Rook, I wish I could afford it - but things are tight at the moment.
Two things I have learned over this weekend. I am fairly careful with backups, pst and registry files...
(1) Backing up the registry should probably be done in safe mode, as I had a back up from the morning of the disaster of the registry and the pst file but I guess I must have done them from the normal windows mode. When I came to import the registry I couldnt get it fully imported. I got reports of "Some keys are still open". This has led me (or will tomorrow) to have to do a format and re-install of my Windows XP boot drive. Grrrr.
(2) The write cache enable may speed up writing to hard drives, but if something causes the pc to shut down suddenly, power surge or a failure of some kind then you are screwed!
That is what happened to me. Windows shut down and the main drive had not written all its data and closed critical system files. I have now disabled "write cache enable" on all my drives which will slow everything down a bit but is mush safer I think...
That was Saturday! I had yesterday off because - well to be honest I just needed to get away from the pc for a day. Today I have spend molly coddling the process or gettin gmy pc into working order, carefully bringing files and folders back into my control and then re-installing Windows XP again - without losing any data like my kids homework and stuff. The trying to reimport the registry - failing and `deciding to go for a full format of the partition when I have a less tired head tomorrow.
There should be an easier way of doing this - it will take me a few days to get ALL my software back up and running with licenses and plugins etc, not to mention the web site ftp settings for my clients - sigh. Ah well time for bed said Zebedee!
Night!
IPete2.
Two things I have learned over this weekend. I am fairly careful with backups, pst and registry files...
(1) Backing up the registry should probably be done in safe mode, as I had a back up from the morning of the disaster of the registry and the pst file but I guess I must have done them from the normal windows mode. When I came to import the registry I couldnt get it fully imported. I got reports of "Some keys are still open". This has led me (or will tomorrow) to have to do a format and re-install of my Windows XP boot drive. Grrrr.
(2) The write cache enable may speed up writing to hard drives, but if something causes the pc to shut down suddenly, power surge or a failure of some kind then you are screwed!
That is what happened to me. Windows shut down and the main drive had not written all its data and closed critical system files. I have now disabled "write cache enable" on all my drives which will slow everything down a bit but is mush safer I think...
That was Saturday! I had yesterday off because - well to be honest I just needed to get away from the pc for a day. Today I have spend molly coddling the process or gettin gmy pc into working order, carefully bringing files and folders back into my control and then re-installing Windows XP again - without losing any data like my kids homework and stuff. The trying to reimport the registry - failing and `deciding to go for a full format of the partition when I have a less tired head tomorrow.
There should be an easier way of doing this - it will take me a few days to get ALL my software back up and running with licenses and plugins etc, not to mention the web site ftp settings for my clients - sigh. Ah well time for bed said Zebedee!
Night!
IPete2.