OT: new PC catch-22

[Sergey Kubushin]

Michael A. Terrell wrote:
The motherboard, CPU and RAM were bought as a "bundle" (do i hear an
echo here?).
That is tanatamount to a guarantee by the seller that they work together.
And indeed, the motherboard was made for the Intel D 2X2 CPU and the
BIOS at that time "worked" with that CPU.
The minor problems (echo again) were that the BIOS initial screen
would not show any installed IDE drives, the boot process showed an
"Intel CPU uCODE error" and it would not boot from a/any WinXP CD.
A BIOS upgrade (to a newer, beta version) solved the uCODE problem
*only*.

That means something's wrong with your pee-see. If BIOS didn't see your IDE
drives no OS won't either.

 

[joseph2k]

Thanks for the good info, John. I'm already running Eagle on Suse
with excellent results, and starting to think it might be time to
convert everything else over to Linux.

How do you back up your system in case of hard disk failure? Is
there an equivalent to XCOPY32?

What I'm looking for is to have a backup drive that I can install as
Master and have it contain exactly what is on the original. The
advantage of XCOPY32 is it doesn't waste time copying files that
don't need updating, so the backup is very quick and you can afford
to do it several times per day.

Regards,

Mike Monett

Antiviral, Antibacterial Silver Solution:
http://silversol.freewebpage.org/index.htm
SPICE Analysis of Crystal Oscillators:
http://silversol.freewebpage.org/spice/xtal/clapp.htm
Noise-Rejecting Wideband Sampler:
http://www3.sympatico.ca/add.automation/sampler/intro.htm

If you are willing to do a little reading DD will copy a whole disk or a
partition quite handily, and fairly quickly. Note it is not a smart copy
but an image copy, different sectuiry and reliability charastics. If you
are more interested is smart copying rsync is appropriate. CLI programs
though.

 

[jasen]

Thanks, Jasen. I was under the impression Linux may not always save
the data files currently in memory to the disk. Is there a flush
command to force it to save everything and ensure these files are
always copied to the backup?

Yes, it's called "sync" or "umount" depending on why you want to do it.

That (delayed write) feature can also be turned off (using the "sync" mount
option) in most instances.

Bye.
Jasen

 

[Mike Monett]

Yes, it's called "sync" or "umount" depending on why you want to
do it.

That (delayed write) feature can also be turned off (using the
"sync" mount option) in most instances.

Jasen

Again, thanks very much. It seems you can spend a huge amount of
time going through MAN pages, only to find they are 20 years old and
no longer valid. Being able to ask a simple question and get a quick
answer is much better. Now I can research these new terms for more
info.

Regards,

Mike Monett

Antiviral, Antibacterial Silver Solution:
http://silversol.freewebpage.org/index.htm
SPICE Analysis of Crystal Oscillators:
http://silversol.freewebpage.org/spice/xtal/clapp.htm
Noise-Rejecting Wideband Sampler:
http://www3.sympatico.ca/add.automation/sampler/intro.htm

 

[David Brown]

Thanks for the good info, John. I'm already running Eagle on Suse
with excellent results, and starting to think it might be time to
convert everything else over to Linux.

How do you back up your system in case of hard disk failure? Is
there an equivalent to XCOPY32?

What I'm looking for is to have a backup drive that I can install as
Master and have it contain exactly what is on the original. The
advantage of XCOPY32 is it doesn't waste time copying files that
don't need updating, so the backup is very quick and you can afford
to do it several times per day.

With Linux, you can do *so* much better. For example, rsync will do a
similar update copy, but much more efficiently. In particular, it is more
efficient over a network (you do backup to a different machine, don't
you?), and will only send the differences for large files that are
changed. The other smart thing it can do, along with a Linux file system,
is support hard links when taking snapshot backups. Use a system like
"dirvish" as a wrapper to save reading the manual pages and writing your
own scripts, and it is easy to get daily backup snapshots that only use up
disk space when a file is added or changed.

 

[David Brown]

sync

And of course, "sync" is run regularly in the background - you only need
the command if you want to specifically force a sync (it's typically part
of the shutdown sequence, for example). And, being Linux and full of
choices, it is possible to mount some or all of your file systems with
write-through caching (i.e., writes to disk are done immediately) or with
an application having full control (big database server programs often
like to have full control).

 

[David Brown]

Again, thanks very much. It seems you can spend a huge amount of
time going through MAN pages, only to find they are 20 years old and
no longer valid. Being able to ask a simple question and get a quick
answer is much better. Now I can research these new terms for more
info.

Much of the twenty year old *nix stuff is still valid - it's just not
updated for modern features.

When you are wondering about whether or not Linux has a particular
feature, it often helps to ask yourself whether this it is a feature
programmers and system administrators are likely to be interested in. Do
you think programmers are going to be interested in good, easy backup
solutions? Do you think they are going to be interested in reliable disk
writes? In that case, you can be pretty confident Linux supports them.

mvh.,

David

 

[Jan Panteltje]

Much of the twenty year old *nix stuff is still valid - it's just not
updated for modern features.

When you are wondering about whether or not Linux has a particular
feature, it often helps to ask yourself whether this it is a feature
programmers and system administrators are likely to be interested in. Do
you think programmers are going to be interested in good, easy backup
solutions? Do you think they are going to be interested in reliable disk
writes? In that case, you can be pretty confident Linux supports them.

mvh.,

David

An importand command (if you do not know hat manual page to read) on
an Unix / Linux system is
apropos

Just type
apropos backup

an other important idea is to use grep as a filter:
grml: ~ # apropos backup | grep rsync
duplicity (1) - Encrypted backup using rsync algorithm

now type
man 1 duplicity

And you see you can encrypt your backups too, this allows you to
store using one of those internet services (vaults) for example.


The third command you should know about is
locate
to find anything, run updatedb from crontab once a day.
locate pizza
grml: ~ # locate pizza
/mnt/hda1/java/jdk1.2.2/demo/jfc/SwingSet/images/ImageClub/food/pizza.gif
/mnt/hda7/root/compile/financial/gtk_pizza0.99.6.lsm
/mnt/hda7/usr/share/doc/packages/qt/html/designer/figures/pizza1screenshot.png
/mnt/hdb1/compile/amsn/amsn-0_94/skins/default/smileys/pizza.gif
/mnt/hdb1/compile/amsn/amsn-0_94/skins/Tux/smileys/pizza.gif
/mnt/hdb1/compile/games/multiplayer/xpilot/xpilot-3.3.1/lib/maps/pizza.map
/mnt/hdb1/compile/games/snooker/foobillard/!pizzadude.txt
/mnt/hdb1/compile/java/jdk1.2.2/demo/jfc/SwingSet/images/ImageClub/food/pizza.gif
/root/compile/amsn/amsn-0_94/skins/default/smileys/pizza.gif
/root/compile/amsn/amsn-0_94/skins/Tux/smileys/pizza.gif

 

[Joel Kolstad]

Linux does NOT use pee-see BIOS. Only the very first part of initial
kernel
loader does to build a memory map that is a nightmare in ix86 BTW. Then it
switches to protected mode where there is no BIOS access at all.

The same is true for Windows NT onward (Win2K, WinXP, and Vista).

---Joel

 

[Rich Grise]

Thanks for the good info, John. I'm already running Eagle on Suse
with excellent results, and starting to think it might be time to
convert everything else over to Linux.

How do you back up your system in case of hard disk failure? Is
there an equivalent to XCOPY32?

What I'm looking for is to have a backup drive that I can install as
Master and have it contain exactly what is on the original. The
advantage of XCOPY32 is it doesn't waste time copying files that
don't need updating, so the backup is very quick and you can afford
to do it several times per day.

user@ops$ crontab -e

0 0 * * * date >> /pub/home/user/Log/cron.log ; cp -Ruxv /NewServer/* /home/user/Server >> /

pub/home/user/Log/cron.log


Cheers!
Rich

 

[Rich Grise]

I think "flush" is a program feature available in C, C+, etc and has
to be put into a program at appropiate places before compiling.
I do not think anyne has bothered to make a stand-alone program that
would "snoop" for open files and then close them; i am not sure if that
would be possible..

It's called 'sync' - it's not that hard - the OS has a list of all of its
buffers and open files; all it does is flush them all.

And most programs, if they weren't written by scriptkiddies, will flush
their own buffers during an orderly exit.

Cheers!
Rich

 

[Rich Grise]

BIOS at that time "worked" with that CPU.
The minor problems (echo again) were that the BIOS initial screen
would not show any installed IDE drives, the boot process showed an "Intel
CPU uCODE error" and it would not boot from a/any WinXP CD.
A BIOS upgrade (to a newer, beta version) solved the uCODE problem
*only*.

Then it appears that they have sold you a piece of junk. If you can't
get your money back, report them to the Better Business Bureau and your
local Chamber of Commerce.

Good Luck!
Rich

 

[Robert Baer]

That means something's wrong with your pee-see. If BIOS didn't see your IDE
drives no OS won't either.

Please read what i said; if one boots with a floppy using a given OS,
then one can read what is on hard drives provided the HD format is
compatible with that OS.
Also, one *can* boot from a hard drive; the problem is that one
*CANNOT* boot from a WinXP CD - making it impossible to install.

 

[Paul Hovnanian P.E.]

Start with new (6-month old), bleeding edge stuff: motherboard, Intel
D CPU, 80Gbyte hard drive, Sony DVD R/W, 500W supply, WinXP Pro.
Major problems:
1) "Intel uCode error...press F1 to continue" no boot from the WinXP CD.
2) Update BIOS to latest available (beta): the uCode error goes away; no
boot.
3) Go into the BIOS setup, first screen: *nothing* recognized; Primary
Master, Primary Slave,Seconsdary Master and Secondary Slave all have the
same message, to the effect "nothing available".

But, in booting up, there is a bit of screen fiddling, and the
installed hard drive and DVD drive are listed as present.
The DVD light has a very short blink after that, but the CD is not
accessed.

Now, the interesting part: plop in a PartitionMagic (bootable) CD,
and that works!
Understand, the PartitionMagic CD is old, way before Micro$uck
thought of XP (2002).

Seems to me that M$ has teamed with the BIOS and board makers to make
sure that one cannot *install* WinXp from scratch on these new computers.

First of all, if your BIOS can't see drives that are there, you have a
hardware problem someplace.

As far as not being able to boot a WinXP CD, unless its an OEM CD for
installation on a new computer, I wouldn't expect it to be bootable.
Back in the Win95 days, OEM disks were rare and now I think they are
practically impossible to come by if you aren't an 'authorized'
manufacturer.

But..if you happen to have a computer like that with WinXP installed,
the WinXP is readable and can be used for updates, etc.

So....
How in the h*ll does one start from scratch?

As far as I can tell, you don't. OEM disks (for installation on a new
system) are no longer available to the general public.

 

[Jan Panteltje]

As far as I can tell, you don't. OEM disks (for installation on a new
system) are no longer available to the general public.

http://www.alternate.nl/html/shop/p...esturingssystemen&Level2=SystemBuilder+/+OEM&
It is possible they only sell you one of thse OEM versions if you bought a PC
there, or at least all the parts together for a basic PC (in their PC configurator).

 

[Dennis]

Please read what i said; if one boots with a floppy using a given OS,
then one can read what is on hard drives provided the HD format is
compatible with that OS.
Also, one *can* boot from a hard drive; the problem is that one
*CANNOT* boot from a WinXP CD - making it impossible to install.

They must have changed recently or maybe WinXP PRO is different. I got
the WinXP Home upgrade and even the upgrade let me boot from the CD. Of
course I had to put in the Win98 CD for a check before they let me
actually install.

There are a couple of bootable CD formats. As I recall Partition Magic
used a very old floppy simulator method. I think you may still have a
hardware/bios configuration problem. Have you tried the WinXP CD on a
system that doesn't have other problems.

 

[Rich Grise]

Robert Baer wrote: ....

First of all, if your BIOS can't see drives that are there, you have a
hardware problem someplace.

As far as not being able to boot a WinXP CD, unless its an OEM CD for
installation on a new computer, I wouldn't expect it to be bootable.
Back in the Win95 days, OEM disks were rare and now I think they are
practically impossible to come by if you aren't an 'authorized'
manufacturer.


As far as I can tell, you don't. OEM disks (for installation on a new
system) are no longer available to the general public.

Well, I can't speak at XP, but about 5 years ago I paid about $200.00
for an "OEM" Windows 2000 Professional, and it has installed just
perfectly (well, M$Windoze perfect) on every machine I've had since
then, even thrown together systems from Fry's.

Sometimes I wish I'd kept that W95 disk and W98 upgrade - I miss
some of the old sounds. )-;

But, I concur: if the BIOS itself can't see the drives, then you have
a hardware problem before you even start.

Good Luck!
Rich

 

[Robert Baer]

First of all, if your BIOS can't see drives that are there, you have a
hardware problem someplace.

*** That was the first thing that bothered me, that the BIOS initial
screen shows nothing.
But the "wierd" thing as the computer goes thru the pre-boot process,
a list of all present IDE drives are shown.

As far as not being able to boot a WinXP CD, unless its an OEM CD for
installation on a new computer, I wouldn't expect it to be bootable.
Back in the Win95 days, OEM disks were rare and now I think they are
practically impossible to come by if you aren't an 'authorized'
manufacturer.

** I know about OEM CDs, i have them for Win95, Win98SE and Win2K; i did
not look at the WinXP disks (5 sets of three each) my friend had, so
cannot say if they are specifically OEM or not.
However, he was able to get a computer going a number of months ago
(olderMB and CPU) from scratch; he *did* hava a lot of trouble doing it,
but he was sucessful.

As far as I can tell, you don't. OEM disks (for installation on a new
system) are no longer available to the general public.

** So, if one can install an older Windows version, then one could use
an XP disk to "upgrade"?

 

[Robert Baer]

http://www.alternate.nl/html/shop/p...esturingssystemen&Level2=SystemBuilder+/+OEM&
It is possible they only sell you one of thse OEM versions if you bought a PC
there, or at least all the parts together for a basic PC (in their PC configurator).

Hmm..$170 (US dollars) for a 64 bit English version without the
verdammdt Vista is not too bad.
Do *NOT* support Vista and bitch like crazy; even file lawsuits; see:
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.txt

 

[Robert Baer]

They must have changed recently or maybe WinXP PRO is different. I got
the WinXP Home upgrade and even the upgrade let me boot from the CD. Of
course I had to put in the Win98 CD for a check before they let me
actually install.

There are a couple of bootable CD formats. As I recall Partition Magic
used a very old floppy simulator method. I think you may still have a
hardware/bios configuration problem. Have you tried the WinXP CD on a
system that doesn't have other problems.

Unfortunately, my friend does not have that luxury; the (slightly
older) working computers are constantly in use for business, and the new
computers are desperately needed last month.