Re: [digitalradio] Zapped PCs, data recovery, and Windows !
Thanks Rick. Kinda like buying a car and it being rendered inoperative if I installed a new engine. On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 6:59 PM, Rick Ellison relli...@twcny.rr.com wrote: My local computer store tells me that one cannot simply take a hard drive from a old Pc and place it in a new PC even if you have a Windows license disc for the new PC. Is this correct? Unless you install it in a computer that has the exact same hardware (Motherboard, Video, Ect.) yes this is true. 9 out of 10 times the system will crash because you are trying to load drivers for hardware that is not present…. 73 Rick N2AMG *From:* digitalradio@yahoogroups.com [mailto:digitalra...@yahoogroups.com] *On Behalf Of *Andrew O'Brien *Sent:* Thursday, July 23, 2009 6:38 PM *To:* digitalradio@yahoogroups.com *Subject:* [digitalradio] Zapped PCs, data recovery, and Windows ! After years or running PC's without issues, I have had 4 go bad in 12 months. Two this week, 4 days apart via thunderstorms . One went today just an hour after I had fully reinstalled ham equipment on a new PC that arrived yesterday. The new one survived, I had unplugged it at the sound of thunder. I powered off the older one but forgot to remove the power cord, it got zapped. I put in a spare power supply that i had, that lasted 5 minutes and gave up the ghost. Maybe something else was weakened by the original zap and caused the second power supply to burn out. Anyway, my main issue is the frustrating fact that I have data on hard drives that seems ridiculously complex to retrieve when using Windows based PCs. My local computer store tells me that one cannot simply take a hard drive from a old Pc and place it in a new PC even if you have a Windows license disc for the new PC. Is this correct? In the past I have taken old drives and installed them in different PC's as slave drives. However this causes one to have to re-install many programs because they were originally installed to the registry on a C-drive. So what do I do with 5 hard drives laying around the shack ? In particular one two-drive system with 160 gigs of useful data on it (both have Windows OS on them since both are from different original PC systems!) . It would be nice to install in to a PC without having to get a HD with an OS on it. -- Andy -- Andy
RE: [digitalradio] Zapped PCs, data recovery, and Windows !
You cannot replace the C drive of Windows PC #1 with the C drive of Windows PC #2 and expect the resulting machine to boot unless PC #1 and PC #2 use the same motherboard and peripherals. However, you can configure the C drive of PC #2 to be a secondary drive in PC #1 assuming that PC #1 supports the appropriate hardware interface -- e.g. if the PC #2's hard drive uses an IDE interface, then you'll need an IDE interface in PC #1. Addonics makes a product that lets you convert any IDE drive into an external USB drive. Access via USB is significantly slower than native IDE access, but you can connect to any PC with a USB interface; perhaps they have a USB 2.0 version by now: http://www.addonics.com/products/io/ While converters like these are somewhat slow, they allow you to connect a drive up to a running PC -- eliminating the need to power it down, open its chassis, and make the IDE or SATA connection -- which can be difficult in a smaller chassis stuffed with cables. I have occasionally moved IDE drives between PCs whose motherboards were manufactured by different companies, but never encountered a driver problem. When it doesn't work the right off the bat, its usually a master/slave configuration issue; I've also run into IDE cables with bad slave connectivity (cable or connector problems). There is nothing in the Windows End User License Agreement that precludes attaching a disk on which Windows has been installed to another PC running Windows (or any other OS). If you have frequent power outages, I recommend adding a UPS capable of powering your PC long enough to shut down Windows in an orderly fashion; otherwise, you are subjecting the data on your hard drive(s) to risk from both power surges and from being scribbled upon if the drive happens to be in the middle of write operation when the power fails. APC makes a nice product, but be sure to not buy one larger than is needed for ~5 minutes of operation. I have no relationship with any of the companies mentioned above... 73, Dave, AA6YQ -Original Message- From: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com [mailto:digitalra...@yahoogroups.com]on Behalf Of Andrew O'Brien Sent: Thursday, July 23, 2009 6:38 PM To: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com Subject: [digitalradio] Zapped PCs, data recovery, and Windows ! After years or running PC's without issues, I have had 4 go bad in 12 months. Two this week, 4 days apart via thunderstorms . One went today just an hour after I had fully reinstalled ham equipment on a new PC that arrived yesterday. The new one survived, I had unplugged it at the sound of thunder. I powered off the older one but forgot to remove the power cord, it got zapped. I put in a spare power supply that i had, that lasted 5 minutes and gave up the ghost. Maybe something else was weakened by the original zap and caused the second power supply to burn out. Anyway, my main issue is the frustrating fact that I have data on hard drives that seems ridiculously complex to retrieve when using Windows based PCs. My local computer store tells me that one cannot simply take a hard drive from a old Pc and place it in a new PC even if you have a Windows license disc for the new PC. Is this correct? In the past I have taken old drives and installed them in different PC's as slave drives. However this causes one to have to re-install many programs because they were originally installed to the registry on a C-drive. So what do I do with 5 hard drives laying around the shack ? In particular one two-drive system with 160 gigs of useful data on it (both have Windows OS on them since both are from different original PC systems!) . It would be nice to install in to a PC without having to get a HD with an OS on it. -- Andy
Re: [digitalradio] Zapped PCs, data recovery, and Windows !
The latest Puppy Linux is here: http://puppylinux.org/downloads/official-releases/latest-production-version (not the NBEMS version, but will work). You just need a computer to access the Internet and a program that will burn an ISO. 73, Skip KH6TY Andrew O'Brien wrote: yes, I thought of that Skip. I am looking for a copy of my working Puppy, cleaned the shack last week and have misplaced it. I should point out that I am close to having almost everything I need ,expect OS, backed up on teh web and accessible when I need to start over. I have my log backed up and I email it to myself as an attachment via Gmail, then use products like DXLab, HRD, Fldigib that can easily be reinstalled for free, and my Multipsk license is also backup via the Internet. Today's zapped computer however contains 20 gigs of paid for Itunes stuff. Luckily a nifty program call copytrans allows me to retrieve back to Itunes from the Ipod. On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 6:47 PM, kh6ty kh...@comcast.net mailto:kh...@comcast.net wrote: Andy, Try running a NBEMS Puppy Linux CD live. You can access all the data and windows partitions with Puppy from the Puppy Desktop. 73, Skip KH6TY Andrew O'Brien wrote: After years or running PC's without issues, I have had 4 go bad in 12 months. Two this week, 4 days apart via thunderstorms . One went today just an hour after I had fully reinstalled ham equipment on a new PC that arrived yesterday. The new one survived, I had unplugged it at the sound of thunder. I powered off the older one but forgot to remove the power cord, it got zapped. I put in a spare power supply that i had, that lasted 5 minutes and gave up the ghost. Maybe something else was weakened by the original zap and caused the second power supply to burn out. Anyway, my main issue is the frustrating fact that I have data on hard drives that seems ridiculously complex to retrieve when using Windows based PCs. My local computer store tells me that one cannot simply take a hard drive from a old Pc and place it in a new PC even if you have a Windows license disc for the new PC. Is this correct? In the past I have taken old drives and installed them in different PC's as slave drives. However this causes one to have to re-install many programs because they were originally installed to the registry on a C-drive. So what do I do with 5 hard drives laying around the shack ? In particular one two-drive system with 160 gigs of useful data on it (both have Windows OS on them since both are from different original PC systems!) . It would be nice to install in to a PC without having to get a HD with an OS on it. -- Andy -- *Skip KH6TY* http://KH6TY.home.comcast.net http://KH6TY.home.comcast.net -- Andy -- *Skip KH6TY* http://KH6TY.home.comcast.net
RE: [digitalradio] Zapped PCs, data recovery, and Windows !
It is true that you can have driver issues if you try to use a primary (C) drive from one computer on another. However, it is not insurmountable. I recently bought a de-branded HP computer that had no operating system, but was designed for Vista. I wanted to put XP on it, and it took a while to find all the XP drivers. If you simply want to get files off of other drives, just install the drive as a secondary (slave) drive. I do that all the time. Of course you still have to have an operating system on a C drive in order to do that. If you have installed actual programs on the new slave drive, then you do have to reinstall them to get the Windows registry set up correctly. If you are only concerned about data files, and not program files, then retrieving them is about as easy as it can get. Nothing complex about it. It's no different from what we used to do to extract files from a floppy disk. I highly recommend that you use a UPS on all your computers. Saves all that frustration with voltage transients. Dick -Original Message- From: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com [mailto:digitalra...@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Andrew O'Brien Sent: Thursday, July 23, 2009 3:38 PM To: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com Subject: [digitalradio] Zapped PCs, data recovery, and Windows ! After years or running PC's without issues, I have had 4 go bad in 12 months. Two this week, 4 days apart via thunderstorms . One went today just an hour after I had fully reinstalled ham equipment on a new PC that arrived yesterday. The new one survived, I had unplugged it at the sound of thunder. I powered off the older one but forgot to remove the power cord, it got zapped. I put in a spare power supply that i had, that lasted 5 minutes and gave up the ghost. Maybe something else was weakened by the original zap and caused the second power supply to burn out. Anyway, my main issue is the frustrating fact that I have data on hard drives that seems ridiculously complex to retrieve when using Windows based PCs. My local computer store tells me that one cannot simply take a hard drive from a old Pc and place it in a new PC even if you have a Windows license disc for the new PC. Is this correct? In the past I have taken old drives and installed them in different PC's as slave drives. However this causes one to have to re-install many programs because they were originally installed to the registry on a C-drive. So what do I do with 5 hard drives laying around the shack ? In particular one two-drive system with 160 gigs of useful data on it (both have Windows OS on them since both are from different original PC systems!) . It would be nice to install in to a PC without having to get a HD with an OS on it. -- Andy
RE: [digitalradio] Zapped PCs, data recovery, and Windows !
My local computer store tells me that one cannot simply take a hard drive from a old Pc and place it in a new PC even if you have a Windows license disc for the new PC. Is this correct? Unless you install it in a computer that has the exact same hardware (Motherboard, Video, Ect.) yes this is true. 9 out of 10 times the system will crash because you are trying to load drivers for hardware that is not present.. 73 Rick N2AMG From: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com [mailto:digitalra...@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Andrew O'Brien Sent: Thursday, July 23, 2009 6:38 PM To: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com Subject: [digitalradio] Zapped PCs, data recovery, and Windows ! After years or running PC's without issues, I have had 4 go bad in 12 months. Two this week, 4 days apart via thunderstorms . One went today just an hour after I had fully reinstalled ham equipment on a new PC that arrived yesterday. The new one survived, I had unplugged it at the sound of thunder. I powered off the older one but forgot to remove the power cord, it got zapped. I put in a spare power supply that i had, that lasted 5 minutes and gave up the ghost. Maybe something else was weakened by the original zap and caused the second power supply to burn out. Anyway, my main issue is the frustrating fact that I have data on hard drives that seems ridiculously complex to retrieve when using Windows based PCs. My local computer store tells me that one cannot simply take a hard drive from a old Pc and place it in a new PC even if you have a Windows license disc for the new PC. Is this correct? In the past I have taken old drives and installed them in different PC's as slave drives. However this causes one to have to re-install many programs because they were originally installed to the registry on a C-drive. So what do I do with 5 hard drives laying around the shack ? In particular one two-drive system with 160 gigs of useful data on it (both have Windows OS on them since both are from different original PC systems!) . It would be nice to install in to a PC without having to get a HD with an OS on it. -- Andy
Re: [digitalradio] Zapped PCs, data recovery, and Windows !
yes, I thought of that Skip. I am looking for a copy of my working Puppy, cleaned the shack last week and have misplaced it. I should point out that I am close to having almost everything I need ,expect OS, backed up on teh web and accessible when I need to start over. I have my log backed up and I email it to myself as an attachment via Gmail, then use products like DXLab, HRD, Fldigib that can easily be reinstalled for free, and my Multipsk license is also backup via the Internet. Today's zapped computer however contains 20 gigs of paid for Itunes stuff. Luckily a nifty program call copytrans allows me to retrieve back to Itunes from the Ipod. On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 6:47 PM, kh6ty kh...@comcast.net wrote: Andy, Try running a NBEMS Puppy Linux CD live. You can access all the data and windows partitions with Puppy from the Puppy Desktop. 73, Skip KH6TY Andrew O'Brien wrote: After years or running PC's without issues, I have had 4 go bad in 12 months. Two this week, 4 days apart via thunderstorms . One went today just an hour after I had fully reinstalled ham equipment on a new PC that arrived yesterday. The new one survived, I had unplugged it at the sound of thunder. I powered off the older one but forgot to remove the power cord, it got zapped. I put in a spare power supply that i had, that lasted 5 minutes and gave up the ghost. Maybe something else was weakened by the original zap and caused the second power supply to burn out. Anyway, my main issue is the frustrating fact that I have data on hard drives that seems ridiculously complex to retrieve when using Windows based PCs. My local computer store tells me that one cannot simply take a hard drive from a old Pc and place it in a new PC even if you have a Windows license disc for the new PC. Is this correct? In the past I have taken old drives and installed them in different PC's as slave drives. However this causes one to have to re-install many programs because they were originally installed to the registry on a C-drive. So what do I do with 5 hard drives laying around the shack ? In particular one two-drive system with 160 gigs of useful data on it (both have Windows OS on them since both are from different original PC systems!) . It would be nice to install in to a PC without having to get a HD with an OS on it. -- Andy -- *Skip KH6TY* http://KH6TY.home.comcast.net -- Andy
Re: [digitalradio] Zapped PCs, data recovery, and Windows !
On Thu, 23 Jul 2009 18:38:00 -0400, Andrew O'Brien andrewob...@gmail.com said: My local computer store tells me that one cannot simply take a hard drive from a old Pc and place it in a new PC even if you have a Windows license disc for the new PC. Is this correct? I expect you'll have all kinds of driver issues. Also, Windows treats its users as maybe-criminals and requires permission from the mothership every time the hardware changes significantly. On a Linux system you have neither of these problems. I would expect the transplanted hard drive to work on a new machine (after all, the LiveCD runs everywhere) and of course there's none of that activation nonsense. As for running Windows software, I hear that VirtualBox works very well these days :-) -- 73, Stelios, M0GLD.
Re: [digitalradio] Zapped PCs, data recovery, and Windows !
Andrew O'Brien wrote: Thanks Rick. Kinda like buying a car and it being rendered inoperative if I installed a new engine. Exactly. You would most likely have to buy the exact same make, model, and year of car for it to work. Tim, N9PUZ Announce your digital presence via our Interactive Sked Pages at http://www.obriensweb.com/sked Recommended digital mode software: Winwarbler, FLDIGI, DM780, or Multipsk Logging Software: DXKeeper or Ham Radio Deluxe. Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/digitalradio/ * Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional * To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/digitalradio/join (Yahoo! ID required) * To change settings via email: mailto:digitalradio-dig...@yahoogroups.com mailto:digitalradio-fullfeatu...@yahoogroups.com * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: digitalradio-unsubscr...@yahoogroups.com * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Re: [digitalradio] Zapped PCs, data recovery, and Windows !
Andrew O'Brien wrote: After years or running PC's without issues, I have had 4 go bad in 12 months. Two this week, 4 days apart via thunderstorms . One went today just an hour after I had fully reinstalled ham equipment on a new PC that arrived yesterday. The new one survived, I had unplugged it at the sound of thunder. I powered off the older one but forgot to remove the power cord, it got zapped. I put in a spare power supply that i had, that lasted 5 minutes and gave up the ghost. Maybe something else was weakened by the original zap and caused the second power supply to burn out. Your question has been answered several times. Once the next one is up and running... 1. Use a good quality UPS so you have nice clean power going to the machine all the time. 2. Make sure any other lines such as network cables either have good surge protectors and/or are unplugged. This include sound card interfaces, serial port rig control stuff, etc. 3. Use a disk image program such as Ghost, True Image, or Terabyte's Image for Windows/Linux/DOS for backups. In the event that the disk drive fails you can be back up and running very quickly. I like to back up to an external USB drive that I normally leave unplugged from AC power and disconnected from the computer. 4. I work from home. In addition to all of the above my office computer has a RAID 1 disk array. There are two 500GB drives but the disk controller mirrors one to the other. The computer thinks there is a single drive. If one drive goes TU you can replace it, reboot, and the controller rebuilds the new drive to again be a mirror of the old one. Drives are very inexpensive these days. Tim, N9PUZ
