How I manage my PC trouble free...

jjj · Joined: Feb 28, 2008 Posts: 86 Location: Chile

Here I just want to share my trouble free PC joy with you.
My PC has Win-XP and Win-Me on two different Pri-partitions installed; controlled via BootMagic.
For years I went through hell with all sorts of crashes, OS re-installations, data losses and... you name it.
I also tried countless rescue, data recovery and backup programs...
Nothing really saved me from disasters. Too often my Win-XP refused to boot and I had to go through days of re-install miseries. Crying or Very sad

I then tried Deep Freeze. It helped, but it wasn't flexible enough.

With Rollback Rx my nightmares finally ended, because I can update my PC manually or automatically (in seconds) and it takes amazing little disk space. Check it out!

The only thing that can go wrong now is when the HDD dies! To prevent that sort of data loss I copied the whole HDD onto another identical HDD, then unplugged its power cable; adjusting BIAS.

Jeez, I'm so glad I finally found that illusive PC peace. Now I have time for more constructive PC creativity and hope you too have found your PC peace.
Please tell me how you did it even better... Smile

TheShaggyDA · Joined: May 17, 2008 Posts: 9 Location: UK

Uncle Krunkus · Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 5:30 am Post subject:

I'm wondering why you're still bothering with a dual boot system jjj. Especially if it's just to run ME. I've found ME to be nothing but trouble.
XP on the other hand is a joy. My machine is the leanest and meanest it's ever been. I keep XP squeaky clean by following the Tweak Guide written by Koroush Ghazi. Great guy.

http://www.tweakguides.com/TGTC.html

jjj · Joined: Feb 28, 2008 Posts: 86 Location: Chile

Thx for the Tweak guide; I'll try it.
Yes, I still use dual-boot XP & WnMe. True WinMe is quite troublesome, but at least it re-installs in a flash. I only use it for some good legacy software, which only work properly with Win98/Me. Maybe XP's compatibility function can overcome it, but my vidio/TV card and SoundBlaster-Live soundcard only works with Win98/Me or by sacrificing many features in XP (or by using drivers ...with love from Russia: http://kxproject.lugosoft.com/forums.php?language=en ) That's why I'm stuck with Win/Me.
All I was looking for was a reliable way of booting XP, for almost every month or so, it just refused to boot and I couldn't repair it with "R".
That's where Rollback Rx really put an end to it.
Yet, last week even Rollback Rx seemed to fail: on booting the XP's loading indicator moved about 20 times, when a blue screen momentarily showed up and the PC restarted again. This cycle never ended! I tried every trick and nothing seemed to help.
Yet then, after I prepared for copying the backup from my spare HDD... (surprise!) suddenly Rollback Rx booted again properly!
From that I take that it must have been merely a BIOS malfunction, because after renewing the HDD connection in BIOS, Rollback was able to read the HDD properly. So, I was wrong to distrust Rollback Rx as well, because only hardware malfunctions impede its performance. Smile

Uncle Krunkus · Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 3:58 pm Post subject:

A soundblaster live will run perfectly under XP. I had mine installed for years with no troubles. It does take a bit of setting up though. You have to completely remove all sound card drivers first. Then run the latest "Liveware" drivers manually.
Have you got Service Pack 2? It sounds like you don't. Because without it XP is quite unreliable.
Sudden rebooting is often due to heat and or connection problems. Make sure you clean all the dust off your CPU heatsink, and everywhere else, and check that all connectors are clean and shiny. The ATX power connector typically carries a bit more current than it should on older Motherboards and can get a bit dodgy from heating/cooling cycles. Check it.

v-un-v · Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 4:53 pm Post subject:

jjj · Joined: Feb 28, 2008 Posts: 86 Location: Chile