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Floppy Drives should Die
http://bote2.square7.ch/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1793		 Page 1 of 1
Author:  Nemitor_Atimen [ 20 Jun 2007, 15:01 ]
Post subject:  Floppy Drives should Die
Seriously. Heres my latest rant. I really should get a blog :)

First some background info. I currently suffer from a lack of cash, thus I cant afford Vista. Fortunately, I have a DVD with Vista on it, and I can install the 30 day trial. Unfortunately, every 30 days I have to reinstall my OS. Fortunately, Ive done this like 3 times now, and I've gotten the whole process down to under an hour. I have to install from within Vista, since the DVD doesnt like my computer when I boot from DVD.

Also, my computer doesnt like to shut down. When I do shut down, it hovers at the very end, with a black screen and never fully shutting down.

Also, some software wont install, giving bogus errors with random error numbers and crap like "cannot access storage space" (example error)

Its not big problems, ignorable easily.

Anyway, on to my rant. I went on vacation two weeks ago. Two weeks ago, I was three days away from my Vista shutting down. I was planning to just remove the CMOS battery and unplug it, thus making the computer think that time has stopped, so I can go into Vista and reinstall the OS. (I know im a genius :) )

Bad news, I was rushed out the door and spaced on removing the battery.

Anyway, I cant get into Vista now, and I cant install from DVD. The DVD gives me some crap error like "Your Removable Storage Space is bad' or something like that. So I start unplugging stuff. First goes my broken CD burner that doesnt burn. Then goes my Zune (via USB), then all my other USB stuff.

Still nothing. At about this point in time, I start trying to find my XP cd, so I can just install a version of XP and install vista over that. But naturally, im pissed, and decide to fix the problem. Also, at this point in time I have had a 24 hour day or so, so my eyes are in pain.

Anyway, I'm moving cables and see the floppy drive. Wait... floppy drive? Thats ancient! I unplug it and boot up. It works! Amazing! The floppy drive is from the mid 90s, and probably is worth about as much as a piece of string.

So now im happy, and start to install normally. Then somehow I magically find an empty unformatted 30gb partition on my small hard drive. Where the hell did that come from?! I install to it, thinking Vista install is buggy and will give me an error, but it doesnt. Removing my floppy drive somehow caused 30gb to magically appear out of nowhere.

And then I install my software, it all works, good. Then I shut down. And it shuts down. Now im thinking its my lucky day. Then im sitting here and my Solid Works DVDs catch my eye (I won them in an engineering competition), and I decide to try to install it. Solidworks is engineering software, and I got the COSMOS version with stress calculations. I really need this stuff for one of my latest projects, and I don't like designing in a Virtual PC. This was the major software that would never install, ever.

And it installs.

Anyway, to put it simply, removing a mid 90s floppy drive did the following for me:

Made my computer shut down normally.
Let me run my Vista Install DVD normally.
Magically cause 30gb to appear.
Let my "incompatible" software work.
Make me write this rant.

So remove your floppy drive - thats an order!
Author:  cdrwolfe [ 20 Jun 2007, 16:13 ]
Post subject:  Re: Floppy Drives should Die
lol good job,

In consolation i'll add my annoying computer snafu this week......

Friend from the US comes around, who i haven't seen for like 6 months so i install WoW (i hate this game by the way :D ) so that he and my brother can screw around while we catch up on life etc.

Then 20 mins in it hard crashes, no big deal i thought, just reset....

Well upon loading up i get the classic *sigh* "system file in windows\system32\config is corrupt or not there" rubbish. which i've had before and i a pain in the ass, considering i can't use my XP cd to repair it becuase for some god awful reason it won't load upon boot up.

Anyway so there are ways around this, for example spare copies in the windows/system32/repair folder.

Well after faffing about trying to get a boot up disk going that would let me access the hardrive in Dos equivalent, of course i should have simply copied over the repair "system" reg file and then that would be that.

Baahh i don't do smart things like that, nooo i prefer to bodge and bundle it is so much more fun and the ensuing ulcers give me some kind of masochistic pleasure. So instead i noticed another file system.sav in the config folder.

So simple rename systrem.sav to system and then load up right :), of course unknown to me this was the old system file which is created when windows XP gets installed, which was a bit of a shock when i saw it begin to install windows XP again, you could hear the tapping as i pressed the CD tray open button to get out my XP disc :P

So i repalce the new system file with another and let it load up, ahh here comes the logon screen, i've never had that before,... please enter password?????

Bugger!!!

While after i fluke of my friend pointing out what i thought it would be, for those that care "Administrator" and then nothing as a password should let you in :).

Great i thought the combination worked....

"Windows could not validate the product restarting" or to some effect...

Ahhhhhh.... why,

So i was about to give up when i thought bugger it lets try it in safe mode, up comes the logn screen, then i enter username etc and wait,... ahh success for some reason it let me in, now all i have to do is wait for system restore option to appear and all will be good,... click...... nothing happens system restore doesn't load up????

At this point i've begun to rethink my career in computer science :)

So even in safe mode nothing really works,.. no run button so i can't bring up 'cmd' its such fun.

So finally i give up and just copy over the registry files from the Repair folder and cross my fingers.....

Owww that looks differant, no login screen and it goes straight to my desktop,... Huraaaaaaaahhhh it worked...

or so i thought........

The problem with replacing the registry files with those from the repair folder was i had lost all 'connections' my registry had made for all the programs i had installed over the year, so i literally had no programs installed in the eyes of the registry, MSI installer service doesn't even work lol. it is just pure luck the internet works given the fact i can't even bring up network connections :D

Moral of the story just don't bodge throught things it may be fun to begin with but is ultimately a waste of time :)

Computers are fun

Regards Wolfe
Author:  mstrobel [ 20 Jun 2007, 17:23 ]
Post subject:  Re: Floppy Drives should Die
Why did you even have a floppy drive installed? I haven't had one of those for like 5 years now. Less hardware means fewer things to go wrong. Get rid of any hardware you don't need, and disable any onboard hardware that you don't use via the BIOS setup. :wink:
Author:  Nemitor_Atimen [ 20 Jun 2007, 17:30 ]
Post subject:  Re: Floppy Drives should Die
I was lazy :roll:

I did disable all my onboard features, since I've got that thing overclocked.
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