I agree with Ralf, this has nothing to do with window eyes or any GW
product, and the list is supposed to be limited to GW products.
rationalize all you like, this topic belongs on some other list.
Chip
-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Belle [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Sunday, August 02, 2009 4:36 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: Dell systems and such
What is the name of the list?
It says gw-info right?
I see topics on here relating to all kinds of access issues, book sense,
email programs, etc.
Butch and I are using a gwmicro product to access our computers, it might
be
an older product, but we happen to have gained a lot of independance from
said product used in a productive way, namely to do back-ups.
I see messages all the time concerning this sort of thing, and as stated
in
the email, access shouldn't be a window's only approach, we limit
ourselves
even worse than we already are when we do this.
So useful information on how to do vital tasks like backing up, and any
products accessed with any gwmicro products, even legacy ones I consider
to
be relevant and on topic.
If Your system crashed, and I was next door to you, and I could teach you
how to get all your stuff back with an imaging program, you might like it
if
someone showed you how to do such a thing or had information about it.
Blindies don't seem to care about such things anymore, but they sure
scream
and holler when they loose their stuff.
I'm glad someone took the time, another window-eyes user by the way, to
show
me how to do back-ups with ghost, which got me started, and then I
discovered image for windows and dos and linux, and then drive snapshot.
because system restore can't compare or casper, or any of these windows
only
solutions just don't cut it to a full blown imaging program, which gives
lots of security, and the reason I post publically is just incase there's
anyone interested out there who might benefit from knowing about such, and
the remote off-hand chance that they might investigate and learn to do
something outside what seems to be the very inadequate prescribed norm
these
days which is top tier access only.
I believe I mentioned that drive snap shot worked with window-eyes too, so
that makes it definitely on topic.
So what back-up program do you use?
And does it work with window-eyes and will it save your bacon and get your
system back for you if you have a hard-drive crash or virus, or other
problem?
At 03:13 PM 8/2/2009, you wrote:
Sorry for asking, but how does this thread relate to Window-Eyes?
Ralf Kefferpuetz
Germany
MSN/Live: [email protected]
Aim: RalfKatEMC
Skype/Yahoo: rkefferpuetz7747
-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Belle [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Sunday, August 02, 2009 8:16 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Dell systems and such
Unless you'd rather I didn't, I'll go public with this so others might
benefit since I think it's very relevant for people like ;us who
aren't happy with just a top level access and who use older stuff as
well as newer stuff to give us greater independance.
I really appreciate your encouragement and the conversations we've had
through the years keeping some of this stuff going and comparing notes.
We've been able to avoid lots of problems using imaging problems, it's
saved your bacon numbers of times, just like it has mine.
I have a good teching buddy up in Ok who believes strongly in it, and
uses dos still to tech with, and he builds machines and everytime,
hands down, even though it's got it's limitations, I think it gains up
a lot of control that blind people in windows only don't get.
They'd rather spend hours playing with registry cleaners, and spyware
tools that don't really work, when it's so wonderful to hit the bitton,
walk away and go get a coke, and come back to a system fresh as the day
you bought it with all your favorite stuff installed the way you like.
Ok enough evangilizing, I just want people to know that old technology
can be great and is worth preserving and using when you can, I like
what that other cat said about something not being obsolete because the
computing world says it is but only when it quits serving your purpose.
Drive snapshot is a german made software which makes images to another
drive, much like image for windows dos and linux does.
YOu don't have the gui in dos, but you can use batch files, and it does
text writes so you can see progress and all.
In windows, you get a nice gui.
One executable works in dos and windows, and also opens up image files
for you to look inside.
It doesn't have the extra drivers like image for dos for cd and usb
access and such, but you can install those yourself.
It's a great tool, and I've starting using it because it allows me to
get to my ntfs drives without that memory limit that ntfspro has with
image.exe.
1600 fsb is 1600 front side bus.
That's the fastest processors supported at that time.
Driver genius is a program that can save out drivers for all your
devices, and also find them on the net for you.
It doesn't do as well on the later part, but if you want to restore a
system and don't have driver disks handy, and you need to grab your
drivers out of an existing install, driver genius is great, and it works
with we.
I had an older version around here, so that might have been the problem
with not finding the netcard drivers, but still, I made it work.
Yeh, well, the only way you could get around having integrated
paripherals is to install xp on that machine, run driver genius and then
re-install 2k.
And then use the drivers you got out of xp.
For an older machine 2k is still a better option since it doesn't hog
as much as xp, so great for anything like a p2 anything less than a 700
or 256 megs of memory, I say put 2k on it or w98.
Well, if you do it all yourself, and really go budget and get your own
parts, you could do a 3gig 2 core machine for probably 5 bills.
But this machine here was built by sonica labs, and it's decked out
with all the finest stuff from that time, passive cooled video, big
quiet power supply, it was when the first run of 45 nm stuff first came
out, and I got it loaded with 3 big sata drives and 2 good burners and
2 gigs of ddr2 memory.
Sonica labs replaced a machine no questions asked when dhl mangles the
first one, which had an asus mobo, and they gave me a better machine to
replace it, better mobo I think gigabyte mobos are better than asus.
This board
has 2 pci slots, 2 pci express 16 slots, and I forget how many pci
express one slots, but it's got all the other stuff I mentioned in the
other email.
What's good about this motherboard is that it does ide immulation very
well, even to the point of being able to load a dos cdrom driver to
access the burners.
Some of the lesser motherboards won't do that, ide immulation from the
bios isn't all created equal.
Also for a music machine, sonica labs disabble ahci mode, which makes
it better for us doing installs and such, and also apparently timing
issues and such in windows is better when the hardware controls things.
This makes sense, as we used to disabble pci steering and do dedicated
physical irqs to a slot for our audio interfaces back before things got
robust enough in windows to handle it.
Now we don't do that so much.
But apparently, even though ahci mode offers hot swapping and other
cool stuff, the experts say let the bios handle it.
Which while we're running these hybrid systems, is the best thing right
now for people using their computers for the stuff I do.
Because if you enable ahci mode, you'd have to have text mode drivers,
and unless your using nlite which isn't perfect, you'd have a bitch of
a time with unattended installs, those text mode drivers can be tricky,
and you couldn't get past the part when xp asks for a disk.
there are some voodoo you can use with the unatend.txt file, but safe
to say text mode drivers are harder to deal with.
Ok, I don't know everything, and I'll probably get some rocks thrown at
me by people who haven't got anything better to do than to be jerks but
here's my understanding of why we don't have safe mode or talking
installs.
The same bios which helps us out and makes windows and the whole pc
work better in one situation also has boxed us in.
That's why you need a bios upgrade everything they add a new bus or
change drive geometries, this is old 80s technology, very limited
memory, and legacy dos level stuff, and there's no memory to load
drivers and software to make things talk.
Intel around 98 I believe it was if I remember the white paper I read
released efi I believe it stands for extended firmware implementation
or interface, some such, and this basically does away with the bios and
allows the computer operating system to talk to the hardware directly
from the get go, this is what apple uses, and the reason it can run
windows natively is that it immulates the old pc bios, but because
other operating systems have left the bios behind, there's much more
memory and resources to do stuff like what we want.
They don't have the real mode limitations, so if we want voiceover to
talk me through an install, no problem.
But with the old bios stuff, when you barely got enough memory to do
these big drive geometries, and even start to talk to all the stuff
we've crammed in to a modern pc, you can just forget about loading
software for a talking install.
I'm sire I don't have it 100 percent right in all the particulars, but
that's my layman's understanding of things.
When we get efi based systems, then a lot more stuff will be possible,
and hardware upgrades will be much simpler, I believe the one good
thing about vista I saw was that efi implementation has started.
I don't know much beyond that, only that with all the hasles we have
with the bios, and the translation that has to happen, and the handing
off to windows and such, that efi will speed things up a lot and make
compatibility easier.
This will happen in time, but microsoft is dragging it's heels behind
everybody else as usual.
Well, atleast we have imaging down, which get's us out of having to use
safe mode to fix a hosed system, botched driver install, etc.
It's not the best solution, but it works every time, pc acts up, if you
can't fix it reasonably quick, just image your system drive, and your
back in business.
Keep email and other junk off on other partitions, and nothing get's
hosed.
YOu know, that 137 gig limit might be the key thing here, I should try
and re-size that partition and see if it fixes my issue.
I used to think it was the 4k line thing, I had the same problem with
fat32 when I first got these drives, and then I re-formated fat32 4k
line, and it seemed to fix some things, but the problem is back.
So maybe 4k line fat32 is some of it but not all the problem.
At 10:26 AM 8/2/2009, you wrote:
>I've never tried drive snapshot. Does it make an image or just keep
>a mirror image on another drive? I use fat 32 on all my stuff.
>makes life simpler. I had the same problem with sata drives on dos,
>I think there is some doundary around 137 gig that dos won't see. I
>generally partition all my stuff on larger drives. I guess sata is
>faster, but I've had less problems with ide drives. I also use
>western digital my book and image for dos sees those fine and ai can
restore from those.
>
>What is 1600 fsb?
>
>Never heard of driver genius. What does this do? UI couldn't use
>your trick on that dell as it was an on board card, sound and all on
>the mother board. When you say cheap, any guess on how cheap for
>a 3 gig dual core machine?
>
>It really ticks me off we don't have speech in safe mode or talking
>installs. We should have had this stuff years ago!!!
>
>Later.
>Butch
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