>> Now *all* I have to do is figure out how to put NTLDR and friends back 
>> onto the drive using the recovery console and my PC will be usable 
>> again... o_O

How did you manage to mess that up by simply replacing a graphics card?!?!

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scott wrote:
>>> Now *all* I have to do is figure out how to put NTLDR and friends 
>>> back onto the drive using the recovery console and my PC will be 
>>> usable again... o_O
> 
> How did you manage to mess that up by simply replacing a graphics card?!?!

Read again, carefully: I haven't even changed the graphics card yet. All 
I've actually done is move some hardware around so that there's a big 
enough space to insert the card.

The reason Windoze is upset is because I removed HD 0. (For reasons 
beyond my comprehension, M$ insists that the boot files must always be 
on HD 0, even if the OS itself isn't.) So I need to put the boot files 
onto the drive that has now become HD 0. Unfortunately the documentation 
for this isn't that easy to find, but I believe I know how to fix this now.

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> "Powering your XFX graphics card"
> 
> "XFX does not support the use of two 4-pin to one 6-pin power cable 
> converter for these graphics cards."
> 
> So, uh, why did you supply just such a converter IN THE BOX WITH THE 
> CARD???
> 
> Is it just me?! o_O

Seriously - I'm still bemused by this one... :-?

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>> Luckily those are not very expensive.
> 
> Well, that's the main thing, yes. ;-)
> 
> (Otherwise, right now you'd see my sitting in the corner crying.)

...or rather, "300W PSUs are not very expensive". Typically you can buy 
one of those for about £6, or anything upwards.

Unfortunately, I need a minimum of 500W (and the "recommended" is 630W, 
and if you ever go to SLI that becomes 680W). PSUs in that sort of range 
typically go for about £60. (Occasionally you will see *one* model at 
£20 or so, but when you read the spec you discover that it only has 3 
plugs or something daft.)

I'm thinking... if I'm going to actually spend real money on getting a 
bigger PSU, I might as well spent a little bit more on one that can do 
the job *properly*. (I.e., one with enough connectors, and a decent 
Wattage.)

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> ...or rather, "300W PSUs are not very expensive". Typically you can buy 
> one of those for about £6, or anything upwards.
>
> Unfortunately, I need a minimum of 500W (and the "recommended" is 630W, 
> and if you ever go to SLI that becomes 680W). PSUs in that sort of range 
> typically go for about £60.

I'm thinking just buy 2x 300W ones for 12 pounds :-)

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scott wrote:
>> ...or rather, "300W PSUs are not very expensive". Typically you can 
>> buy one of those for about £6, or anything upwards.
>>
>> Unfortunately, I need a minimum of 500W (and the "recommended" is 
>> 630W, and if you ever go to SLI that becomes 680W). PSUs in that sort 
>> of range typically go for about £60.
> 
> I'm thinking just buy 2x 300W ones for 12 pounds :-)

Mmm, yes... One PSU to power my PC, and the second one to power my GPU!! :-D

I'm not really sure how the case arrangements for that work out though.

(Notice that the recommended power is 630W, so 2x300W would still be 
insufficient. However, I think my current PSU might be 400W, so...)

Anyway, it seems that if you want 700W *and* two 6-pin PCIe connectors, 
you're talking about quite a lot of money. But if you settle for 650W, 
you can find it quite a bit cheaper. I'm thinking I might go for this:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/151295

It exceeds the recommended Wattage, it has two seperate PCIe connectors, 
and it has enough other connectors to run the rest of my stuff. (It's 
also 80plus certified, which is nice...) Only £40, which isn't as bad as 
the £80+ for something like a modular Thermaltake 800W unit.

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Invisible wrote:
> ...or rather, "300W PSUs are not very expensive". Typically you can buy
 
> one of those for about £6, or anything upwards.

Like everything, the exceptionally cheap ones are crap and will die, ofte
n 
taking out other parts, in a year or so. Spend the extra and get the good
 one.

> (Occasionally you will see *one* model at £20 or so, 

And it'll either be a piece of crap or specialized for a particular produ
ct 
line.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Ouch ouch ouch!"
   "What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
   "No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."

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Invisible wrote:
> Hopefully at this point the system should become bootable again. 

You might need to use mbrfix (or is it fixmbr?)

Or use diskpart to make the partition active, I think. It's been a while 
since I tried to fix an XP partition.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Ouch ouch ouch!"
   "What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
   "No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."

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>> ...or rather, "300W PSUs are not very expensive". Typically you can 
>> buy one of those for about £6, or anything upwards.
> 
> Like everything, the exceptionally cheap ones are crap and will die, 
> often taking out other parts, in a year or so. Spend the extra and get 
> the good one.

Yeah, if I buy I PSU, I tend to not buy *the* cheapest one. I like to 
buy one that's a little more. Not too much, but just so that it's not 
the £6 model. Maybe £15 or something?

I'm like that with a lot of things though. I tend to avoid *the* 
cheapest one, and go for one a few notches higher up.

OTOH, when looking at something like CPUs, I tend to not go for *the* 
most powerful one, because typically it's 8x the price for 8% more 
performance. ;-)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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>> Hopefully at this point the system should become bootable again. 
> 
> You might need to use mbrfix (or is it fixmbr?)
> 
> Or use diskpart to make the partition active, I think. It's been a while 
> since I tried to fix an XP partition.

Yes. Actually I already did this from KNOPPIX. Just marking the 
partition as "bootable" seemed to be enough to get me to the "CAN'T FIND 
NTLDR" message. But I found the corresponding commands (it *is* fixmbr 
and fixboot BTW) in the Recovery Console also.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Invisible wrote:

> - Build a new BOOT.INI file: bootcfg /all
> 
> - This last command spends a few hours scanning all your HDs looking for 
> anything that looks like a Windows installation. It then gives you an 
> interactive prompt asking which ones to add to the boot menu.

Actually, that's "bootcfg /add" or /rebuild.

And, for whatever reason, it doesn't work. After a while it crashes out 
with an error message about an unreadable filesystem or something.

Interestingly, it seems that placing NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM onto the 
drive is sufficient to make it boot. When you boot the system, it says 
"INVALID BOOT.INI; BOOTING FROM C:\WINDOWS". I'm guessing this only 
works for certain cases. Since by Windows installation is your standard 
"the OS is in the standard place on the first HD", it Just Works(tm).

Weirdly, once Windows has loaded there is apparently no way to recreate 
a correct BOOT.INI file. However, cut-and-pasting the example one from 
M$'s website seems to have fixed things nicely.

Wee, my PC works again! :-D

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Yes. Actually I already did this from KNOPPIX. Just marking the 
> partition as "bootable" seemed to be enough to get me to the "CAN'T FIND 
> NTLDR" message. But I found the corresponding commands (it *is* fixmbr 
> and fixboot BTW) in the Recovery Console also.

OK. If you got that far, all you need to do is copy boot.ini, ntldr, and the 
ohter one whose name I forget offhand, and you should be good. (I'm not 100% 
sure you need boot.ini if you put windows in the obvious place, either.)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Ouch ouch ouch!"
   "What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
   "No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."

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Darren New wrote:
> Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>> Yes. Actually I already did this from KNOPPIX. Just marking the 
>> partition as "bootable" seemed to be enough to get me to the "CAN'T 
>> FIND NTLDR" message. But I found the corresponding commands (it *is* 
>> fixmbr and fixboot BTW) in the Recovery Console also.
> 
> OK. If you got that far, all you need to do is copy boot.ini, ntldr, and 
> the ohter one whose name I forget offhand, and you should be good. (I'm 
> not 100% sure you need boot.ini if you put windows in the obvious place, 
> either.)

NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM - and no, you apparently don't need BOOT.INI (see 
my other post). And there's nowhere to "copy" BOOT.INI from. ;-)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> And there's nowhere to "copy" BOOT.INI from. ;-)

Well, you could copy it onto a floppy and then from there onto the hard 
drive, assuming it was the same. And you can "copy con boot.ini" I believe.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Ouch ouch ouch!"
   "What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
   "No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."

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Muhuhuhu! The new bigger, badder PSU is here! 8-D

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Muhuhuhu! The new bigger, badder PSU is here! 8-D

The PSU is now installed. Now I'm going to download the drivers for the 
new card, uninstall the drivers for the old card, and fit The Daddy... :-D

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> The PSU is now installed. Now I'm going to download the drivers for the 
> new card, uninstall the drivers for the old card, and fit The Daddy... :-D

Jesus Christ, the video driver is 110 MB?? o_O

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:

> Ooo, check this out... I didn't see this part... I also get a free copy 
> of FarCry 2! :-D
> 
> And "3DMark Vantage Advanced Edition" for free.

And 3DMark Vantage *only* works with Windows Vista. Oh well...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> And 3DMark Vantage *only* works with Windows Vista. Oh well...

Don't worry about it. It isn't impressive.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Ouch ouch ouch!"
   "What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
   "No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."

Post a reply to this message

Darren New wrote:
> Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>> And 3DMark Vantage *only* works with Windows Vista. Oh well...
> 
> Don't worry about it. It isn't impressive.

Heh. Oh well. It's just that I've never been able to run 3DMark 
properly. (I always have the free version that's crippled so you can't 
run half the tests or adjust any settings.) And now I've got a real 
geniune license code to run the full product, except... but for this 
version of Windows.

I guess they assume that if you just paid £200 for a card with DirectX 
10 support, you'd also want to run it under an OS that supports DirectX 10.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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The new GPU is up and running. :-D

And... oh my *god*... it's so quiet!!

My PC just got about 5x quieter than it was before. o_O

(Although I notice it gradually gets louder than I ask it to do 
something 3D.)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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