Need help with your computer or device? Want to learn new tech skills? You're in the right place!
Geeks to Go is a friendly community of tech experts who can solve any problem you have. Just create a free account and post your question. Our volunteers will reply quickly and guide you through the steps. Don't let tech troubles stop you. Join Geeks to Go now and get the support you need!
Tech Staff
Just take into account that after a fresh install of W8 on the C drive, you may not be able to boot into the system, XP, on the D drive although you will still be able to access the drive though Disk Management from the W8 system.
Yes, did look at S.M.A.R.T. in Speccy, both drives show good as does the drive shown in CrystalDisk, no worries.
Member
That took longer than expected. I had to do some things.
I deleted Windows XP, and I removed the drive it was installed on prior to installing Windows 8.1.
This is a fresh install. I haven't changed any settings or installed anything yet, including Windows updates. I am using the driver that Windows automatically downloaded from Windows update at the moment. I want to see what happens. Windows has also located and installed all of my device drivers without any input from me. I didn't need to use the computer manufacturer's driver disc. Windows is getting drivers from Windows update.
I haven't seen the white and black flash thus far although I'm using Internet Explorer at the moment.
-
When should I be concerned with the drives' S.M.A.R.T. status? What should I look for?
Edited by Sode no Shirayuki, 30 April 2014 - 06:02 AM.
Tech Staff
Good to see W8.1 is working OK. What video card are you using? What driver is being used for the Video card?
There is no need for you to monitor the S.M.A.R.T.S utility, Windows watches it, if there are any problems, Windows will inform you with a message, like, Errors have been detected on HDD X and a Disc check needs/will be done.
It would be wise to install Anti Virus (free one) at this time and create recovery media.
If you want to use the second HDD for storage, Use Disk Management.
Make sure you select the correct drive.
Delete all partitions, the whole drive should show as unallocated space.
Format the drive, accept the default setting except, untick quick format.
Member
I'm using the Asus Radeon 6450. According to Device Manager, the driver version is 13.251.0.0. It's date is December 6, 2013. It definitely isn't the newest driver. AMD just released the 14.4, which had previously been in beta. I have the installer for 14.4 on my desktop at the moment.
Should I even bother with driver 14.4 if the driver Windows downloaded and installed is working fine? Or, should I update to the latest driver anyway?
I'm not sure what to use for backup. I don't really like system imaging programs because they're time consuming. If I have to use one, I suppose I would use AOMEI Backupper. IIRC, it's the only program that I've tried that keep backups as single images. Keriver One-Click Restore is a nice, simple, and light program, but it spreads backs over many different files. That makes it more difficult to manage them. I'm considering installing Toolwiz Time Machine. I think Toolwiz Time Freeze will eliminate the need to constantly make new and up-to-date images with a system imaging program. But I've read that Toolwiz Time Machine automatically deletes all snapshots when a restore is performed. I'm not sure whether this has been changed, but their website does say "Toolwiz Time Machine provides users with the flexibility to revert between snapshots by multi-points restoration technology." I assume that means a person can freely use existing restore points without them being deleted.
I'll probably use the second drive for playing around with different Linux distributions. I would like to accustom myself to Linux. Or, I'll use it to store system images of Windows 8.1 if I can't free up more space on my external hard disk drive. I'm somewhat hesitant to use the external hard disk drive for system images though. The drive contains my movies. System images can take a while and I always fear a potential power surge or power outage when creating them.
Edited by Sode no Shirayuki, 01 May 2014 - 12:30 PM.
Tech Staff
Gday.
As you GPU is working OK I would stay with the current driver and only update if you suffer from a known issue that the newer driver is supposed to fix.
I am still using W7 and it's built in backup tools so can't advise for W8.1.
For experimenting, I prefer to run from a live CD, If you use mutisession, you can save user settings and some files. Current favourite is Puppy, (Seamonkey)
> http://www.seamonkey-project.org/
Member
I have a good idea which distro I'd like to use. I like that Mint is easy to use. I don't have to install any codecs, and it comes with many of the programs I would use. I'm just not sure which environment I should use. The thing that bothers me about Linux is the inability to create batch files to open more than one program and pixel shaders or Kawaii Codec Pack. I like Kawaii Codec Pack because it allows me to achieve optimal video settings easily because it has preconfigured profiles. I could never be bothered tampering with settings in a video player to figure out how to get the best viewing experience for myself. I know VLC media player has a lot of filters. I would like to use the sharpen filter in particular, but I never could get those filters to work. I tried them today, and I still can't get them to work. Unless they are working, but the effect is miniscule. Does Linux have a feature that is similar to Windows' batch files?
I also plan on getting an ultrabook for my next computer. I feel like it would be quite challenging to find a computer that meets ultrabook standards, has been manufactured to be compatible with Linux, ships with Linux, and has good support. Interestingly, I did find this:
http://arstechnica.c...trabook-review/
http://www.dell.com/...xps-13-linux/pd
Perhaps it will become easier to find such computers, and maybe this is something I could look at.
I forgot Windows 8 has Windows 7's built-in system-imaging feature. How does Windows create images of the system? Does it create the image in one file, or is the backup composed of many different files? Can the images be mounted to retrieve specific files from?
-
Internet Explorer is being quirky. Whenver I run Internet Explorer, it starts background process; and those background process aren't closed when I exit the program. Consequently, Internet Explorer never opens the tabs from my last session because it's still running. I always have the end the processes in the task manager.
Edited by Sode no Shirayuki, 01 May 2014 - 09:14 PM.
Member
I got a blue screen of death 3 times in a row. The first BSOD occurred right after I safely removed my external hard disk. The computer rebooted and the external hard disk was once again connected. So, I safely removed the external hard disk in case the computer crashed again. And the computer did crash again, right after I had safely removed the external hard disk. Unfortunately, I wasn't so lucky the third time. The computer immediately crashed upon reboot, and I was unable to safely disconnect the external hard disk drive. I'm not sure whether any errors occured on the drive, but I'm hesitant to run the chkdsk utility because Windows might crash again.
The error I got is:
Kernal_Security_Check_Failure
Besides AMD's Catalyst Control Center and both architectures of Microsoft Visual C++ (CCC requires it), only Toolwiz Time Marchine is installed. But Toolwiz Time Machine had been running for a couple of hours without any issues. The program isn't even doing anything. It's been idling in the tray. I haven't made any snapshots. I'm not sure whether it was the culprit, but I've since uninstalled it for now.
Edit: I let the computer run all night with a few programs running to see if it would crash. The computer didn't crash again because all of the programs I had launched prior were still running. I decided to plug back the external hard disk drive back in. Fortunately, Windows didn't report any errors.
Edited by Sode no Shirayuki, 02 May 2014 - 12:23 PM.
Tech Staff
I forgot Windows 8 has Windows 7's built-in system-imaging feature. How does Windows create images of the system? Does it create the image in one file, or is the backup composed of many different files? Can the images be mounted to retrieve specific files from?
It is not meant for backups, after the system is fully set up, all updates, man programs instlled, the image can then be usedlater if things go really bad. A compressed image of the whole drive is taken. If you move any folder, say My Docs, to a second HDD, then both drives are imaged. You cannot have 2 images with the same name in the same location, the older one is deleted and the new one saved. You can have more than 2 images if they are saved to different locations or, cheat, give the first image a different name. Only hassle is if you want to restore the first image, you have to give the second image a different name and rename the first image with it's original name. Teases is to use a few small USB sticks.
Did the computer run OK until you used your external drive?
we will need the DMP files to analyse what exactly occurred at the time of the crash, etc. I will need to get another member to look though.
1. Navigate to the %systemroot%\Minidump folder.
2. Copy any and all DMP files in the Minidump folder to your Desktop and then zip up these files.
3. Upload the zip containing
Member
The computer ran fine with Toolwiz Time Machine installed. I first experienced the issue when I attempted to safely remove the external hard disk drive. The problem seems to have gone away since I uninstalled Toolwiz Time Machine. I have been using the external hard disk drive without any issues.
But there is something else. Often, when I drag items between locations to copy them, the icons for those items will freeze in place, even when I release the left-click button. I have to drag the items again to get them to copy over. But I'm not experiencing it right now.
Edit:
Internet Explorer is still often being quirky. It won't reopen the previous session because its processes run in the task manager even after it has been closed.
Edited by Sode no Shirayuki, 03 May 2014 - 06:45 AM.
Tech Staff
Gday.
Sorry gave wrong instructions for the Dump files, Windows can't find a program to open it. Please open the logs, then copy and paste the contents into your reply.
Member
You mean open the dump files? I tried, and I'm not sure how to.
Member
I'm not sure if this is will be helpful, but I'll post it just incase. I pulled these from BlueScreenView.
050214-78968-01.txt 1.83KB
194 downloads
050214-76671-01.txt 1.83KB
184 downloads
Member
I have these too. I created them at osronline.com.
050214-76671-01.txt 3.12KB
273 downloads
050214-78968-01.txt 3.03KB
270 downloads
Member
The Microsoft knowledge base seems to tell me that I need to install special software to debug and read the dump files, but it isn't very clear what I should be installing. I don't really want to install something that I don't plan on using again, too, especially considering I haven't seen the BSOD since I uninstalled Toolwiz Time Machine.
0 members, 0 guests, 0 anonymous users
Community Forum Software by IP.Board
Licensed to: Geeks to Go, Inc.
Sign In
Create Account
