) it says 0 bytes. I've tried checking the disc contents through DOS and get "no files found". No way was there enough time to format the disc, so has the rewriter just taken it upon itself to destroy the disc's file allocation table or whatever it uses? Is the data on those discs irretrievably lost? I presume it would still exist as Os and 1 s.
Much as I am stung by your challenge to my intelligence, I still think I ought to come clean and say that I don't know what is going on here. The first thing I would like to know is why is the drive failing to eject discs? If this is caused by a hardware fault, then it could also be responsible for physically damaging the disc itself, in which case those Os and 1 s may already be reclining on their cloud in binary heaven. On the other hand, if the drive is locking up in the middle of a write operation but you don't notice until you try to eject the disc and find that it refuses, then the damage probably isn't to the files themselves and they might be recoverable using Scandisk. It's all questions and speculation so far, so here's what I'd like you to do:
1. Try running Scandisk on a trashed disc. Does this find anything?
2. If not, use a disc sector editor, such as Norton Utilities, to look beyond the table of contents and into the actual data area itself. If this appears blank, then the drive really is scrubbing the discs (perhaps it's overheating) and should be replaced.
Alternatively -send one of the trashed discs to me, along with a list of the files I should expect to find there, and I'll have a look for you.
DVD
Do I need a CD-Rom drive alongside a DVD-Rom drive in order to use standard CDs?
A DVD-Rom drive will be backwards compatible with standard CDs -so there is really no need to have both drives in the same system. The standard CO-Rom speed of most DVD-Rom drives currently available is 20-speed or 24-speed and while this is slower than that of a 40-speed CD-Rom drive, you will find it to be perfectly functional.
I've been thinking of upgrading my 32-speed CD-Rom drive to a DVD-Rom drive. I have my eyes on a 10-speed tray-loading DVD drive, but have been told that a slot-loading alternative would be better. What is the difference between tray-loading and slot-loading drives and does the mechanism affect performance? Also, do I need a hardware decoder? I've seen a VideoLogic DVD Player card for around £70, but will this be beneficial over just using a software decoder?
As the nomenclature implies, the difference between slot-loading and tray-loading drives is that the drive mechanism of the former always remains within the drive unit and CDs (or DVDs) are inserted in the same way as letters are inserted into a letterbox (via a slot). Tray-loading drives are more conventional and are the drives behind the hilarious 'my coffee cup holder is broken' technical support wheeze. Other than affecting the way disks are inserted, the method of loading has no effect on the resultant performance of a drive. You should also note that the actual speed of the DVD drive itself is, for the moment at least, of secondary importance to actually owning a DVD drive. DVD movies, which currently account for the vast majority of DVD software currently available, run at single speed. Opting a 10-speed drive does not give you the ability to watch movies in a tenth the time as usual (although in some cases, this would be a definite advantage). Until more reference and other titles make their way to DVD, the speed of the drive will remain largely academic.
The issue of whether DVD hardware is required is one that has begged a number of responses this month, with Philip Stewart also considering an upgrade to DVD but unsure about whether his system is up to the task, or whether decoding hardware is required.
As a general rule of thumb, if a system is equipped with a processor operating below 400MHz, then a DVD drive and software decoder will probably not offer very good results. Decoding Mpeg2 with software alone puts a high load on the processor and, for slower processors, this will result in glitches and dropped frames. Above 400MHz AMD K6-3 and Celeron processors should be able to handle fullscreen Mpeg2 playback without noticeable degradation using a software decoder, although the processor will be operating near its capacity -and multitasking (even so much as moving the cursor) could cause frames to be dropped. If you do have a system below 400MHz, or want to use a K6-3 or Celeron for other things while watching movies, then a hardware decoder card will take the bulk of the decoding away from the processor to make this possible. (If you have a pre-MMX processor equipped PC, then even a dedicated hardware MPeg2 decoder is unlikely to help).
If you have a more capable Pentium III or Athlon-based system then the chances are that even more taxing multitasking won't effect the quality of movie playback, however, an Mpeg 2 decoder card may still offer an attractive benefit. The benefit being that the only way to experience the AC3 Dolby Surround Sound audio is through an AC3 decoder (which is only available as part of the Mpeg2 hardware solution). With audio being a big part of the whole DVD movie experience, to enjoy the very best of DVD, a hardware decoder and 5.1 Surround Sound speaker system (costing around £200 more) is a must.
I am looking at getting a DVD upgrade but due to the lack of media here compared to the US (as well as the availability of media through the likes of Amazon), I am keen to have a code-free setup, enabling me to view both region 1 and 2 discs. The products I am looking at are the AOpen DVD-9632 Rom drive (6X read, slot loading, digital audio and output) and the Sigma Designs RealMagic Hollywood Plus MPeg2 decoder card (which only allows five region changes). The former I do not believe (after speaking to Panrix) to be code-free; the latter I have found a couple of patches/cracks for on the Internet. Of the three elements (Rom drive, decoder card and playback software) what needs to be cracked? I mean to say, if the card and the software are cracked, does the Rom drive need to be also? If so, where can I be provided with appropriate cracks for these items? I have searched high and low (on the Internet, in magazines and elsewhere) for an informative guide to this process, which I am sure is both legal (just) and possible to do -to no avail.
The sites you mentioned in a reply to another letter (such as
www.codefreedvd.com) were sadly little to no help.These dam region codes are more complex than you might think. All DVD drives are supposed to check the region code on DVD video (not on computer software DVD-Rom or audio DVD). All newer DVD drives (RPC2 specification) will allow you to set the region but they limit the number of times you can set the region - usually to five times.
As you might expect, there are lots of hacks around. Some simply make the DVD drive 'code-free' so that it will play any DVD video without checking, but many movie makers now circumvent this by inserting program code on the disk itself, which checks that the drive has the same region set as the disk. To get around this, you need a system that can be switched at will from one region to another, without limits. The best single source for information about region codes is Erwin van der Berg's site. www.visualdomain.net. Erwin is the author of the shareware Remote Selector software.
Both the DVD-Rom drive and the DVD video decoder must be region-free. The Remote Selector can change the region code of some DVD video players (making them region-free), but not of the drives. VisualDomain has a list of drives which don't have region checking. However this may vary according to the revision of drive firmware. According to Erwin's list the AOpen DVD-9632 does not have region checking. Some drives even have an RPC jumper on the back, which enables you to selectively enable or disable region checking. Where a drive does have region checking, this is dependent on the firmware, which is almost always flash upgradable. There may be alternative region-free firmware available on the Net, either officially from the makers' Web sites or from hacked versions circulating via usenet groups such as rec.video.dvd or alt.video.dvd. It is well worth checking your drive with Erwin's drive info program both to see if it is region-free and to check the exact model number and firmware version before attempting to flash new firmware. Whenever possible, make a backup copy of the existing firmware before flashing with a new code. Most flash utilities have an option to copy the existing firmware.
While movie distributors are trying to think of more and more complex protection methods (even tricks such as placing a false region code on the disk and then checking in software for players that automatically change region to match the disk), it seems that the flexibility of computers will keep the code-free movement ahead. If you are concerned about future developments, you could buy a drive from firms such as Code Free DVD (www.codefreedvd.com) which gives a lifetime guarantee that it will handle all future releases. For those who prefer a do-it-yourself solution, www.planetdvd.ch/english.htm has some good information. Bear in mind that making the drive code-free won't be any use unless the player is also modifiable. The DVD decoder or player may either be purely software or a hardware/software combination. See Erwin's list for the decoders his Remote Selector will work with.
ZIP
I am looking at buying an inexpensive backup device, primarily for storing scanned images. I have been considering both the LS-120 and Zip 100 drives, but am unsure as to which would be the better option. Which would you suggest or are there any other options that I have overlooked?
The choice between the Zip 100 and the LS120 is based primarily on compatibility issues. The Zip is the more common drive, so if you have aspirations of using your disks to transport files to another machine, there is a greater chance that that machine will have a Zip drive than LS-120.
In this situation, it is better to go with the Zip, but there is not much in it with regard to anything else. An internal Zip 100 will cost in the region of £60, each disk costing around £7. An alternative to these types of drives is to invest in a CD-RW. Once written to, the CDs can be read by any CD-Rom, which makes this a much more compatible route. They also have a much larger capacity than the Zip 100/LS-120, of about 640MB. This comes in handy when you are backing up large amounts of data (and scanned images certainly can eat up that hard disk space).
As the main function of the drive would be as a backup device, there is no need for it to be particularly fast, a 2x or 4x drive should suffice. This will also keep the cost down to around £130 (for an internal drive). With media costing in the region of 70p per CD, this is definitely the best option for medium to large volumes of data. It would cost £42 in Zip disks to store the same amount of information as 1 70p CD.