While in the process of using a thumb drive to move stuff between 
machines somehow the damn "disk manager" in the drive got confused, 
decided to run against the HDD, and ate my MBR and partition table. 
So... Partitions where, mostly, recovered, using testdisk. The problem 
being, this was a dual boot, so either grub is missing, or the partition 
which had its boot menu on it is gone. So, few problems:

The version of linux I had installed doesn't recognize itself on the 
drive, so can't recover.

I don't have a full copy of dos, anyplace, any more, so the tools to run 
fdisk /mbr, or the like, are not there.

Recovery console for XP insists I have an admin password (But I never 
used one on that old machine), so won't get me to a prompt, so I can do 
that.

Knoppix won't auto-mount the main drive, and attempting to dd the mbr, 
to wipe the grub loader (i.e. dd if=/dev/null of=/dev/hdc bs=446 
count=1), tells me, "This is a directory"...

Anyone have any ideas how to fix this? Still a lot of shit on the old 
machine I use every day, since its not transferred to the new machine 
yet. :(

Post a reply to this message

On 23/04/2012 6:09 PM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Anyone have any ideas how to fix this? Still a lot of shit on the old
> machine I use every day, since its not transferred to the new machine
> yet. :(

Can you physically remove the HDD from your old m/c and connect it to 
the new one via a usb adaptor?
If so, easy peasy.

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

Patrick Elliott <kag### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> Anyone have any ideas how to fix this? Still a lot of shit on the old 
> machine I use every day, since its not transferred to the new machine 
> yet. :(

  I know this is just pouring salt on the wound, and it doesn't help you
solve the problem, but... Whenever you have some important data that you
don't want to lose in one single place, usually a hard drive, you are
taking the conscious risk of losing it. It often feels the same like the
idea of getting robbed: When it has never happened to you, you can easily
get the false sense of safety that it probably won't ever happen either,
but if it some day happens, it can be a real shock. Suddenly you wake up
to the realization that it really *is* a real danger. The same goes for
keeping important data in one single place, with no backups. It may feel
like a risk one's ready to take, but when the day comes when that data is
lost (or even just possibly lost), it's when reality really stings.

  Let this be, once again, a lesson for everybody: Backup your important
data. It doesn't matter how much of a hassle it may feel, just do it.
(Also, make sure that your backups work. Don't keep your backup in one
single disk for years. Writable CDs and DVDs degrade over time, and after
a decade or so you might find out that the computer can't read the disk
anymore. Re-backup to a new disk every now and then. Writable DVDs are
cheap.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

On 4/23/2012 10:18 AM, Stephen wrote:
> On 23/04/2012 6:09 PM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> Anyone have any ideas how to fix this? Still a lot of shit on the old
>> machine I use every day, since its not transferred to the new machine
>> yet. :(
>
> Can you physically remove the HDD from your old m/c and connect it to
> the new one via a usb adaptor?
> If so, easy peasy.
>
May have to. The problem is, this was the boot drive, so since you can't 
read the registry, that I know of, unless its in plain text, what little 
I "could" get from the drive isn't much. The data partition is on that 
too, but only some programs, most of the data-data was moved off to 
bigger externals. Luckily I recently got an IDE drive case, for hooking 
up to USB, so I can do it, otherwise, it wouldn't even be possible on 
the new machine (since they don't have IDE much any more).

The biggest problems is a) not knowing what all my applications where, 
that where installed, or b) any easy way to get registry keys off the 
drive (I already have one game that decided to malfunction a while back, 
and when I tried to reinstall it, I couldn't find the key. It didn't 
occur to me to get the key out of the registry first).

It would definitely be more convenient if I could get it to boot.

Oddly, I tried both an older DOS disk, and to run a disk diagnostic disk 
that I think belongs to the drive itself. The first one showed:

Unable to find command processor, for example, C:\Command.com, press 
enter to try again, or reboot the machine.

A>

The diagnostic disk did the same thing, only with C> on it. Why this 
would happen, unless it was somehow trying to look at the HDD for it, is 
beyond me. Very odd....

Post a reply to this message

On 4/23/2012 10:53 AM, Warp wrote:
> Patrick Elliott<kag### [at] gmailcom>  wrote:
>> Anyone have any ideas how to fix this? Still a lot of shit on the old
>> machine I use every day, since its not transferred to the new machine
>> yet. :(
>
>    I know this is just pouring salt on the wound, and it doesn't help you
> solve the problem, but... Whenever you have some important data that you
> don't want to lose in one single place, usually a hard drive, you are
> taking the conscious risk of losing it.

The single most annoying thing about this is, well, three most annoying 
things:

1. Almost every "recovery" system relies on the machine booting 
properly, to restore the contents. Unless you are making whole images of 
the disk (which is a massive problem itself, to span across DVDs/CDs, 
this is a major problem. In this case, I can't even get the disk 
diagnostic, which boots its own OS and software, from a floppy, to boot, 
so it would need to be something run from a live CD (which did boot). 
Possible, but not necessarily if the failure was of the type, and scale, 
I had here.

2. The type of failure can matter. If the drive isn't recoverable, for 
some reason, you need a new drive, and well...

3. Finally, and this is the biggest one for me, and most people: How? I 
mean, DVDs are not a great solution, and the "backup" utilities, 
especially on XP, don't always support them properly. But, in general, 
short of another drive, or a tape system (expensive), there is no real 
good way to do it, not without multiple DVDs, or multiple something 
else, or, in the case of the one solution I did have, the bloody useless 
"backup" software, which just made backups of "known data types". Not 
programs, not settings, not anything that didn't register "document" to 
it. And, that could be thousands of things, some of which *are* data, 
except just not the sort of data that has a nice label, like jpg, or 
xls. And, there are so many of those crappy assed "solutions" out there 
that its hard to find the ones that are not total crap.

So, yeah, I have done backups, now and then. But it wouldn't have done a 
damn thing for me in this case, since the stuff I need isn't a) 
readable, or b) restorable, unless I could get the drive to boot again 
somehow. And, there was never any practical way to do a complete backup. 
Not with what I had available to do it. :( And restoring it from the 
backup..., well, that isn't much easier, without a solution that 
actually does that sort of thing for you, and correctly.

Post a reply to this message

Le 2012-04-24 01:23, Patrick Elliott a écrit :


> Oddly, I tried both an older DOS disk, and to run a disk diagnostic disk
> that I think belongs to the drive itself. The first one showed:
>
> Unable to find command processor, for example, C:\Command.com, press
> enter to try again, or reboot the machine.
>
> A>
>
> The diagnostic disk did the same thing, only with C> on it. Why this
> would happen, unless it was somehow trying to look at the HDD for it, is
> beyond me. Very odd....

your autoexec.bat sets the COMSPEC variable to point to a copy of 
command.com on the C: drive.  This is usefull for software that unload 
command.com from memory to get an additional 40K of usable ram, they 
need to know where to get it back when they're done.

If you have access to an editor, remove the "SET COMSPEC=" line from the 
autoexec.bat and reboot.  If not, rename autoexec.bat

This should allow you to run fdisk /mbr from the floppy.

-- 
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
/*    flabreque    */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
/*        @        */{P(0,a)P(a,b)P(b,c)P(2*a,2*b)P(2*b,b+c)P(b+c,<2,3>)
/*   gmail.com     */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }

Post a reply to this message

On 4/24/2012 5:09 AM, Francois Labreque wrote:
> Le 2012-04-24 01:23, Patrick Elliott a écrit :
>
>
>> Oddly, I tried both an older DOS disk, and to run a disk diagnostic disk
>> that I think belongs to the drive itself. The first one showed:
>>
>> Unable to find command processor, for example, C:\Command.com, press
>> enter to try again, or reboot the machine.
>>
>> A>
>>
>> The diagnostic disk did the same thing, only with C> on it. Why this
>> would happen, unless it was somehow trying to look at the HDD for it, is
>> beyond me. Very odd....
>
> your autoexec.bat sets the COMSPEC variable to point to a copy of
> command.com on the C: drive. This is usefull for software that unload
> command.com from memory to get an additional 40K of usable ram, they
> need to know where to get it back when they're done.
>
> If you have access to an editor, remove the "SET COMSPEC=" line from the
> autoexec.bat and reboot. If not, rename autoexec.bat
>
> This should allow you to run fdisk /mbr from the floppy.
>
Hmm. Except, both disks this happens with are "intended" to run stand 
alone, not against a known OS. Or, they shouldn't anyway. Will have to 
check that, but I can't imagine it doing that. :p

Post a reply to this message

On 4/23/2012 22:40, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> 1. Almost every "recovery" system relies on the machine booting properly, to
> restore the contents. Unless you are making whole images of the disk (which
> is a massive problem itself, to span across DVDs/CDs, this is a major
> problem.

It was more of a problem before Vista came out. If you're still using XP, I 
suggest finding a BartPE and a DriveXML. (I can offer them to you, as 
they're both free, for future use.)

> 3. Finally, and this is the biggest one for me, and most people: How?

USB hard drive.

> a nice label, like jpg, or xls. And, there are so many of those crappy assed
> "solutions" out there that its hard to find the ones that are not total crap.

UNIX has rsync. Windows has the backup and restore tool. MacOS has time 
machine. Which one is the problem?

> there was never any practical way to do a complete backup.

If you buy a USB drive, it's pretty trivial. You might have to cough up $100 
for one tho.

Tell me what system you have, and I'll tell you how to do it. I never work 
on a system I haven't already backed up, wiped, and restored at least once.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Oh no! We're out of code juice!"
   "Don't panic. There's beans and filters
    in the cabinet."

Post a reply to this message

Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> UNIX has rsync. Windows has the backup and restore tool. MacOS has time 
> machine. Which one is the problem?

  Time Machine is the only one that's actually easy to use and fully
automatic, and has a good file browser for backed files...

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

On 24-4-2012 7:23, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> On 4/23/2012 10:18 AM, Stephen wrote:
>> On 23/04/2012 6:09 PM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>>> Anyone have any ideas how to fix this? Still a lot of shit on the old
>>> machine I use every day, since its not transferred to the new machine
>>> yet. :(
>>
>> Can you physically remove the HDD from your old m/c and connect it to
>> the new one via a usb adaptor?
>> If so, easy peasy.
>>
> May have to. The problem is, this was the boot drive, so since you can't
> read the registry, that I know of, unless its in plain text, what little
> I "could" get from the drive isn't much.

There is a copy of the registry somewhere. So you can reinstall that 
even if the current one is corruct.
At least my brother has done that for me once and apparently regularly 
doing it for other people as well.

-- 
tip: do not run in an unknown place when it is too dark to see the 
floor, unless you prefer to not use uppercase.

Post a reply to this message

Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> > UNIX has rsync. Windows has the backup and restore tool. MacOS has time
> > machine. Which one is the problem?
>
>   Time Machine is the only one that's actually easy to use and fully
> automatic, and has a good file browser for backed files...
>
> --
>                                                           - Warp

I've been using Acronis True Image for Windows for a few years now.
I haven't heard anything good about the later versions, but the one I use works
more or less. I used and still use it on 2k, XP and W7.
It just sometimes coughs on a backup job if it runa it directly after resume
from standby or hibernate, so I have to restart it manually.
You can do backups of folders or partitions via the live CD, you can restore
individual folders from a partition backup, or you just mount an image as read
only and browse it.
I set to to automatically make a new differential backup of my system drive
every week and I create a new backup job quarterly.
That said, I have 4 HDDs in my system:
- 60GB SSD as system drive
- 2TB for PVR data and
- 2TB for other stuff and data
- 1TB for backups and my VMs

Regards
Aydan

Post a reply to this message

Le 25/04/2012 14:15, Warp nous fit lire :
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> UNIX has rsync. Windows has the backup and restore tool. MacOS has time 
>> machine. Which one is the problem?
> 
>   Time Machine is the only one that's actually easy to use and fully
> automatic, and has a good file browser for backed files...
> 

Unix rsync is just fine, using an external usb drive.

It can be interrupted & restarted, it does not copy again files already
copied (default: check timestamp & size; checksum can be also used), and
you can browse with usual program the copy.
Many option also to handle cumulative backup.

My simple copy is : rsync -av /original/location/ /media/storage/usbdisk

No need to compress for a local transfer, and I often do not feel the
need for a checksum (but adding -c can be useful)

When rsync is not available, but ftp is, the clear winner is lftp.
But you have to be very careful about its tunning: a mirroring in the
wrong direction might quickly deletes a waste amount of data.

Post a reply to this message

On 4/25/2012 6:51, andrel wrote:
> There is a copy of the registry somewhere. So you can reinstall that even if
> the current one is corruct.

Yep. Windows has been making a second copy of the registry on boot since 3.1 
days (or maybe 95 days).  I remember seeing someone get the message "your 
registry is corrupt. Please reboot" and having it use the backup copy, back 
before Windows had logins. :-)

> At least my brother has done that for me once and apparently regularly doing
> it for other people as well.

Yep. But honestly, I'm not sure what you need to rescue from the registry. 
None of your data files should be in your registry.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Oh no! We're out of code juice!"
   "Don't panic. There's beans and filters
    in the cabinet."

Post a reply to this message

On 4/25/2012 5:15, Warp wrote:
> Darren New<dne### [at] sanrrcom>  wrote:
>> UNIX has rsync. Windows has the backup and restore tool. MacOS has time
>> machine. Which one is the problem?
>
>    Time Machine is the only one that's actually easy to use and fully
> automatic, and has a good file browser for backed files...

I disagree. Win7 backup is completely trivial as well.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Oh no! We're out of code juice!"
   "Don't panic. There's beans and filters
    in the cabinet."

Post a reply to this message

On 26-4-2012 5:38, Darren New wrote:
> On 4/25/2012 6:51, andrel wrote:
>> There is a copy of the registry somewhere. So you can reinstall that
>> even if
>> the current one is corruct.
>
> Yep. Windows has been making a second copy of the registry on boot since
> 3.1 days (or maybe 95 days). I remember seeing someone get the message
> "your registry is corrupt. Please reboot" and having it use the backup
> copy, back before Windows had logins. :-)

You might be right (no reason to doubt that), but after a crash and a 
reinstall of windows people tend to write off all programs, and will 
reinstall everything from scratch. Even people that should know better.

>> At least my brother has done that for me once and apparently regularly
>> doing
>> it for other people as well.
>
> Yep. But honestly, I'm not sure what you need to rescue from the
> registry. None of your data files should be in your registry.

No, but if the programs refuse to run, you can still not access your data.


-- 
tip: do not run in an unknown place when it is too dark to see the 
floor, unless you prefer to not use uppercase.

Post a reply to this message

On 4/26/2012 1:32, andrel wrote:
> You might be right (no reason to doubt that), but after a crash and a
> reinstall of windows people tend to write off all programs, and will
> reinstall everything from scratch. Even people that should know better.

Well, yes. There's little point to keeping the registry around if you're 
going to reinstall programs.

>> Yep. But honestly, I'm not sure what you need to rescue from the
>> registry. None of your data files should be in your registry.
>
> No, but if the programs refuse to run, you can still not access your data.

For what program can you not back up the data separately from the program? 
That sounds rather silly.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Oh no! We're out of code juice!"
   "Don't panic. There's beans and filters
    in the cabinet."

Post a reply to this message

On 4/27/2012 5:36 PM, Darren New wrote:
> On 4/26/2012 1:32, andrel wrote:
>> You might be right (no reason to doubt that), but after a crash and a
>> reinstall of windows people tend to write off all programs, and will
>> reinstall everything from scratch. Even people that should know better.
>
> Well, yes. There's little point to keeping the registry around if you're
> going to reinstall programs.
>
>>> Yep. But honestly, I'm not sure what you need to rescue from the
>>> registry. None of your data files should be in your registry.
>>
>> No, but if the programs refuse to run, you can still not access your
>> data.
>
> For what program can you not back up the data separately from the
> program? That sounds rather silly.
>
Registration keys. You know, those things on the backs of manuals, or CD 
cases, or which you are supposed to be able to get from the people you 
bought the product from, unless its a few years old, or they got bought 
up by someone else. That is the sort of thing that gets lost when you 
lose the registry.

And, yeah, there is a copy on the drive, but you can't read it. Windows 
compresses it, or something, unless you specify otherwise, some place. 
The tools to unpack it either don't exist, are not bothered with, etc.

Got a fair number of games that flat won't run without those keys, and 
not all of them are recoverable from the sites they originally got 
registered to. All of which makes things a massive pain in the ass.

Post a reply to this message

On 4/24/2012 10:30 PM, Darren New wrote:
>> there was never any practical way to do a complete backup.
>
> If you buy a USB drive, it's pretty trivial. You might have to cough up
> $100 for one tho.
>
> Tell me what system you have, and I'll tell you how to do it. I never
> work on a system I haven't already backed up, wiped, and restored at
> least once.
>
Yeah, have an external USB drive, which I got due to running out of 
space on the other two drives. Its just one of those things.. 1) its the 
same sort of media, to similarly volatile, 2) unless it stays connected, 
and automatic backups happen, its not a certain solution, 3) if you do 
keep in connected, to do that, then some of the stuff that can kill the 
main drive *will* also kill the backup (like power surges).

Practical to me means that at least 2 out of the 3 problem above are 
removed from the list of risks (with the, "it dies if the machine does", 
being one of the two in any case).

There are a lot of poor backup solutions, and many of them come with 
idiot problems, like the OS whining about not letting you copy certain 
files, to back them up, which make full restoration a problem, even 
without the other issues above.

Post a reply to this message

Note, once I do have things where I need them, and junk stuff removed, I 
will probably use the external 1TB drive I already got to do backups, 
presuming I can get the backup software to do a decent job. Some where 
between Onetouch 3 and Onetouch 4, they completely screwed the software 
that drive came with, so that it refused to update files in certain 
folders, at all, and restricted what you could backup to specific types. 
Needless to say, since I don't run a damn office, I found the idea that 
it would backup .xls files, but not say .pov, for example, to be 
complete idiocy.

I doubt Windows 7's new backup thing is that stupid, but since I never 
got a version of it to work on prior machines (bloody XP version thought 
"floppies" where the way to do things, and didn't know what to do with 
the CD drive, never mind a DVD drive...), I am not going to assume that 
it will work perfectly. lol

Post a reply to this message

On 4/28/2012 4:05, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Got a fair number of games that flat won't run without those keys, and not
> all of them are recoverable from the sites they originally got registered
> to. All of which makes things a massive pain in the ass.

Fair enough. I'd count that as installation materials, which you'd need to 
have to reinstall.  Of course, the worst are when you get such a key, and it 
dials out to their server to verify it, and their server is toast after a 
few years. I've had a couple like that.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Oh no! We're out of code juice!"
   "Don't panic. There's beans and filters
    in the cabinet."

Post a reply to this message

On 4/28/2012 4:12, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Yeah, have an external USB drive, which I got due to running out of space on
> the other two drives. Its just one of those things.. 1) its the same sort of
> media, to similarly volatile,

All backups are volatile to one extent or another.

 > 2) unless it stays connected, and automatic backups happen, its not a 
certain solution,

Well, yes, you have to run the backups. Hard to blame the technology on 
that. Otherwise, get a second computer and do network backups to it on a 
schedule or something.

3) if you do keep in connected,
> to do that, then some of the stuff that can kill the main drive *will* also
> kill the backup (like power surges).

Sure. Why would you keep your backups connected instead of in a fireproof safe?

> Practical to me means that at least 2 out of the 3 problem above are removed
> from the list of risks (with the, "it dies if the machine does", being one
> of the two in any case).

I think you have an implicit #4 there, which is "it's cheap". Because all 
those problems are pretty easy to solve with a bit of money thrown at the 
problem.

> There are a lot of poor backup solutions, and many of them come with idiot
> problems, like the OS whining about not letting you copy certain files, to
> back them up, which make full restoration a problem, even without the other
> issues above.

Sure. But say you have Win7.  You buy a USB drive, and plug it in. The 
autoplay pops up, and says "Hey, you want to use this as a backup drive?" 
You say yes. It spins around for an hour. It says "OK, all done." You put it 
in the safe.

It also offers to make a bootable CD to use in case of disaster to restore 
what it just made. Make one of those, and put it in the safe also.

Next week, or whenever you get a new program installed, or whenever you copy 
a bunch of vacation photos off your camera, or whatever, plug the drive in. 
It says "Hey, you want to freshen your backup?" You say "Yes." It spins 
aorund for 15 minutes, and then you unplug the drive and put it back in the 
safe.

If you can't trust yourself to make backups when you've just done a whole 
bunch of work on your machine, then the data just isn't worth it to you. I'd 
like a car that doesn't run out of gas if I don't bother to stop at the gas 
station too, but that's not available either.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Oh no! We're out of code juice!"
   "Don't panic. There's beans and filters
    in the cabinet."

Post a reply to this message

On 4/28/2012 4:19, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> I doubt Windows 7's new backup thing is that stupid, but since I never got a
> version of it to work on prior machines (bloody XP version thought
> "floppies" where the way to do things, and didn't know what to do with the
> CD drive, never mind a DVD drive...), I am not going to assume that it will
> work perfectly. lol

Actually, Vista got way better, and Win7 nailed it. XP didn't really have 
the file system technology to support backups well. Win7 does. It's seamless.

That said, if anyone is still stuck on Vista or XP, ask me for my scripts. 
It *is* possible to use free software to make complete backups of both those 
machines, both full and incremental.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Oh no! We're out of code juice!"
   "Don't panic. There's beans and filters
    in the cabinet."

Post a reply to this message

On 4/28/2012 9:45, Darren New wrote:
> On 4/28/2012 4:05, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> Got a fair number of games that flat won't run without those keys, and not
>> all of them are recoverable from the sites they originally got registered
>> to. All of which makes things a massive pain in the ass.
>
> Fair enough. I'd count that as installation materials, which you'd need to
> have to reinstall. Of course, the worst are when you get such a key, and it
> dials out to their server to verify it, and their server is toast after a
> few years. I've had a couple like that.

Or, incidentally, if you get one of those, dump the entire registry as a 
text file and back *that* up. At least then in the event of disaster you can 
find what you're looking for. (In regedit, save it as an NT4 registry, and 
it'll be readable text, IIRC.)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Oh no! We're out of code juice!"
   "Don't panic. There's beans and filters
    in the cabinet."

Post a reply to this message

On 28-4-2012 18:58, Darren New wrote:
> On 4/28/2012 9:45, Darren New wrote:
>> On 4/28/2012 4:05, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>>> Got a fair number of games that flat won't run without those keys,
>>> and not
>>> all of them are recoverable from the sites they originally got
>>> registered
>>> to. All of which makes things a massive pain in the ass.
>>
>> Fair enough. I'd count that as installation materials, which you'd
>> need to
>> have to reinstall. Of course, the worst are when you get such a key,
>> and it
>> dials out to their server to verify it, and their server is toast after a
>> few years. I've had a couple like that.
>
> Or, incidentally, if you get one of those, dump the entire registry as a
> text file and back *that* up. At least then in the event of disaster you
> can find what you're looking for. (In regedit, save it as an NT4
> registry, and it'll be readable text, IIRC.)
>
IIRC because programs under windows dump a lot of unnecessary data in 
the registry, restoring from a backup will take more than a day (if it 
ever completes, we have never waited more than a weekend)

According to my brother there are backups of the registry in System 
Volume Information directory, IIRC also under a different name than the 
actual registry files, just to make life easier.
I can not access that dir, I don't have permission (or my own machine at 
home that is). You need to boot from a live-cd or connect the c-drive as 
a secondary drive to another machine to have access.



-- 
tip: do not run in an unknown place when it is too dark to see the 
floor, unless you prefer to not use uppercase.

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On 4/28/2012 9:50 AM, Darren New wrote:
>> Practical to me means that at least 2 out of the 3 problem above are
>> removed
>> from the list of risks (with the, "it dies if the machine does", being
>> one
>> of the two in any case).
>
> I think you have an implicit #4 there, which is "it's cheap". Because
> all those problems are pretty easy to solve with a bit of money thrown
> at the problem.
>
This has been on of those, I supposed "quarters" would be the proper 
term, where it seems like everything I touch breaks, so.. throwing money 
at the problem hasn't been high on my list of things I want to be doing. lol


>> There are a lot of poor backup solutions, and many of them come with
>> idiot
>> problems, like the OS whining about not letting you copy certain
>> files, to
>> back them up, which make full restoration a problem, even without the
>> other
>> issues above.
>
> Sure. But say you have Win7. You buy a USB drive, and plug it in. The
> autoplay pops up, and says "Hey, you want to use this as a backup
> drive?" You say yes. It spins around for an hour. It says "OK, all
> done." You put it in the safe.
>
> It also offers to make a bootable CD to use in case of disaster to
> restore what it just made. Make one of those, and put it in the safe also.
>
Hmm. Will have to remember that, once I get all the crap onto this one, 
and the "backup" drive empty.

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On 4/28/2012 11:38, andrel wrote:
> IIRC because programs under windows dump a lot of unnecessary data in the
> registry, restoring from a backup will take more than a day (if it ever
> completes, we have never waited more than a weekend)

How in the world would it take more than a day? You're just copying a file. 
Windows7 for example seems to restore files at pretty much disk-transfer 
speed. I can do an image backup of my 40G system partition in about 15 or 20 
minutes, tops, and restore just as easily.

> According to my brother there are backups of the registry in System Volume
> Information directory, IIRC also under a different name than the actual
> registry files, just to make life easier.

The only backup I know of is in C:\Windows\System32\config\RegBack

> I can not access that dir, I don't have permission (or my own machine at
> home that is). You need to boot from a live-cd or connect the c-drive as a
> secondary drive to another machine to have access.

Again, depends on the OS. But yes, I think you're probably right on that 
one. It's really more a directory managed by the file system than a 
protected directory.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Oh no! We're out of code juice!"
   "Don't panic. There's beans and filters
    in the cabinet."

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On 4/28/2012 13:52, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Hmm. Will have to remember that, once I get all the crap onto this one, and
> the "backup" drive empty.

FWIW, if you make two partitions, one for bootable stuff and one for data, 
it's much more efficient. Put Steam apps and vacation pics and stuff like 
that on a non-bootable drive, or you wind up making 2 copies of all that, 
the backup copy and the zip-file copy. (Indeed, exclude stuff you can 
trivially replace, like the steam apps.)


-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Oh no! We're out of code juice!"
   "Don't panic. There's beans and filters
    in the cabinet."

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On 28-4-2012 23:12, Darren New wrote:
> On 4/28/2012 11:38, andrel wrote:
>> IIRC because programs under windows dump a lot of unnecessary data in the
>> registry, restoring from a backup will take more than a day (if it ever
>> completes, we have never waited more than a weekend)
>
> How in the world would it take more than a day?

Because you have to import it again :(

> You're just copying a file.

No, you are underestimating the geniuses in redmond.
The registry->text and text->registry conversions are slightly 
unoptimized. It is probably OK on a fresh new machine, but in our 
experience not so on a really well used one. The ones most likely to crash.

> Windows7 for example seems to restore files at pretty much
> disk-transfer speed. I can do an image backup of my 40G system partition
> in about 15 or 20 minutes, tops, and restore just as easily.


>> According to my brother there are backups of the registry in System
>> Volume
>> Information directory, IIRC also under a different name than the actual
>> registry files, just to make life easier.
>
> The only backup I know of is in C:\Windows\System32\config\RegBack

Funny, isn't it? There is apparently another one in another directory 
under another name, that nobody told you about. One that is still there 
after a reinstall. Pure Genius.

>> I can not access that dir, I don't have permission (or my own machine at
>> home that is). You need to boot from a live-cd or connect the c-drive
>> as a
>> secondary drive to another machine to have access.
>
> Again, depends on the OS. But yes, I think you're probably right on that
> one. It's really more a directory managed by the file system than a
> protected directory.
>


-- 
tip: do not run in an unknown place when it is too dark to see the 
floor, unless you prefer to not use uppercase.

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On 4/28/2012 16:04, andrel wrote:
> No, you are underestimating the geniuses in redmond.
> The registry->text and text->registry conversions are slightly unoptimized.

Ah. I see. Why would you do it that way? Why not back up the registry, and 
restore the registry, as a file? Or restore only the parts you need? Or at 
least not store it as plain text?

I assumed if you were worried about the "junk" in the registry that you were 
talking about backing up and restoring the entire registry.

>> The only backup I know of is in C:\Windows\System32\config\RegBack
>
> Funny, isn't it? There is apparently another one in another directory under
> another name, that nobody told you about. One that is still there after a
> reinstall. Pure Genius.

I didn't say there wasn't. I was giving the path to the backup copy of the 
registry to others in the group who seem to have a hard time using the 
included tools to make a backup of the registry. :-)

Altho, again, I'm not sure why, if you did a full reinstall, you would want 
the old registry to be restored.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Oh no! We're out of code juice!"
   "Don't panic. There's beans and filters
    in the cabinet."

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On 28/04/2012 10:15 PM, Darren New wrote:
> On 4/28/2012 13:52, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> Hmm. Will have to remember that, once I get all the crap onto this
>> one, and
>> the "backup" drive empty.
>
> FWIW, if you make two partitions, one for bootable stuff and one for
> data, it's much more efficient. Put Steam apps and vacation pics and
> stuff like that on a non-bootable drive, or you wind up making 2 copies
> of all that, the backup copy and the zip-file copy. (Indeed, exclude
> stuff you can trivially replace, like the steam apps.)
>
>
Not only that, if you have to reinstall Windows. Your data disc will not 
be reformatted.

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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On 29-4-2012 4:06, Darren New wrote:
> On 4/28/2012 16:04, andrel wrote:
>> No, you are underestimating the geniuses in redmond.
>> The registry->text and text->registry conversions are slightly
>> unoptimized.
>
> Ah. I see. Why would you do it that way? Why not back up the registry,
> and restore the registry, as a file? Or restore only the parts you need?
> Or at least not store it as plain text?
>
> I assumed if you were worried about the "junk" in the registry that you
> were talking about backing up and restoring the entire registry.

After a full reinstall your registry is emptied from everything you 
installed yourself. At least in some cases. RegEdit has import and 
export menu-items. One would assume these could be used to save and 
restore. Just warning people that these things are left overs from a 
debugging version by MS and not actually usable. (Another minor detail, 
you need a working machine to use these)

>>> The only backup I know of is in C:\Windows\System32\config\RegBack
>>
>> Funny, isn't it? There is apparently another one in another directory
>> under
>> another name, that nobody told you about. One that is still there after a
>> reinstall. Pure Genius.
>
> I didn't say there wasn't. I was giving the path to the backup copy of
> the registry to others in the group who seem to have a hard time using
> the included tools to make a backup of the registry. :-)

My brother is the guy that repairs everyone's computer as a hobby. IME 
he is better than any professional I have met. I don't repair, I have 
trouble enough with working ones. I assume there is a reason why he does 
not use the files in the regular backup dir.

> Altho, again, I'm not sure why, if you did a full reinstall, you would
> want the old registry to be restored.

You would want that if your windows system is corrupted either by a bad 
block or a virus but you still want to continue using the same machine 
with your familiar setup. If only to figure out what programs should be 
installed on a new machine, because your current system is provably 
vulnerable.



-- 
tip: do not run in an unknown place when it is too dark to see the 
floor, unless you prefer to not use uppercase.

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On 4/29/2012 2:40, andrel wrote:
> After a full reinstall your registry is emptied from everything you
> installed yourself. At least in some cases.

Right.

> RegEdit has import and export
> menu-items. One would assume these could be used to save and restore.

They're there to import and export specific subtrees of the registry. They 
aren't there as backup/restore, or it would likely be called 
"backup/restore". :-)

> warning people that these things are left overs from a debugging version by
> MS and not actually usable.

They actually work fine when used as intended. They're not intended to back 
up the entire registry, or there would be an option to delete what you 
didn't have in the export.

However, if you have specific software keys that get stored in the registry, 
exporting the specific subtree of the registry that stores the keys for that 
particular user and then importing it later after you've reinstalled the 
original software works fine. That's what I was referring to, not the idea 
that you'd try to restore the entire registry from an export.

Or, alternately, save it as text, and in the event of a disaster where you 
have not backed up your machine properly in the first place, you'll likely 
be able to spend a bunch of time to find the keys you need to restore, which 
I believe was the original complaint.

 > (Another minor detail, you need a working machine to use these)

That's becuase they're not backup/restore. :-)

> I assume there is a reason why he does not use the
> files in the regular backup dir.

Well, the ones in the regular backup dir are basically what "last known 
good" uses, and the ones in the system volume info are the ones that system 
restore uses, I'd guess. So the ones in the system volume info match the 
disk image stores in the system volume info, which I guess cuts down one 
possible problem there.

> You would want that if your windows system is corrupted either by a bad
> block or a virus but you still want to continue using the same machine with
> your familiar setup. If only to figure out what programs should be installed
> on a new machine, because your current system is provably vulnerable.

Well, if you have a bad block, you can correct that block (chkdsk /f /r) and 
then put the one bad file back. If you want to know what files are 
installed, it's pretty easy to figure that out looking at the start menu and 
the uninstall list. (That's how I do it when I want to move to a new 
machine.) Maybe I just work differently than most people, tho.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Oh no! We're out of code juice!"
   "Don't panic. There's beans and filters
    in the cabinet."

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On 29-4-2012 19:37, Darren New wrote:
> Or, alternately, save it as text, and in the event of a disaster where
> you have not backed up your machine properly in the first place, you'll
> likely be able to spend a bunch of time to find the keys you need to
> restore, which I believe was the original complaint.

It is an idea, but I am not sure if that would work in practice. We are 
talking about a machine of an average user, or luser as they were once 
known. In general he gets the machine in a non-working condition with 
hardly a backup. As long as the drive is still spinning he will try to 
salvage whatever he can. In the majority of cases they get a working 
machine back with (almost) all data (and a backup DVD or similar). He 
has a room full of spare parts from all sorts of sources, including the 
machines he was not able to repair.

>> You would want that if your windows system is corrupted either by a bad
>> block or a virus but you still want to continue using the same machine
>> with
>> your familiar setup. If only to figure out what programs should be
>> installed
>> on a new machine, because your current system is provably vulnerable.
>
> Well, if you have a bad block, you can correct that block (chkdsk /f /r)
> and then put the one bad file back. If you want to know what files are
> installed, it's pretty easy to figure that out looking at the start menu
> and the uninstall list. (That's how I do it when I want to move to a new
> machine.) Maybe I just work differently than most people, tho.

Not all programs are there in my case. I have some programs that simply 
come as an executable. (written by a colleague for instance) OTOH they 
don't use the registry, which makes life a bit easier.

-- 
tip: do not run in an unknown place when it is too dark to see the 
floor, unless you prefer to not use uppercase.

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On 4/30/2012 14:21, andrel wrote:
> It is an idea, but I am not sure if that would work in practice.

Well, again, no amount of after-the-crash work will recover from not ever 
having made a backup of the data that was lost. I was simply suggesting easy 
ways for competent people to make such backups.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Oh no! We're out of code juice!"
   "Don't panic. There's beans and filters
    in the cabinet."

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On 4/28/2012 2:15 PM, Darren New wrote:
> On 4/28/2012 13:52, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> Hmm. Will have to remember that, once I get all the crap onto this
>> one, and
>> the "backup" drive empty.
>
> FWIW, if you make two partitions, one for bootable stuff and one for
> data, it's much more efficient. Put Steam apps and vacation pics and
> stuff like that on a non-bootable drive, or you wind up making 2 copies
> of all that, the backup copy and the zip-file copy. (Indeed, exclude
> stuff you can trivially replace, like the steam apps.)
>
>
Well, other than the stuff that I had to install after, because they 
hadn't shipped it yet, the drive was already "single partition". The old 
machine I made a small one, but way too small, and discovered that the 
damn OS wanted to cram everything, including the kitchen sink, into it, 
even after redirecting the documents to my "data" partition on that one. 
I really made a mess of the damn thing, so bad that half the drive was 
unusable (linux I didn't use, and which ones like ext3, or something, on 
an LVM, so even half the damn live CDs won't recognize/remove it, and so on.

Now, I am trying to use, I guess, Samba? to just link the one machine to 
the other, via file hosting, so I don't have to swap out any drives for 
now. Think I may have that one figured,  but I need to use the network 
IP instead of the machine name, then I can dump each drive to the /ghost 
directory I created on the new one, and fish out what I need, then move 
on to the next one. If not, its back to doing it the annoying way. lol

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On 4/29/2012 1:00 AM, Stephen wrote:
> On 28/04/2012 10:15 PM, Darren New wrote:
>> On 4/28/2012 13:52, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>>> Hmm. Will have to remember that, once I get all the crap onto this
>>> one, and
>>> the "backup" drive empty.
>>
>> FWIW, if you make two partitions, one for bootable stuff and one for
>> data, it's much more efficient. Put Steam apps and vacation pics and
>> stuff like that on a non-bootable drive, or you wind up making 2 copies
>> of all that, the backup copy and the zip-file copy. (Indeed, exclude
>> stuff you can trivially replace, like the steam apps.)
>>
>>
> Not only that, if you have to reinstall Windows. Your data disc will not
> be reformatted.
>
The problem, sadly, is there is a whole damn host of "data" that isn't 
on the "data" drive. Everything from specific settings for games, to 
your firefox profile, etc. Short of, before installing a damn thing, 
redirecting all that shit to the data drive, you are SOL if it does get 
wiped. And, the reason I say "before" adding anything is because a few 
applications are damn stupid, and only ask once for the location of 
things like the documents directory, then insist on storing that 
location permanently in the registry. So, if you install one of those, 
*then* you move the directory, the damn things can't figure out what 
happened. Stupid "app bar" thing which I mostly only used to direct add 
some Coca Cola codes with, made that mistake. It would track where all 
its apps where, individually, but if you asked it to "consolidate" all 
installed apps, it would try to do that to the location where My 
Documents "used to be", not where it was now. From my understanding 
Vista and 7 go one step more insane here, and symbolically link 
Documents, to My Documents, and who the hell knows what else, which has 
got to really fowl things in some rare cases. (Or even normal ones, from 
some of what I have read). lol

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On 01/05/2012 3:10 AM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> The problem, sadly, is there is a whole damn host of "data" that isn't
> on the "data" drive.

Well that is true. But if you cannot recover the data yourself and a 
professional service is not available. The only thing you can do is 
swear and learn by the experience.

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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On 4/30/2012 19:10, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> The problem, sadly, is there is a whole damn host of "data" that isn't on
> the "data" drive. Everything from specific settings for games, to your
> firefox profile, etc.

That's why you back up that, too, to your data drive, on a regular basis.

If you have a hard drive crash so severe that you can recover no files off 
your boot drive, I think the effort of recreating your firefox profile or 
configuring your game's video settings is probably pretty low on the list, 
tho, honestly.

> Vista and 7 go one step more insane here, and symbolically link Documents,
> to My Documents,

Other way around, actually.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Oh no! We're out of code juice!"
   "Don't panic. There's beans and filters
    in the cabinet."

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On 5/2/2012 6:29 PM, Darren New wrote:
> On 4/30/2012 19:10, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> The problem, sadly, is there is a whole damn host of "data" that isn't on
>> the "data" drive. Everything from specific settings for games, to your
>> firefox profile, etc.
>
> That's why you back up that, too, to your data drive, on a regular basis.
>
> If you have a hard drive crash so severe that you can recover no files
> off your boot drive, I think the effort of recreating your firefox
> profile or configuring your game's video settings is probably pretty low
> on the list, tho, honestly.
>
Everything is recoverable, short of thermiting the drive, its just 
working out how, and how much you are willing to spend to get it back. 
But, the problem is that things like which plugins are installed in it 
are part of the data. I set up their new "sync" feature, since I knew I 
would be moving over, and wanted to find a way to manage it easier, but 
it seemed to only capture the ones installed via their site, not ones I 
had to update myself (to make them work because there is no new version, 
but it still works with the new browser). So, nearly all of them are 
missing (since for one reason or another they didn't qualify for 
uploading to the sync).

So, yeah, in principle, you are right, you have bigger problems in that 
case. In my case.. I can now recover them. 8GB at the time, using thumb 
drives, if I have to, but I can't figure out why I can't connect to the 
Windows share (tried several ways), with results ranging from "server 
not responding" to "no such directory".. and several other things that 
just get bloody annoying. I need a better techie than I am to solve 
this, or just to stop being lazy and pull the damn drives. lol

>> Vista and 7 go one step more insane here, and symbolically link
>> Documents,
>> to My Documents,
>
> Other way around, actually.
>
Ugh.. Either way, its nuts.

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On 5/2/2012 23:18, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Ugh.. Either way, its nuts.

It's to solve exactly the problem you complained about: people hard-coding 
paths. :-)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Oh no! We're out of code juice!"
   "Don't panic. There's beans and filters
    in the cabinet."

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On 5/3/2012 9:33 PM, Darren New wrote:
> On 5/2/2012 23:18, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> Ugh.. Either way, its nuts.
>
> It's to solve exactly the problem you complained about: people
> hard-coding paths. :-)
>
Yeah, which sounds good and all, but.. People have to bloody follow it, 
for it to work. ;)

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