(OT) Computer woes, longish and for the slightly more techie.(Ron - you can skip this ;-)
 

On 1 Nov, 10:10, MCC wrote:

Sadly 40tude Dialog is no longer supported but it is very stable and has an
excellent filtering system to get rid of the dross :-)

Most useful !!

Richard

(OT) Computer woes, longish and for the slightly more techie. (Ron - you can skip this ;-)
 

"Dave Cornwell" wrote in message
...
Well it had to happen one day, hard drive failure. I must have seen it
coming although there were no signs from my trusty four year old home
built PC, as I had ordered a new one a few days earlier. It suddenly
wouldn't boot fully into Windows. Not overly concerned as the data on the
hard drive was probably ok at this point, I went through my usual recovery
tricks of XP repair, rescue disk ,booting from various Linux disks and so
on. Couldn't even get to restore through DOS or Safe mode. But they all
just continuously started up then powered down just before they got to the
Desktop. Now previously I had helped my daughter (they don't do backups do
they) recover data from a non-bootable HD by using an IDE to USB drive
converter - a brilliant idea that worked well. So I got out the same kit
and it fried my HD! I think the 12v power supply must have failed and put
out too much voltage. (I thought it might be worth mentioning to warn
people to be extra careful if they need to go down that route).
Now luckily I had backed up all of my images (20 gigs worth!) 3 days
before, My and my wife's Docs a few months before and emails seemed to be
still on the Virgin Server. So not the tragedy it could have been but as
you know- a big pain starting a new system up from scratch which brings me
on to my main point - Windows 7 !!
After reading some reviews that it was much better than Vista I thought it
was probably time to upgrade from my longstanding and sometimes
troublesome XP. How disappointed I was. My first reaction is that it is
less intuitive, dumbed down and has actually lost features like a calendar
and Outlook Express. The Windows LiveMail I am using here is so cluttered
and full of stuff it's very unfriendly. This brings me to a question that
has often been asked and which I have previously taken little heed of in
the past:-
What free email clients are any good? Simple is good as long as it deals
with Newsgroups.
Now to catch up with the weather - did someone mention cold while I was
away ;-)

Dave

I know with windows 7 you can then run at 64bit thus much faster and more
memory -in my case anyhow.

At the moment my athlon 64 dual core 6000 is apparently limited by XP which
in turn only allows 3gb of ram. Of course unless you're a gamer or want to
run hi def films or video processing why all the powr and speed?

Mind you I've had problems the last several days. Kept losing the picture or
the whole system jsut hanging requiring a reboot but as I have the PC
running via HDMI into a larger LED screen I can't see the boot up info; it
goes straight into desk top image. That means if aI have a fault and want to
go into safe mode or bios etc, I have to fit another monitor. Anyhow it
tirns out my fault was due to the earthing sheath on the power supply lead
was resting on the graphics card and apparently shorting the card out or
hanging the video onece moved no problems since. Howevr your predicament is
a timely warning that it's time to back up.

By the way to all and sundry I'n not going to apologise for not mentioning
the weather......oops too late.

(OT) Computer woes, longish and for the slightly more techie. (Ron - you can skip this ;-)
 

"Dave Cornwell" wrote in message
...
Well it had to happen one day, hard drive failure. I must have seen it
coming although there were no signs from my trusty four year old home
built PC, as I had ordered a new one a few days earlier. It suddenly
wouldn't boot fully into Windows. Not overly concerned as the data on the
hard drive was probably ok at this point, I went through my usual recovery
tricks of XP repair, rescue disk ,booting from various Linux disks and so
on. Couldn't even get to restore through DOS or Safe mode. But they all
just continuously started up then powered down just before they got to the
Desktop. Now previously I had helped my daughter (they don't do backups do
they) recover data from a non-bootable HD by using an IDE to USB drive
converter - a brilliant idea that worked well. So I got out the same kit
and it fried my HD! I think the 12v power supply must have failed and put
out too much voltage. (I thought it might be worth mentioning to warn
people to be extra careful if they need to go down that route).
Now luckily I had backed up all of my images (20 gigs worth!) 3 days
before, My and my wife's Docs a few months before and emails seemed to be
still on the Virgin Server. So not the tragedy it could have been but as
you know- a big pain starting a new system up from scratch which brings me
on to my main point - Windows 7 !!
After reading some reviews that it was much better than Vista I thought it
was probably time to upgrade from my longstanding and sometimes
troublesome XP. How disappointed I was. My first reaction is that it is
less intuitive, dumbed down and has actually lost features like a calendar
and Outlook Express. The Windows LiveMail I am using here is so cluttered
and full of stuff it's very unfriendly. This brings me to a question that
has often been asked and which I have previously taken little heed of in
the past:-
What free email clients are any good? Simple is good as long as it deals
with Newsgroups.
Now to catch up with the weather - did someone mention cold while I was
away ;-)

Dave

Oops one more point.

Maybe someone will correct me out there, but surely we now have large enough
solid state hard drives (no moving parts Ma) and those things should go on
and on *bit like some NG users* Oh the irony.

However solid state hard drives will eventually help victims like Dave. Any
donations to his plight can be made in brown envelopes and stuffed behind
the cistern in the third cubicle mens toilets on the M11 Little Chef just
after Epping.

(OT) Computer woes, longish and for the slightly more techie. (Ron - you can skip this ;-)
 

Richard Dixon wrote in
:

On 1 Nov, 10:10, MCC wrote:

Sadly 40tude Dialog is no longer supported but it is very stable and
has an excellent filtering system to get rid of the dross :-)

Most useful !!

Richard


I normally use 40tude dialog on a Vista machine, it was necessary to run
it in XP compatibility mode for it to function correctly. I assume the
same consideration would apply to Windows 7.

Xnews also seems quite good but I haven't investigated the filtering
capabilities so far.

Alan

(OT) Computer woes, longish and for the slightly more techie. (Ron - you can skip this ;-)
 

Richard Dixon wrote in
:

On 1 Nov, 10:10, MCC wrote:

Sadly 40tude Dialog is no longer supported but it is very stable and
has an excellent filtering system to get rid of the dross :-)

Most useful !!

Richard


I normally use 40tude dialog on a Vista machine, it was necessary to run
it in XP compatibility mode for it to function correctly. I assume the
same consideration would apply to Windows 7.

Xnews also seems quite good but I haven't investigated the filtering
capabilities so far.

Alan

(OT) Computer woes, longish and for the slightly more techie. (Ron - you can skip this ;-)
 

Alan Gardiner wrote in
:

Richard Dixon wrote in
news:9a8082e1-03c4-4c90-b8eb-d41c8e0089d8
@k22g2000yqh.googlegroups.com:

On 1 Nov, 10:10, MCC wrote:

Sadly 40tude Dialog is no longer supported but it is very stable and
has an excellent filtering system to get rid of the dross :-)

Most useful !!

Richard


I normally use 40tude dialog on a Vista machine, it was necessary to
run it in XP compatibility mode for it to function correctly. I assume
the same consideration would apply to Windows 7.

Xnews also seems quite good but I haven't investigated the filtering
capabilities so far.

Alan

Apologies for the duplicate post.

Alan

(OT) Computer woes, longish and for the slightly more techie. (Ron - you can skip this ;-)
 

In article ,
Dave Cornwell writes:
What free email clients are any good? Simple is good as long as it
deals with Newsgroups.

I haven't used it myself, but I've heard good things about Thunderbird,
though it's not supposed to handle newsgroups as well as it does email.
I suppose that Agent or Free Agent would be a possibility for news.
--
John Hall
"I look upon it, that he who does not mind his belly,
will hardly mind anything else."
Dr Samuel Johnson (1709-84)

(OT) Computer woes, longish and for the slightly more techie. (Ron - you can skip this ;-)
 

"Lawrence Jenkins" wrote in message
eb.com...


"Dave Cornwell" wrote in message
...
Well it had to happen one day, hard drive failure. I must have seen it
coming although there were no signs from my trusty four year old home
built PC, as I had ordered a new one a few days earlier. It suddenly
wouldn't boot fully into Windows. Not overly concerned as the data on the
hard drive was probably ok at this point, I went through my usual recovery
tricks of XP repair, rescue disk ,booting from various Linux disks and so
on. Couldn't even get to restore through DOS or Safe mode. But they all
just continuously started up then powered down just before they got to the
Desktop. Now previously I had helped my daughter (they don't do backups do
they) recover data from a non-bootable HD by using an IDE to USB drive
converter - a brilliant idea that worked well. So I got out the same kit
and it fried my HD! I think the 12v power supply must have failed and put
out too much voltage. (I thought it might be worth mentioning to warn
people to be extra careful if they need to go down that route).
Now luckily I had backed up all of my images (20 gigs worth!) 3 days
before, My and my wife's Docs a few months before and emails seemed to be
still on the Virgin Server. So not the tragedy it could have been but as
you know- a big pain starting a new system up from scratch which brings me
on to my main point - Windows 7 !!
After reading some reviews that it was much better than Vista I thought it
was probably time to upgrade from my longstanding and sometimes
troublesome XP. How disappointed I was. My first reaction is that it is
less intuitive, dumbed down and has actually lost features like a calendar
and Outlook Express. The Windows LiveMail I am using here is so cluttered
and full of stuff it's very unfriendly. This brings me to a question that
has often been asked and which I have previously taken little heed of in
the past:-
What free email clients are any good? Simple is good as long as it deals
with Newsgroups.
Now to catch up with the weather - did someone mention cold while I was
away ;-)

Dave



Dave

How about taking the hard drive placing in a external case and trying it on
a lap top via the usb usual connection. Now if the problem is XP at least
the hard drive should still function as a storage device and thus all your
documents and personal stuff plus outlook emails ; can be recovered . You
can then either take the data off or buy a new hard drive and reinstall on
that and import all the email data from what was your original OS HD but now
a storage drive.

Does that make sense?

----------------------
Unfortunately that's exactly what i did try but the IDE to USB unit that had
previously worked well virtually set my HD on fire. I haven't checked yet
but I think the power supply lost its voltage regulation!
Dave

(OT) Computer woes, longish and for the slightly more techie. (Ron - you can skip this ;-)
 

"Lawrence Jenkins" wrote in message
eb.com...


"Dave Cornwell" wrote in message
...
Well it had to happen one day, hard drive failure. I must have seen it
coming although there were no signs from my trusty four year old home
built PC, as I had ordered a new one a few days earlier. It suddenly
wouldn't boot fully into Windows. Not overly concerned as the data on the
hard drive was probably ok at this point, I went through my usual recovery
tricks of XP repair, rescue disk ,booting from various Linux disks and so
on. Couldn't even get to restore through DOS or Safe mode. But they all
just continuously started up then powered down just before they got to the
Desktop. Now previously I had helped my daughter (they don't do backups do
they) recover data from a non-bootable HD by using an IDE to USB drive
converter - a brilliant idea that worked well. So I got out the same kit
and it fried my HD! I think the 12v power supply must have failed and put
out too much voltage. (I thought it might be worth mentioning to warn
people to be extra careful if they need to go down that route).
Now luckily I had backed up all of my images (20 gigs worth!) 3 days
before, My and my wife's Docs a few months before and emails seemed to be
still on the Virgin Server. So not the tragedy it could have been but as
you know- a big pain starting a new system up from scratch which brings me
on to my main point - Windows 7 !!
After reading some reviews that it was much better than Vista I thought it
was probably time to upgrade from my longstanding and sometimes
troublesome XP. How disappointed I was. My first reaction is that it is
less intuitive, dumbed down and has actually lost features like a calendar
and Outlook Express. The Windows LiveMail I am using here is so cluttered
and full of stuff it's very unfriendly. This brings me to a question that
has often been asked and which I have previously taken little heed of in
the past:-
What free email clients are any good? Simple is good as long as it deals
with Newsgroups.
Now to catch up with the weather - did someone mention cold while I was
away ;-)

Dave

Oops one more point.

Maybe someone will correct me out there, but surely we now have large enough
solid state hard drives (no moving parts Ma) and those things should go on
and on *bit like some NG users* Oh the irony.

However solid state hard drives will eventually help victims like Dave. Any
donations to his plight can be made in brown envelopes and stuffed behind
the cistern in the third cubicle mens toilets on the M11 Little Chef just
after Epping.

-----------------------
Too risky - George or Ron will nab it first! Looking back on the episode I
think it was probably something akin to your earth short problem. After
all - why would it hang when booting from a live Knoppix Linux CD? It would
always reach a random point well into any boot, including the Linux or
Windows logo then reboot.
Anyway who cares- I've now got a quad core 640 Athlon, a better graphics
chip and Windows 7. What joy, not!
Dave

(OT) Computer woes, longish and for the slightly more techie. (Ron - you can skip this ;-)
 

"John Hall" wrote in message
...

In article ,
Dave Cornwell writes:
What free email clients are any good? Simple is good as long as it
deals with Newsgroups.

I haven't used it myself, but I've heard good things about Thunderbird,
though it's not supposed to handle newsgroups as well as it does email.
I suppose that Agent or Free Agent would be a possibility for news.
--
John Hall
"I look upon it, that he who does not mind his belly,
will hardly mind anything else."
Dr Samuel Johnson (1709-84)
---------------------
On some Forums they seem to be saying that Thunderbird v2 is better than the
new V3 as it has gone doen the Windows Live Mail route. Or, perhaps they are
just resisting change like me!
Dave