What's going on

[photolady]

This be the first time I've needed hardware help in a long, long time but this one has me stumped.

I have an older Dell Optiplex GX110. It has a 12.5 hdd with XP HE on it. Customer wanted a bigger drive, so I slap an 80gb in as slave (cause I'm going to ghost his system over), BIOS sees it, all is fine there. After I boot into windows, go to disk management, partition and format the 80gb Windows says drive is healthy. Ok, so far so good, I think Cool!! Ok, I reboot, put ghost floppy in, bring up ghost and proceed. Ghost check says things are good. Shut off computer, disconnect original drive, set 80gb as master, reboot. Comes up, says.......no operating system found.

Now, I think it's a bios problem can't see the master 80gb, but why would it see it as slave?

All comments are welcome. Cause I have to get this fixed, it's my GM's computer. :D

[Dan18960]

Well, I am wondering why you are ghosting a 12 gb to an 80g andnot imaging the 12g to the 80g?

What I do is bench the hard drive from the system, ghost it to my bench box subdirectory for the client, and then image new drive from bench box client subdirectory.

There is no need to do the previous steps you are doing since the ghost image SHOULD (if you are using 8.0 and above) move the mbr and all other byte for byte transfer.

Of course, you are probably not imaging the "diagnostic" partition that Dell was installing on their older systems. If you do it in my manner - it moves that diagnostic partition as part of the image.

[dbarrow]

Does it have the boot files on it?
Check( and edit) your boot.ini to make sure it is seeking the correct boot drive.

[photolady]

First of all, I said Ghost, but was imaging the drive. I just call it ghosting cause that was what I was using. Ghost 2003. And the 12gb doesn't have any of the old diagnostic stuff from Dell on it. This computer didn't come with XP on it, it's a 500Mhz system built in 98 or 99. But GM wiped that out everything from Dell when he installed XP HE.

How could not seek the correct drive, if the 80gb is the only one there? But I'll check the boot.ini when I get back to work Monday.

[mylanta]

This be the first time I've needed hardware help in a long, long time but this one has me stumped.

I have an older Dell Optiplex GX110. It has a 12.5 hdd with XP HE on it. Customer wanted a bigger drive, so I slap an 80gb in as slave (cause I'm going to ghost his system over), BIOS sees it, all is fine there. After I boot into windows, go to disk management, partition and format the 80gb Windows says drive is healthy. Ok, so far so good, I think Cool!! Ok, I reboot, put ghost floppy in, bring up ghost and proceed. Ghost check says things are good. Shut off computer, disconnect original drive, set 80gb as master, reboot. Comes up, says.......no operating system found.

Now, I think it's a bios problem can't see the master 80gb, but why would it see it as slave?

All comments are welcome. Cause I have to get this fixed, it's my GM's computer. :D

My first question is did bios reflect new 80 Gb hard drive as the one in the boot order. Alot of old Dell bios see the old hard drive that was there and you need to reset the hard drives to pick up the new one. Then look at the boot order to make certain the 80 gb drive is the one being called for.
Only other question was in your work, did you remember to make sure the new drive is active drive, boy have I messed up not doing that before. And finally are you certain you carried over the mbr in your image file from the first drive as the new one wouldn't have one obviously any other way.

[photolady]

Ok. I know MBR is there because after the Dell wouldn't work, I slapped it into a new setup, new motherboard, new cpu. And you know that didn't work. :D But anyway, I thought I'd play around with the image install, and had that system fixmbr.

Now, something Rich says may have been the problem in the Dell. It was still set to boot from the floppy so Monday I'll go put the drive back in the Dell and reset the boot order.

Btw, I checked that all files where there when I had it in the Dell as a slave drive.

[mylanta]

Great as always let us know....

[photolady]

Well, changed boot order and that didn't affect it at all. Still getting no operating system found.

And I'm in the process of upgrading the system, GM has now decided he wants a faster computer. So this project can be considered closed. Though I'd really like to know why this shows an operating system on the drive, why it shows in new computer but can't be found in the Dell system. And the fact it will see the 80gb harddrive is another "what the heck is going on". :confused:

[tonyd]

Since the drive is working on the other machine, I have to question to jumper settings or HD cable. I think you said you checked all this, but check again. Are both systems the same - cable select or not? Swap out the cable in GM's machine.
-td

[mylanta]

Well, changed boot order and that didn't affect it at all. Still getting no operating system found.

And I'm in the process of upgrading the system, GM has now decided he wants a faster computer. So this project can be considered closed. Though I'd really like to know why this shows an operating system on the drive, why it shows in new computer but can't be found in the Dell system. And the fact it will see the 80gb harddrive is another "what the heck is going on". :confused:


Right but does the list of drives show the 80 gb drive as the same number as the boot hard drive is. Remember with olod dells you have to do "Alt e" , "Alt F" to get the bios to find the new drives and in the right order whenever you change out a hard drive? And also reset the logs in bios as well.

[photolady]

Another why for you. I started the computer and went to recovery console. Typed in Bootcfg /scan it finds the operating system on that 80gb drive. So, I'm at this point, what can I do with bootcfg that might fix this problem.

I'm not sure what you meant above about it seeing the drive as first device. Booting up, going to setup, it shows in Boot order the 80gb as first boot device, in P.O.S.T. it shows 80gb as first drive. Get past that and it says "no operating system found".

also reset the logs in bios Eh?

[mylanta]

Another why for you. I started the computer and went to recovery console. Typed in Bootcfg /scan it finds the operating system on that 80gb drive. So, I'm at this point, what can I do with bootcfg that might fix this problem.

I'm not sure what you meant above about it seeing the drive as first device. Booting up, going to setup, it shows in Boot order the 80gb as first boot device, in P.O.S.T. it shows 80gb as first drive. Get past that and it says "no operating system found".

Eh?

Event logs I meant reset config data...and seeing the correct drive I meant in the bios when listing ide drives, it the 80 gb listed as hard drive 0 and is that the same one called for in boot order?

[photolady]

Well, GM says don't waste anymore time on this old computer, just build him an upgrade. I did discover something though when putting 80gb in new computer and starting wipe and reload. Drive showed as only a 32gb so something in the Dell changed that after initial setup said it was an 80gb, I assume after BIOS read it as 80gb, ghost image only saw 32!?

Yes, Tony, the drive jumpers were correct. I set them up as master/slave first, then changed them to cable select, then back to Master on the 80gigger cause I removed the 20gigger.

[Dan18960]

This is really strange? ? ? ?

Did you use any disk utilities on the new drive to set it up? (besides Ghost).

No where in your postings did I see that you removed the Dell original drive, placed it in a "bench" box, and create an image to the bench system, and the jumper settings should have made no difference if you were using a WD drive - I usually just set it sideways since WD doesn't need to know if it is a single or Master drive in a single drive configuration.

As I stated earlier - I ALWAYS remove the drive from the client system, put in my bench box, remove all temp files, scan for virus/trojans/malware (delete any files found), and then boot from ghost floppy and create a client image folder on the bench box / create image file(s) to that folder. Place "new" drive in bench box, boot from ghost floppy, and do a from image to new drive.

But since the GM has dictated too much time has been spent on this machine (and I would think anything over 2 hours is more than enough on a hard drive upgrade {less Windows updates that customers NEVER seem to do}).

[photolady]

I had the old dell drive in a bench box and removed unnecessary files. I always do this with any customer's drive.

I formatted it the first time through the bench box, then placed it in the dell, did an image from there. I don't see why doing it your way and doing it mine would make a difference in whether the dell saw the full 80gigger and no operating system, when it's inside the Dell that I did the bootcfg.

When I have nothing on the bench, I'll try this another time with a 40gigger. Right now, I have two other systems waiting for me to rebuild so this is the last post here today.

Thanks everyone for your comments and suggestions. :)

[Dan18960]

Hmmm. I don't get the need to format a drive that is going to be imaged - Ghost will just blow away the formatting anyway when the image is placed on the drive.

I have had almost no failures on drives that the BIOS seeks and displays correctly - those that did fail were drives that were failing anyway (the reason I left Maxtor behind).

Like I mentioned, I image the original drive and then just plug in the new drive and just restore the image to the new drive.

I always note that no matter what the original image sized drive was, before the restore it tells me the image size and the new size to be imaged.

I am thinking you may have a trashed hard drive (not like that has NEVER happened before)!

[photolady]

Which harddrive do you think I trashed. Because I've got the new system up and running with his old drive as slave and both drives are fine. His files on the old drive are still there.......all of them.

I don't know why I didn't do all this as you said you do yours, but probably cause I've never used a bench box. Actually, I just got another setup to use just for this purpose, before all I had was my personal computer which I use to research with.

And since I don't use Ghost that often, it might have been the way I used it that caused the problems to start with. Maybe with you all's help, I can get better at this Ghosting thing. Those times I did use ghost, I've never had this problem, so I was lost when it didn't work correctly.

[mylanta]

PL I think Dan is both adding and saving some time there, but it is nice to clean a drive on another system first, but it is just as easy to scan the system on it's own if it is running right, defrag, clean the hard drive crap up and then make the image file and restore it back to a new drive. The only trick is making sure the new drive winds up with an mbr is all, as well as being active. newer versions ask that and it's easy whereas the odler versions that were Symantec like dan uses, I think are the most confusing and easy to make mistakes on.
We are going to talk about backup solutions this week on the Paltalk Wednesday (W@ednesday) Night Chatroom...actually we were supposed to last week but got side tracked.

[photolady]

we were supposed to last week but got side tracked That happens a lot when friends get together. ;)

[mylanta]

Yep that's true...

[photolady]

Ok, still having troubles with GM's computer. And it's driving me nuts.

So to start again and maybe with you all's help I can fix this stupid GM's box and get him off my back.....not that he yells or anything, he's hardware challenged so to speak. LOL He just wants his computer working correctly with all his programs, music and stuff on the 80gigger.

Stay with me cause this is probably going to be a long post. ;)

First question:
How do you install a new drive in a new setup; ie, new motherboard, processor, ram, video card, etc, and Image old drive to work in new setup and have XP boot just like it did in the old computer?

Now remember, I'm using Ghost 2003.

The reason for my questions besides the GM wanting his computer working correctly is, I can't see how imaging a Dell based operating system to a new harddrive in a new system and have it work. I would think Windows would halt on boot!? yes, or no?

And tonyd, the IDE cables were brand new. I did this because I was leary the old ones might be bad.

[Dan18960]

PL,

What is so important on the Dell configuration that you have to migrate the programs vs the data to the new system?

You can use the COA (although we both KNOW you should install a new OEM operating system) to install the new system XP operating system. You simply need OEM media. The COA product key will work.

You do realize that M$ considers any moving of a hard drive to a "completely" different computer as a violation of their EULA. And your GM SHOULD know that whether hardware challenged or not.

OK, now for the basic process I use for setting up a new system:

(1) Install operating system (keep it barebones at this point)

(2) Install motherboard drivers (usually from the mbd manufacturer - and ONLY the hardware drivers! Leave out any "freebie" applications or Windows apps. They LOVE to include Directx but don't install it at this time).

(3) Install video drivers - again NO freebie software.

(3a) IF you have a PCI network adapter - install those drivers now.

(4) Do all windows updates - DON'T include hardware "suggestions" from M$ but look at the drivers being offerred and check the version in Device Manager.

(5) Check for BIOS updates - no matter how new the board the manufacturer probably has updates already - and install.

(6) OK right now we have a completely clean machine and it should be moving quickly so NOW to screw up everything WE ARE GOING TO ADD APPLICATIONS. I install all the applications the client has purchased and do updates from the web sites.

(7) Antivirus install - NOW install the antivirus application and update as needed. Unless you have installed some internet software (iTunes or such) you should be safe if you installed only applications with cd's and reputable companies.

(8) Move Data over to new system - usually I have already ran the hard drive on my bench system and rooted out any infected files, suspicious programs, and trojans buried where they should not be - but the antivirus on the "new" system will be double checking as the data comes over.

(9) Now for the need to haves - I install Adobe Reader and webshots. Adobe Reader for the pdf files and webshots so the client has some different desktops from a SAFE source. Webshots does NOT bring in any advertising or popups. I also will install Admuncher and tell the client that they have THIRTY days trial and it is the best $25.00 they can spend on their computer EVER.

(10) Is the burn in - I usually will setup the computer and just let it run for 24 hours before delivery to make sure there is no "gotcha" to bite me after the computer is at it's home.

[mylanta]

Ok, still having troubles with GM's computer. And it's driving me nuts.

So to start again and maybe with you all's help I can fix this stupid GM's box and get him off my back.....not that he yells or anything, he's hardware challenged so to speak. LOL He just wants his computer working correctly with all his programs, music and stuff on the 80gigger.

Stay with me cause this is probably going to be a long post. ;)

First question:
How do you install a new drive in a new setup; ie, new motherboard, processor, ram, video card, etc, and Image old drive to work in new setup and have XP boot just like it did in the old computer?

Now remember, I'm using Ghost 2003.

The reason for my questions besides the GM wanting his computer working correctly is, I can't see how imaging a Dell based operating system to a new harddrive in a new system and have it work. I would think Windows would halt on boot!? yes, or no?

And tonyd, the IDE cables were brand new. I did this because I was leary the old ones might be bad.



As for imaging the old system to a new system with new hardware, the only way to make it work is to run an XP repair right away but even if you do that it won't run right. A better idea would be to never try to boot but boot instead into safe mode and go into Control Panel and and delete everything in device manager and then reboot and let OS replace everything. Both of course are from either running drive to drive in Ghost, or restoring an image file to the main drive from another drive.
To make the image file gain as Dan said no matter how you do it whether it be on bench macine or in dell, run defrag, then scan for virus and spyware, and run ccleaner first then make the file to second drive. Then put in new drive and restore back from slave drive. Be careful you alos copy the mbr and there should be a switch for that in Ghost, though I have not run that old one in many years so it's hard for me to remember.

[photolady]

Some where Dan has lost what I was wanting to do.

First there is no Dell COA to use; this was a bought version of XP. Not a Dell installed o/s.

Second, I do everything you have mentioned on a new computer except the bios update.

Third, I never ever install XP's suggested drivers. Even my own machine has the manufacturer's drivers for my hardware.

Fourth........The XP HE isn't OEM, it's a full version. So, it is not tied to the Dell or any other branded computer.

The old computer was bought long before XP even came out. It had win98 on it. My GM bought the XP HE full version and installed that onto his Dell. I'm not even sure he did this or had someone else do it for him. But once it's installed, no matter that it is not OEM and wasn't a Dell recovery disk, it was installed in a Dell. So ghosting the drive, or imaging whatever you want to call it, isn't working to put the image on the new computer and new harddrive.

Understand now what I'm trying to do. Image his XP HE installed on a 20gb harddrive that was installed in his old dell computer and restore it to a new harddrive in a new computer.

P.S. The junk that is on mobo disks, stays on the mobo disks.

[mylanta]

Some where Dan has lost what I was wanting to do.

First there is no Dell COA to use; this was a bought version of XP. Not a Dell installed o/s.

Second, I do everything you have mentioned on a new computer except the bios update.

Third, I never ever install XP's suggested drivers. Even my own machine has the manufacturer's drivers for my hardware.

Fourth........The XP HE isn't OEM, it's a full version. So, it is not tied to the Dell or any other branded computer.

The old computer was bought long before XP even came out. It had win98 on it. My GM bought the XP HE full version and installed that onto his Dell. I'm not even sure he did this or had someone else do it for him. But once it's installed, no matter that it is not OEM and wasn't a Dell recovery disk, it was installed in a Dell. So ghosting the drive, or imaging whatever you want to call it, isn't working to put the image on the new computer and new harddrive.

Understand now what I'm trying to do. Image his XP HE installed on a 20gb harddrive that was installed in his old dell computer and restore it to a new harddrive in a new computer.

P.S. The junk that is on mobo disks, stays on the mobo disks.

I probably posted what I did at the same time you answered Dan, but I think I covered what you want. You and I both know it won't be perfect my way, but it should run. I mean you also could just go drive to drive making the 20Gb slave and the new one master and simply transfer what is on one drive to the other, make sure you select the drive be active and mbr moves as well (Acronis makes this so much easier in 9.0 version) and then choose one or both my suggestions

[Dan18960]

OK now there is a little clearing.

IS THE XP HE ON A FAT32?

If the drive wasn't converted from FAT32 to NTFS - it won't see 80gb THAT IS WHY when you moved it to another box it was showing only 32GB!

Now I think you have most of your work set out for you. Take the ORIGINAL drive and put it in a bench box system and convert it to NTFS and you should be able to image it with no problem.:humble:

[dale@fcg]

Rich,
What is ccleaner?

[kern]

...The old computer...had win98 on it. My GM bought the XP HE full version and installed that onto his Dell.
...I'm trying to...Image his XP HE installed on a 20gb harddrive that was installed in his old dell computer and restore it to a new harddrive in a new computer...[and] it, isn't working to put the image on the new computer and new harddrive.

PL,
Even if you manage to image the drive, XP will be unstable at best.
Your best bet is to do a clean install of XP, and all of his programs, on the new harddrive. then install the old drive as slave, and copy his data over to the new drive.

[mylanta]

Rich,
What is ccleaner?

best thing to replace Space Ace= crap cleaner

http://www.ccleaner.com/ccdownload.asp

[photolady]

I did convert it though, Dan. Before I started trying to image the drive, I used convert from run menu. So??? Anything else?

Dale, ccleaner is a registry cleaner and one of the best. I use it in my shop.

I'm beginning to think Ghost is a pain the keister. I've never use Acronis either, so.......is it way better than ghost, Rich?

[dale@fcg]

What options to choose in ccleaner? just install and run cleaner from first page, with default settings?

[photolady]

Yep guys, I guess the imaging isn't going to work this way at least. I've got his HE on new system. He says the reason he wanted me to use Ghost was he heard it would work. I thought it would. So now I'll have to tell him it won't work this way. Thanks for help though.

Also, does anyone know exactly what happens to music stored in WMP playlists? He says his music was there when the computer quit working correctly.

Btw, this is not downloaded music. My GM being the multi-talented man he is ;)this is his home grown music...he wrote and put on computer for listening to in his home.

[mylanta]

I did convert it though, Dan. Before I started trying to image the drive, I used convert from run menu. So??? Anything else?

Dale, ccleaner is a registry cleaner and one of the best. I use it in my shop.

I'm beginning to think Ghost is a pain the keister. I've never use Acronis either, so.......is it way better than ghost, Rich?


Yes way better...for one thing the whole program runs in Windows though what you are doing would be done with a rescue disk made from the program and run on cd. Acronis, like the newer Ghost also has all the drivers to read external drives which is another easier way to do this image file and restore. I usually make image files on my mobile (firewire or usb) hard drives and then retore them on next pc. Also transferring the mbr, is so easy to see, no one could miss it.
I don't know where dan got the 32 gb bit, must have been in the other post, but the other reason for seeing 32 gb would be SP2 and or bios update, though like you I never touch bios unless the thing doesn't run right and the bios offers hope of change.

[dale@fcg]

ccleaner claimed to have cleaned like 2 gigs of space, most from Recycle Bin. seemed more like a little less than 1 gig to me (form 9.1 to 8.2 gig)

CLEANING COMPLETE - (6.962 secs)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2,409.0MB removed.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Details of files deleted
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IE Temporary Internet Files (9661 files) 169.8MB
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2,409.0MB removed.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Details of files deleted
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IE Temporary Internet Files (9661 files) 169.8MB

[mylanta]

Yep guys, I guess the imaging isn't going to work this way at least. I've got his HE on new system. He says the reason he wanted me to use Ghost was he heard it would work. I thought it would. So now I'll have to tell him it won't work this way. Thanks for help though.

Also, does anyone know exactly what happens to music stored in WMP playlists? He says his music was there when the computer quit working correctly.

Btw, this is not downloaded music. My GM being the multi-talented man he is ;)this is his home grown music...he wrote and put on computer for listening to in his home.


Look it might work if you follow my thoughts of either deleting device manager or running the repair after restoring image file.
Playlists are savable as "All Users,Documents,My Music, My Playlists"

[photolady]

That's where I thought those playlists existed, but there is nothing there.

I think I'll try your method and delete the entries in device manager and run a repair afterwards. Thanks Rich, for both answers.

My theory on BIOS upgrade: If it ain't broke......don't fix it.

[mylanta]

That's where I thought those playlists existed, but there is nothing there.

I think I'll try your method and delete the entries in device manager and run a repair afterwards. Thanks Rich, for both answers.

My theory on BIOS upgrade: If it ain't broke......don't fix it.

I think if you do that trial, you have a chance to save it, and it will impress your GM as well that you tried. Remember though the only way that will work is to remove each and every entry, don't get caught in the trap of thinking "I don't need to do this or that because it would be the same," it all has to go and I would boot up into safe mode before getting to Windows by accident and getting the BSOD right after finishing restore. There used to be a setting in earlier versions of 9X Windows, "enum" in the registry that would remove all of device manager for a clone restore, and Ms took it out or disguised it with XP.
Can you boot old Dell and export the playlist? Look all thorugh My Documents as he may have changed the location into say My Music in his user...as for Bios, absolutely. You could be best in world at bios, and have thunderstorm during flash and lose the whole thing. Like you bios to me is last resort. Unless I read that a bios update handles a specific problem, I am not interested and I never take the newest or a beta regardless of what it says. I have always found the newest never runs right and wind up downgrading 1 version anyway. Don't you wish those guys would standardize how to do a bios flash? Every damn one is different, and it's nerve wracking enough to do one, then to have to play that stupid game of how this guy does his!

[kern]

[QUOTE=mylanta]I think if you do that trial, you have a chance to save it, and it will impress your GM as well that you tried. Remember though the only way that will work is to remove each and every entry, don't get caught in the trap of thinking "I don't need to do this or that because it would be the same," it all has to go and I would boot up into safe mode before getting to Windows by accident and getting the BSOD right after finishing restore.
QUOTE]

Rich and PL,
I wouldnt boot from the old drive. IMHO your best chance to "save" the old OS in the new pc, is to boot from the XP CD and run repair.

[mylanta]

[quote=mylanta]I think if you do that trial, you have a chance to save it, and it will impress your GM as well that you tried. Remember though the only way that will work is to remove each and every entry, don't get caught in the trap of thinking "I don't need to do this or that because it would be the same," it all has to go and I would boot up into safe mode before getting to Windows by accident and getting the BSOD right after finishing restore.
QUOTE]

Rich and PL,
I wouldnt boot from the old drive. IMHO your best chance to "save" the old OS in the new pc, is to boot from the XP CD and run repair.


Rob could you underline anywhere in your quote of me where I said to boot from old drive so I could see it?

[photolady]

Does not matter now boys. ;) I booted this morning, ran a repair install of xp, which crapped out in normal mode when trying to install drivers. Ok, next step. Run repair again. This time after it fixed that goof; I boot to safe mode, with mobo disk in drive, windows are popping up, found new hardware. Installed new hardware/display (not adapter but the display itself was missing in device manager), installed audio drivers and reboot to normal mode. Screen came up all funky like it does before video drivers are installed.....installed video drivers and all is well with this computer. I also removed two instances of "other devices" in normal mode before booting to safe mode. Don't know if that had anything to do with the glitches, at this point I don't care. LOL

Now this was all done on the old drive. Only thing left is to image it, and restore it to new drive.

[mylanta]

Hooray!!! We can put this one to bed.

[photolady]

Does Acronis have a working trial version I could use for imaging or whatever they call it?

[mommalina]

best thing to replace Space Ace= crap cleaner

http://www.ccleaner.com/ccdownload.asp

Yo, Rich! when did you change your mind about CrapCleaner?


http://www.kickenhardware.net/forum/showthread.php?t=2113&highlight=crap+cleanerKH

post by Myylanta, 03-31-2006, 09:14 AM

Re: Smart Windows Cleaner
Good point Dan, I have "wasted" my system twice with Crap Cleaner, Space Ace kills all my cookies in Firefox, which is why I am now using Sea Monkey, and when asked, the author of Space Ace laments he doesn't have enough time to update it since Firefox is newer than SA IV.You know what for a $50 program, time should be forthcoming.
I am done tyring to find "quick fixes" for my own sloppiness. Just like jv16 which I love, the last thing I would do is turn that loose erradicating registry dupes or cleaning registry...easier to reformat and arrive at the same posture. I love it when people post questions on other forums about what to use to clean their registry. Like they want to take a dustmop to it? They have no clue that one wrong move and without backup which they never have either, they are in "wipe and load" territory with the "wipe" partially done already!
I learned a long time ago that if Windows doesn't have the utility, I probably don't need it.

Did I miss another post saying you had second thoughts about CrapCleaner? Maybe there's another discussion in the archives, based upon which I did not download CrapCleaner because I thought it was trouble.

Anyway, the complete thread of the one quoted above convinced me that I don't need a cleaner (don't get into the kind of stuff that leaves that kind of residue).

But please let us know when you change your mind about something. Probably hard to remember because you post in various forums.

Lina

[mylanta]

Yo, Rich! when did you change your mind about CrapCleaner?



Did I miss another post saying you had second thoughts about CrapCleaner? Maybe there's another discussion in the archives, based upon which I did not download CrapCleaner because I thought it was trouble.

Anyway, the complete thread of the one quoted above convinced me that I don't need a cleaner (don't get into the kind of stuff that leaves that kind of residue).

But please let us know when you change your mind about something. Probably hard to remember because you post in various forums.

Lina


What makes you think you don't need a hard drive cleaner. You probably need it more than any of us, because you don't know where the junk is to clean it.
I had started using crap cleaner again, but I uncheck cookies for Firefox and IE is all and have been OK with it. When i had the rootkit problem and realized how useless Windows Defender is, I went back to Spwareblaster and Spybot and that's where the problem showed up again with ccleaner. As I said I am living with it and so far I have seen no signs of system trash as I had in the past. As PL says, many many users are using and recommending it opn other forums.

[mylanta]

Does Acronis have a working trial version I could use for imaging or whatever they call it?

I think you can make the image and see all the features, but cannot restore it is all with the trial version.

[mylanta]

Does Acronis have a working trial version I could use for imaging or whatever they call it?

Check your email at home....

[photolady]

Can't check my email at home til later. But I did download the trial version and used this on my bench box, cloned that drive to a new drive, swapped out original it cloned drive works.........But.....I tried to install the trial version on my GM's box, new download too and it keeps telling me it can't register that version with his email and name. I have no idea why it won't install on his computer.
After cloning my bench box, my first thought was......cool now I can finish GM's puter.....guess not.

I hate to think I will have to use Ghost for this after using the trial version of Acronis and it was soooo much easier.......

[mommalina]

Rich, I was influenced by Dan's comment below. I don't do the kind of stuff that racks up temp files.

04-01-2006, 05:43 PM
Dan

Re: Smart Windows Cleaner
Lina,

Actually, temp files are from Word, Excel, printer, scanner, and many other applications. Downloads that update programs - ie PalTalk, instant messengers, java, macromedia, etc.

But these are not as "harmful" as they were in the W98 days. The speed of the processor, the management of the operating system, and having larger hard drives has made these less of a operating threat than previously.

I use Firefox almost exclusively. I clean out %temp% daily. I check Disk Cleanup every two days or so, and usually there are no temporary files listed, if so, maybe 3 or 4. And I check weekly to see if I should run Disk Defragmenter (usually every 3 weeks or so).

Questions:

1. What and where else should I be cleaning out stuff?

2. Do I really need CrapCleaner?

Thanks.

Lina

[photolady]

Uninstalling programs leaves what I call trails behind. Using CrapCleaner removes all those leftovers. Sometimes they can be just a bit of your harddrive, other times they can take up mb's/gb's.

One thing I don't do is ask if I should defrag a harddrive, if it looks fragmented, then it needs it.

[mylanta]

Can't check my email at home til later. But I did download the trial version and used this on my bench box, cloned that drive to a new drive, swapped out original it cloned drive works.........But.....I tried to install the trial version on my GM's box, new download too and it keeps telling me it can't register that version with his email and name. I have no idea why it won't install on his computer.
After cloning my bench box, my first thought was......cool now I can finish GM's puter.....guess not.

I hate to think I will have to use Ghost for this after using the trial version of Acronis and it was soooo much easier.......


Make a rescue disk from yours and then boot to the rescue disk on his to move the image file.There is no need to register it or wait till you get home and check your email.

[photolady]

Now we can call this case closed. I sent the computer home with GM tonight all fixed. I did end up using Ghost but instead of making an image, I just cloned the drive to the new one. Everything is installed correctly, he didn't lose anything.

This project to me, is one for the books. ;)

[mylanta]

Hey who doesn't love a happy ending!

[dale@fcg]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E1681279691SF

$30 for Acronis-can't beat it

[mylanta]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E1681279691SF

$30 for Acronis-can't beat it

yes I can I get it free!

[photolady]

Since the computer has been home now for a few days. And since Ghost worked for cloning the drive.......I consider this case closed. If a Mod would please close this thread, I think it would be best.