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Unable to create a bootable rescue disk:



 
 
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  #61  
Old June 13th 15, 12:06 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Paul
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Posts: 18,275
Default Unable to create a bootable rescue disk:

Ken Blake, MVP wrote:
On Fri, 12 Jun 2015 12:41:53 -0400, Paul wrote:

The boot order must be set in the BIOS.

Some PCs are set in this priority order.

Floppy
Optical drive
Hard drive (1 of N)



Yes, but my advice is never to leave it set for the floppy or optical
drive to come before the hard drive. It's OK to temporarily set it for
either of them, but not to leave it that way.

That's because it's always possible to accidentally leave an infected
floppy or CD in the drive, and therefore get infected when you boot.
I've seen that happen more than once.


Not a really useful solution on the Dimension 8200 (RAMBUS era
computer). On the Dimension 8500, you could define a defensive
permanent boot order in the computer (no removable media in the order),
and use the "popup boot" key to vector off to the optical drive at
boot time. So the 8500 is a good candidate for your advice.
On the 8200, you'd end up constantly going into the BIOS to
modify things. Will a person always remember how to do that,
when they're in trouble and need their Macrium CD to boot ?
To make that viable in this case, I would need to:

1) Visit the OPs home.
2) Paste BIOS modification instructions to the
side of the computer, so the instructions cannot get lost.
Along with the password for the router, the password for
the computer accounts, and so on :-) I have such a collection
of passwords sitting near my computer (probably 20 or 30
different "random string" passwords, for commerce).

Your idea is a useful solution for people who "live in their
BIOS setup screen". I don't particularly enjoy messing
around in there over and over again, which is why I
settle for a "useful" setup, rather than a "secure" setup.
On machines with a working popup boot key at POST, I use
that even when I don't need to (even for what I know to be
a static configuration). but on older machines, I make
do with a "useful" BIOS configuration.

If it was a kiosk computer, an Internet Cafe computer, or a
public library computer, then yes, lock it down. Pour epoxy
in the USB connectors, so people cannot infect the computer
with their infected USB keys. But this situation is a home
user, where the highest thread probability is the connection
to the Internet. These machines have already had their share
of adware, delivered from the Internet. And the machines
are armed to the hilt with tools, because of the
recognized threat vector. (The OP knows he has to run
a good AV program.)

Paul
Ads
  #62  
Old June 13th 15, 05:22 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Mark Twain
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Posts: 2,402
Default Unable to create a bootable rescue disk:

Hello Paul,

Tried it again and this time Macrium
Reflect came up. So all is good.


So now I would like to do backups for
both the 8200 and the 8500 using my
external HD. If I remember correctly I
use Macrium but are there any suggestions
for settings etc? I want it so if something
happened I can recover everything in minutes.

In passing, can you point me to a good
download for Quicktime for the 8200?

Many Thanks,
Robert
  #63  
Old June 13th 15, 10:30 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Paul
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Posts: 18,275
Default Unable to create a bootable rescue disk:

Mark Twain wrote:
Hello Paul,

Tried it again and this time Macrium
Reflect came up. So all is good.


So now I would like to do backups for
both the 8200 and the 8500 using my
external HD. If I remember correctly I
use Macrium but are there any suggestions
for settings etc? I want it so if something
happened I can recover everything in minutes.

In passing, can you point me to a good
download for Quicktime for the 8200?

Many Thanks,
Robert


The free version of Macrium, does imaging and
cloning. The paid version does file by file transfers
as far as I know, but since it's the paid version,
I've not played with such a feature.

For backup, that's the imaging option. When the
tool starts, first it nags you about updating to
the latest version. (It's possible, in the preferences,
you can turn that off.)

Next, it takes a few seconds, to scan the PC for disk drives,
read the partition table and so on.

It displays a picture of all the drives and their partitions.

(X) --- MBR Tick box

(X) (X) (X) (X) ---- various partition tick boxes

If you want to back up the whole drive, you tick all five.
The reason it backs up the MBR, is so any OS can boot, and
so there is a record of the partition table available. On
a restoration, you can probably untick the MBR, if you think
for any reason restoring it will damage something. But
generally, just leave it ticked.

If you change the setup of your partitions (shrink or expand
them, make more or fewer), it's generally better to start
making a new set of backups, and discard the old .mrimg files.
It's probably not absolutely necessary to do that, but once
I start backing up my hard drives here, I try not to
change the partition setup, so as to not invalidate my
backups.

Each backup operation, could store things in one .mrimg file.
So in the diagram above, with the five tick boxes (implying
all the primary partitions are getting backed up), the information
may be stored in one .mrimg output file.

You get to select a name for the backup, but I just let the
files receive their "random number" label and leave it at
that. You must select your backup hard drive in Destination,
to have the backup stored externally.

If you wanted descriptive titling for them, the tool
supports a "Comments" field. When you click the "Next"
button and go to do your backup, there is an Advanced
button that allows you to change the settings on the
backup. One of the tabs there is "Comments" and I put
something like

WinXP Dimension 8200 C: June 13 2015, just before dangerous experiment

and later, as long as Macrium is on the computer, if you
right click an .mrimg file, you can read those comments
back out. As long as you make a "rich" comment field,
you can sort through the files later looking for stuff.

You also have the option of making your own folder structure,
perhaps having a "June 13 2015" folder and putting the backup
from the 8200 and 8500 in there. The .mrimg files can be
stored anywhere, subject to your ability to figure out
later, what is in the backup. And that's where the
comment field you add, just before the backup runs,
is invaluable. For example, I could just as easily move
the .mrimg file into a private folder whose name is

WinXP Dimension 8200 C - June 13 2015

While you can do stuff like schedule a repeating backup,
I generally run all mine manually, and don't keep the
definition of the backup, from one run to the next.
I just "Run it now" and create the backup.

*******

Later, if you need to restore, you should at least have
kept track of what you were doing with the disk drives
well enough, to not cause yourself problems. If the
partition sizes have not changed, you could restore
just one partition from a backup. Or, if the hard drive
broke inside the PC, you put a blank hard drive in the PC,
you'd want all these tick boxes to come back.

(X) --- MBR Tick box

(X) (X) (X) (X) ---- various partition tick boxes

So you have some control over what partitions are restored.
If you know you've screwed up the partition sizes, you
might stop and ponder whether you should be restoring
the MBR tick box.

And, say you lost a single stinking file. You don't
have to restore entire partitions. You can right-click
the .mrimg file, and select to have it mounted in
File Explorer. And you can treat it like it was a
disk drive, go down the folders until you find a copy
of the missing file. This saves a lot of time when you
don't want to restore the entire disk. Once you have
recovered the file, you can right-click the volume
in My Computer, and Macrium will show an option to
dismount the (backup) volume.

I used to have a "picture strip" tutorial for Macrium,
but I hosted it on Imageshack, and they deleted all their
old collection of photos. And that's gone now. And I won't
be making another. The Macrium site itself has tutorials,
so that's another possibility for reference material.

You see, their tutorials really are quite nice...

http://kb.macrium.com/KnowledgebaseArticle50074.aspx

And to find that, I entered this in Google

site:macrium.com how to image

And later when you want to learn how to restore, you could do

site:macrium.com how to restore

*******

For Quicktime, the source is here.

Current version is QuickTime 7.7.6 for WinXP, Vista, Win7.

Untick the box and don't enter your email address. Then
click the blue download button. File is 40MB.

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/

QuickTime installer can have two later "nags" it
installs.

1) It will nag to update QuickTime. Well, there hasn't
been a new version of QuickTime, for some time.

2) More importantly, a fake nag exhorts you to install
iTunes and other assorted baloney. This has nothing
to do with QuickTime. I think if you use the Task Scheduler
in Control Panels, with a little work you can turn this
one off. We've discussed this before at some point.
So if you see "Software Updater" window pop up,
dismiss it. Or, using Task Scheduler, disable the
entry causing that to pop up all the time.

HTH,
Paul
  #64  
Old June 13th 15, 01:18 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Mark Twain
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Posts: 2,402
Default Unable to create a bootable rescue disk:

Hello Paul,

I haven't done the backups yet(tomorrow) but
I did download Quicktime and selected a custom
download so that I could edit it and un-ticked
their automatic updates. Works great.

Also, the fan starts on it's own 50% of
the time now, so that's a good sign but I
still have to check it.

I'll let you know how the updates went.

Many thanks for all your good help and taking
the time and patience to explain things so that
I and others reading can understand better. You
do allot of good work here and your knowledge
is profound yet you explain things in simple
terms so others can understand and give wonderful
links.

Many Thanks,
Robert



  #65  
Old June 13th 15, 10:45 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Mark Twain
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Posts: 2,402
Default Unable to create a bootable rescue disk:

Hello Paul,

I tried doing a backup with Macrium but it failed twice.

It says backup aborted - write operation failed, The request
could not be performed because of an I/O device error. I've
had the external HD plugged in from the beginning and followed
the steps in the link you provided.


Robert


  #66  
Old June 14th 15, 02:28 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Paul
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 18,275
Default Unable to create a bootable rescue disk:

Mark Twain wrote:
Hello Paul,

I tried doing a backup with Macrium but it failed twice.

It says backup aborted - write operation failed, The request
could not be performed because of an I/O device error. I've
had the external HD plugged in from the beginning and followed
the steps in the link you provided.


Robert


Hmmm.

Now, how am I going to figure out what broke that ? :-)

I'm sure if the external drive ran out of space, there
would have been a different, more descriptive error.
So that's probably not it.

USB hard drives can certainly "go to sleep", but since
Macrium writes at 50MB/sec, the drive never gets
a chance to go idle. It can't park the heads and
act stupid. So that's probably not it.

Where does that leave us ? What's left, except
a bad drive ?

Maybe we should review the drive type information.
Is this a 3.5" drive, with an external power supply ?
The power on those, is usually a bit more reliable
than 2.5" bus powered laptop-style drives. If the
drive was bus powered, and the bus resettable fuse
opened, that would mimic an I/O failure.

Tell me more about the drive. If you bought the drive
and enclosure as a package, then the whole kit would
have a part number. If you bought an empty enclosure,
a bare drive, and assembled it with a screwdriver,
then you'd have a model number for the enclosure
and a model number for the hard drive used.

If the drive is easy to remove from
the enclosure, you could move it inside
the computer. This is probably easier on the
8500 than the 8200, as the 8200 won't have any
SATA ports to use.

For a basic health check, you could install HDTune
free version, and run a read benchmark. On a decent
drive, inside a USB2 enclosure, the benchmark trace
should be a ~30MB/sec flat line. As the drive is always
faster than the USB bus in that case, so the USB bus
limits the transfer rate.

http://www.hdtune.com/files/hdtune_255.exe

While some would yell out "use the Seagate tester",
I can't yell that too loud. As the Seagate tester
*erased* the Cypress chip on my USE enclosure,
causing me to have to track down a repair recipe.
It's one reason I refrain from rushing to grab
their Windows version of the tester. It can damage
a certain enclosure chip. I didn't even know my enclosure
used that chip, until it got erased :-(

So for now, I'll have to wimp out and suggest HDTune
as a test case.

The paid version of HDTune, has write benchmarks, but
obviously a write benchmark can wipe data (if not
done properly). And this is why I don't normally
send people off to find a write benchmarker, as I don't
want any data loss stories. That's the nice thing
about the HDTune free one, is it only does reads
for drive testing, and that makes it *safe*.

Paul
  #67  
Old June 15th 15, 07:56 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Mark Twain
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,402
Default Unable to create a bootable rescue disk:

Hello Paul,

I haven't done anything since but I
should have added that the external
HD is a Seagate:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822178107

This is similar to mine:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Seagate-Back...em2c96e2 6ff1

Robert
  #68  
Old June 15th 15, 08:06 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Mark Twain
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,402
Default Unable to create a bootable rescue disk:


I do have Sea Tools for Windows installed
so maybe it can detect the external HD and
run diagnostics?


Robert

  #69  
Old June 16th 15, 03:47 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Paul
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Posts: 18,275
Default Unable to create a bootable rescue disk:

Mark Twain wrote:
I do have Sea Tools for Windows installed
so maybe it can detect the external HD and
run diagnostics?


Robert


By all means. Seatools is listed on the product page.

http://www.seagate.com/ca/en/support...ls-win-master/

It's bus powered, and shouldn't really have a problem
getting enough power. It would help if it had a power
LED to monitor whether bus power is still available
or not. It really has a minimalist interface. I have
a device here, with a bright blue LED that tells
me power is present.

http://www.seagate.com/ca/en/support...s/backup-plus/

There is an Adobe Flash movie on setting the
Power Management on the drive (on that web page).
This really shouldn't be an issue, as the drive should
"stay awake" when being written continuously.

Have you tried to drag and drop a file onto the drive
for copying ? Did that work ?

The Adobe Dashboard software, I don't think it's supposed
to interfere with the usage of the drive. You should
still be able to use it like an ordinary drive. So give
it the SeaTools treatment, and collect more info.

Paul
  #70  
Old June 16th 15, 02:38 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Mark Twain
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,402
Default Unable to create a bootable rescue disk:

I have tried to drag and drop a file
from the User Account but whenever I
tried, the 'My Computer' screen
disappeared. Unless there's another
way of doing this?


I connected the External HD to the 8200
and ran Sea Tools for Windows. It recognized
the external drive but when I tried to put a tick
in the box to do a long generic test it wouldn't
tick but the HD would.

Then, when I attempted to remove the external HD to
give it another try, it said it was being used by
another program. Just then the test status bar lit
up with a short DST scan for the HD and a long
generic scan which I is what I input.

I guess it just took more time than I thought.

This is what I see:

Seagate - Sea Tools for Windows

Basic Tests:

* short drive self test
* long drive self test
* drive information
* short generic
* long generic
* advanced test (if you click advanced test
it gives you a warning pop-up that reads:

Enable Advanced Features

Warning: Advanced features can erase your data or
make the drive unable for your system.
Please read the help files or contact Seagate
Technical Support before suing Advanced Features.
Click 'I Accept' to enable Advanced Features. Click
Cancel to go back to Basic Features).


Detected Drives:

Serial Number Model Number Firmware Revision Drive Status Test Status

PATA/SATA
9RAOZ7H4 ST3160815A 3.AA short DST-Pass


USB/1394
S2ZPJ9CD ST1000LM024HN- 2AR2 long generic


It apparently passed both tests.

Robert

  #71  
Old June 16th 15, 02:51 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Paul
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 18,275
Default Unable to create a bootable rescue disk:

Mark Twain wrote:
I have tried to drag and drop a file
from the User Account but whenever I
tried, the 'My Computer' screen
disappeared. Unless there's another
way of doing this?


I connected the External HD to the 8200
and ran Sea Tools for Windows. It recognized
the external drive but when I tried to put a tick
in the box to do a long generic test it wouldn't
tick but the HD would.

Then, when I attempted to remove the external HD to
give it another try, it said it was being used by
another program. Just then the test status bar lit
up with a short DST scan for the HD and a long
generic scan which I is what I input.

I guess it just took more time than I thought.

This is what I see:

Seagate - Sea Tools for Windows

Basic Tests:

* short drive self test
* long drive self test
* drive information
* short generic
* long generic
* advanced test (if you click advanced test
it gives you a warning pop-up that reads:

Enable Advanced Features

Warning: Advanced features can erase your data or
make the drive unable for your system.
Please read the help files or contact Seagate
Technical Support before suing Advanced Features.
Click 'I Accept' to enable Advanced Features. Click
Cancel to go back to Basic Features).


Detected Drives:

Serial Number Model Number Firmware Revision Drive Status Test Status

PATA/SATA
9RAOZ7H4 ST3160815A 3.AA short DST-Pass


USB/1394
S2ZPJ9CD ST1000LM024HN- 2AR2 long generic


It apparently passed both tests.

Robert


The test results are for two different drives, implying
you tested the Seagate main drive inside the computer,
as well as the external ST1000LM024HN.

The long delay before the test came up, could be
caused by the external drive "going to sleep". Use
the Dashboard application that came with the 1TB drive,
and extend the timeout period, then try again.

There used to be some USB hard drives, where the
drive would go to sleep, and the OS was unable to
wake up the drive again (until you unplugged it
and plugged it back in). Let's hope all those
crappy designs are no longer in production.
That happened, some time ago, and it really
should not be happening now.

Paul
  #72  
Old June 16th 15, 02:52 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Mark Twain
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Posts: 2,402
Default Unable to create a bootable rescue disk:

I looked at the video but I don't have
Seagate Dashboard only Sea Tools.

I suppose I could drag and drop a file
from the C: drive since they are in the
same pane to the external HD but would be
leery of doing so.

There is an indicator light on the external
HD.

I tried to do the other tests but they wouldn't
run. Only the short and long generic which
I'm running again to make sure.

Could I not just copy a file to the external
HD to test it? Like a Word document?

Robert
  #73  
Old June 16th 15, 03:07 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Mark Twain
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,402
Default Unable to create a bootable rescue disk:

I sent a Word document to the E drive and it
went OK and I was able to open it.


While in there I found a Seagate Dashboard
Installer and a Seagate Dash Board Installer.DMG

I tried to open it via Firefox but it wouldn't.


Robert

  #74  
Old June 16th 15, 04:24 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Paul
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 18,275
Default Unable to create a bootable rescue disk:

Mark Twain wrote:
I looked at the video but I don't have
Seagate Dashboard only Sea Tools.

I suppose I could drag and drop a file
from the C: drive since they are in the
same pane to the external HD but would be
leery of doing so.

There is an indicator light on the external
HD.

I tried to do the other tests but they wouldn't
run. Only the short and long generic which
I'm running again to make sure.

Could I not just copy a file to the external
HD to test it? Like a Word document?

Robert


It's possible only the short and long DST run,
because the drive is not recognized by SeaTools.
Perhaps a newer version of SeaTools is needed.

When you install the Dashboard software, it does
a couple of things.

1) Provides a software that does automatic
backups. But would require leaving the external
drive connected, so the software can access and
store the backups.

You have backup software already, so do not
need this function.

2) The Dashboard software also has some control settings
for the drive, including adjusting the "sleep timer".
You can even set the drive to "Never".

The flash video on the Seagate product page I showed you,
demonstrates how to use it.

Dashboard Installer EXE would be for Windows
Dashboard Installer DMG would be for Macintosh

How the DMG works, is it is a Disk Image which mounts
like a file folder. And you can then look inside the
file folder, for a software that runs immediately. That's
how a Macintosh user would use the DMG offered. A Windows
user cannot use the DMG file - it is only for Macintosh
users. I run Firefox on my Mac G4, from a DMG file.

The EXE on the drive, would presumably be for installing
Dashboard for a Windows user, and then you can gain access
to the sleep setting (power saving spindown option).

Spindown is used on portable drives, because the
drive has no cooling method, and the drive can get
warm from being insulated in its tiny enclosure.

Paul
  #75  
Old June 16th 15, 05:52 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Mark Twain
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,402
Default Unable to create a bootable rescue disk:

So sending the Word document isn't
verification that the external HD is
working?

However there are other folders/files
on the drive so it must have worked at
some point.

When talking about Spindown and cooling.
I have never removed the external HD from
it's plastic sleeve it came with and
leave it in the clear case.

To use it; I open the end of the sleeve to
insert the USB interface cable but now I'm
thinking maybe it would be best to take the
sleeve off to cool it?

It seems from what you say, to move
forward to test the external HD I would need
a updated Seagate download for Sea Tools and
the Dashboard. Can you point me to a download
link or is this something I have to buy?

Thanks,
Robert

 




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