Reality Factory

Like, 1 day you turn on the computer and can't do anything?

Here's what I did:

OS install


This is a thread i let out while escaping from the Dark Caverns of NO COMPUTER, which happens, I couldn't get a listing of the C:/directory to
even back it up. This is a nightmare no one should go through without
help, so my plan is to put EVERY file I load in a directory and burn it to multiple
CD's. Why not DVD? Can't count on computers having a DVD.
Oh, why not XP? I have XP, but you need permission to run it, like Half Life 2, and it will gag if you mess with your hardware a lot, and it has big bugs,
they say. So does win 2000, but I haven't had to reinstall for 2 years now.

My scheme is C:\ is 8 GB, basically a boot drive, but I had 3ds Max 3_1 and
Reality Factory on it, stupid, backup was a few weeks old. Left over from when Drive D was 6 GB, now it's 80 GB.



1. Backup C: drive, unless you can't, then put in a win98 or winme startup disk, go to the A:/ floppy drive and
format c:\

2. Insert win Me for Blank HD or upgrade CD, or Win 98, except I don't have the serial for the Blank HD win98. if it's an upgrade you need the CD from a previous version of windows, like 95, it'll ask you to put it in and point it to setup exe.
3. Install windows ME, minimum, I write the serial num on the disk.

(it's only so you can get win2000 going)

4. Install Win 2000

5. Settings/control panel/mouse change to left handed, if you are.

6. Install Win 2000 service pack 4 (134MB), luckily a friend had this, take years to DL at 26,400. You can't install a video driver with out it, pretty important if you like more than 256 colors.

7. Install Direct X 9.0c, or the latest, on many game demos, games, and microsoft.com/directx I think it's up to 11MB now.

8. Install Nvidia Win2000 drivers, the 52.16's did nothing, but I dug up
the actual disc that came with the card, that worked.

9. install modem, have the disk, no probs.

10. Install Internet explorer 6, don't use it but people pc won't start w/o it.
70MB happened to be on a disk from a previous ISP.

11. install people pc, called the toll-free number, talked to an Indian, went to
'network and dial up connections' 'make new connection' he told me the number to dial, I have started to write down in a book and on the computer every login and password, game/app serial num, no prob. The people pc install 6 did nothing, but ipsetup 5 did but didn't connect. This method bypasses their stupid opening screen also.


12. DON'T go on the internet, you have no Firewall or Antivirus!

13. Put Norton 2001 on I get 1 year free, then it's $12, needless to say
I've always blanked out my C:\ drive rather than pay. 'Avast' is a free for 14 mos.
antivirus, haven't tried it though.

14. Put Agnitum Outpost Firewall on.

15. Install Firefox, I've been 'exporting' my bookmarks, so I just 'import' them ,go tools options/downloads 'ask me where to save', change Background
to gray, font to arial bold 12.

16. Sign up for Yahoo mail, it forgot my login/pass.

17. Outpost Firewall set to 'create rules' where it asks you whether to allow connection
18. Update Norton antivirus 12 MB!

19. Control Panel 'automatic updates' uncheck 'keep computer up to date', keeps the update program from even loading. There's only 1 time I've have to update anything, for the W32 blaster worm, about 1 MB fix.

20. Dreamweaver wants a serial number, was on a CD

21. Gimp tanks completely, bad design. Before I delete I copy the 2 plugins
in /gimp/bin/plugins to another directory. Must run GTK before doing Gimp.
Set gimp swapfile to D:\temp

22. 3dsmax3, cstudio 2.2 have all the numbers written in 23 places, to run cstudio you have to click on a mesh with a .bip file and 'modify'

23. Olympus cammedia for camera, have disk

24. In windows explorer, go tools/folder options/ 'show hidden filess, uncheck 'hide file extensions for known file types' and uncheck 'hide protected OS files' and make view 'like current folder' reset all folders.

25. install 'dotnexfx.exe' Microsoft .net framework 1.1 23MB. what is it? who knows? but Nem's terrain generator needs it.

26. Install printer //start/printers

27. finally dug up x2explorer, a dual-pane windows explorer.

28. Install 'Record Now' CD/DVD burning, /tools/options temp disk d:\temp

29. Load crimson text editor; tools/preferences word wrap fixed width 72, open doc word wrapped, default font arial bold 12.

30. Put in SB live audio card disk, says 'I have no SB live' Downloading the install from the net 23MB now. Recall having nothing but problems with Creative software.

31. Gravis game pad, not going to install unless I put on a game that needs it, awful software.

32. Network card, have disk, go /start/settings/control panel/ add/remove hardware/add trouble shoot, 'have disk' worked, go to Start/settings/network and dial up, r-click 'properties' add protocol 'netbeui' and 'ipx/spx' for games, Note games on LAN won't work unless you 'exit and shut down outpost'. NEVER go on the net if outpost ain't on, I got a virus/bug/problem in 30 seconds w/o it on once.

33. Photoshop was missing a file but loaded.

34. Wings 3d, my former E: drive became the D: drive for some reason, had to edit 'erl.ini' in wings3d/bin to show this. Many shortcuts also had to
be edited.

35. I also have this file called 'buysoft' , serial nums, etc. of software I've bought, need it for getright, which lets me resume downloading if my
phone gets cut off. Kind of embarrasing to see all the crap software I bought back in the internet bubble.

36. Except for the soundcard, all systems are up and running. Finally had to put an ensoniq pci card in, even after I changed the bios to 'Plug n Play aware' system, then it found my sound card but couldn't install drivers, same with network card, found but couldn't install.

I have been through that before

But now I do this sort of thing all day at work (recovering lost data)
inbetween playing with R/F and trying to learn it

But as my name sugests I am at a loss as why you are going through so many steps

the best back up you can do is a disk image in my opinion. I use Acronis but there is Ghost etc and it can be compressed to up to a 3rd of your hard drive space you can save this image over a network to another drive or burn to cd's or to a partition on your own drive ( this should be the last option in case the actual drive dies)

To recover is easy you just boot up on the disks you have to make when installing the program then it just copies your hard drive back formating and overwriting the corrupt install..all drivers all every thing exactly as it was when you backed up ( there is option for incremental back up also) so you can do it when ever you want and only lose data from the time you did your last back up)

Any way im not a salesmen for this .....just out of experience it saves a lot of headaches

As for what you said Im not sure why you need the 98 or me start up disk unless your cd drive is not working....other wise use a bootable 2000 CD? if its not bootable you can make it bootable if you have a cd burner

In your first part are you talking about a work pc with XP? if its your own pc you have all admin rights and all permissions??? I guess you also tried system restore?

Finaly I dont want to sound like a know it all and I might of missread what you meant but I have done this for over 7 years ( expecialy F disk and kill drive ...formatting etc)

http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/pr ... trueimage/

thats the link for what I use but you can also get freeware disk recovery ...back up tools etc from http://www.snapfiles.com/freeware/freeware.html


Lost

I do it this way because it works, I know there must be an easier way.

if its not bootable you can make it bootable if you have a cd burner

For a win 2000 bootable you have to put in 1 of the 4 w2k startup floppies?

In your first part are you talking about a work pc with XP? if its your own pc you have all admin rights and all permissions??? I guess you also tried system restore?

I don't know where w2k system restore is.

No, every copy of XP has to be 'authenticated' over the internet, then if
you change your hardware, it reports you to
Microsoft because it thinks you're running
XP on 2 machines.

Isnt XP what you had when you first lost your c drive ?

thats why I mentioned System restore sorry I missread it

Yes you right about the authentication
I have done it with a differant hard drive and it worked Im not sure how far they go with there fingerprint of your machine

if you have your key I think you can authenticate over the phone with hardware changes (Probably be on hold for 2 hours on the phone)

I have msdn win 2000 bootable cd

Ghost was only $17 at royaldiscount.com, Acronis doesn't do
DVD's I read somewhere, plus it was $50. The 1 thing I
kick myself for losing was a texturing job on Virgil , usually I backup
small stuff to CD-RW's but they've all disappeared..

The problem with a drive image on disc is you could be
restoring the same problem that made your HD lock up.

ive authenticated over the phone (with xp) before, and it really isnt all that bad... you read the code to them, explain why you needed to do it, answer some simple questions, and they read you the code to activate it... i dont remember it very well, but i dont seem to recall being on hold very long either.

Acronis and Ghost are very similiar So get ghost if its that cheap ( didnt know about the DVD advatage of ghost ) I dont have a dvd burner yet any way lol
I also have easy recovery pro that recovers deleted files etc ...even from formated drives so it claims...but I have never had no luck with it you could try that
or these freeware ones http://www.snapfiles.com/freeware/syste ... overy.html

And your right about disk imaging you can copy the problem to the image and that will happen with incremental backups

I guess in your case just after a fresh install take an image then just back up your stuff to your cd like you have been doing and if you crash and burn you at least you have some sort of template with out all the boot disks, keys, service packs etc

I was joking about the time on Hold Andy ....allthough I have been on hold a few time to make me hang up

Lost,


So to make a bootable Win 2000 CD, I put in one of the
4 emergency disks? I didn't think they were bootable, but
I guess they'd have to be if you're using them to repair your
W2k install.

I don't buy a lawnmower at Home Depot and then call them up
for permission to use it.

hike1 wrote:I don't buy a lawnmower at Home Depot and then call them up
for permission to use it.

true, but you cant clone lawnmowers easily either. just my opinion. sorry to drag it offtopic.

Hi Hike1

My Cd is bootable by default from Microsoft but I have made one also when we didn't have the bootable version

Try this link

http://bink.nu/Bootcd/