The latest laptops don't even come with DVD slots

On Wed, 22 Aug 2012 05:21:34 +0100, choro wrote:

On 22/08/2012 04:59, Good Guy wrote:

Actually CD/DVDs are becoming obsolete because they are limited in terms
of amount of data they can store. Also, they get damaged very easily.

USB flash drives (more than 128 GB storage space) are the technology for
the future.

Yes, flash drives are the technology of the future BUT CDs and DVDs,
despite being slow, *do* provide cheap storage. I mean one can't grumble
at 10 to 15 pence or cents for nearly 5GB of storage. Where can you buy
flash sticks for that price?

Yes, optical media are cheap these days, especially compared to 15
years ago when things were just getting started, but like the guy
says, they just don't have the capacity to be taken seriously these
days. Can you imagine doing regular system backups to CD or DVD, for
example? A 40 GB backup, which is pretty typical, would take nearly 60
CD's or about 10 single-layer DVD's. Both are completely impractical.

--

Char Jackson

On Tue, 21 Aug 2012 23:47:33 -0400, Paul wrote:

Char Jackson wrote:


I still don't understand Paul's examples, above, of two CD's that only
boot from an internal drive. I don't think the CD has any say in the
matter, so I hope he'll revisit this thread and explain what he means.


USB plays a part in it.

If the USB subsystem does "resets" during the boot process,
an external optical can be "disconnected" while the boot process
is reading files off it. Then the boot process dies.

So you're thinking that something on the CD is being executed that
causes the PC's USB subsystem to do a reset?

--

Char Jackson

Char Jackson wrote:
On Tue, 21 Aug 2012 23:47:33 -0400, Paul wrote:

Char Jackson wrote:

I still don't understand Paul's examples, above, of two CD's that only
boot from an internal drive. I don't think the CD has any say in the
matter, so I hope he'll revisit this thread and explain what he means.

USB plays a part in it.

If the USB subsystem does "resets" during the boot process,
an external optical can be "disconnected" while the boot process
is reading files off it. Then the boot process dies.

So you're thinking that something on the CD is being executed that
causes the PC's USB subsystem to do a reset?


While it's not related to the two particular problem instances
I mentioned, try a search term like "BootBusExtender USB", which
provides a way to fix this for Windows. USB can be added to
the boot bus options, such that USB is up and running, before
other parts of the OS are loaded. Something like that. That's how
you get older Windows to run from USB storage drives. It's an
example of moving USB commissioning forward enough, so it doesn't
cause the boot media to disappear part way through the boot.

In the two cases I mentioned, it could be a missing driver. For
example, not all Kaspersky rescue disk (AV scanner) suffer from
this problem. Some of the earlier ones, worked just fine when
launched from USB optical. But like all software, if the
developers keep screwing with it, they're bound to break
something. And they did.

Even Knoppix CD/DVD distros, suffer from a variant of this.
It's pretty goofy, when an OS starts to boot from a USB optical,
then, gets part way through, and declares it "can't find the OS disc".
When it's been sucking software off it for the last 30 seconds. That
caused no end of grief. Some of those LiveCDs, in the jewel box
I keep a piece of paper, with a recipe to get them to work.
Not very friendly at all. The worst part, is guessing the syntax
of the device it should actually be reading from. You can't
"dir" or anything when it fails, and see what storage devices
are present, to make up a path to the OS. You have to "guess" at
it, and reboot over and over again as you test the guesses.
Then, write it down on a piece of paper, before you forget :-)

Paul

On 22/08/2012 05:58, Char Jackson wrote:
On Wed, 22 Aug 2012 05:21:34 +0100, choro wrote:

On 22/08/2012 04:59, Good Guy wrote:

Actually CD/DVDs are becoming obsolete because they are limited in terms
of amount of data they can store. Also, they get damaged very easily.

USB flash drives (more than 128 GB storage space) are the technology for
the future.

Yes, flash drives are the technology of the future BUT CDs and DVDs,
despite being slow, *do* provide cheap storage. I mean one can't grumble
at 10 to 15 pence or cents for nearly 5GB of storage. Where can you buy
flash sticks for that price?

Yes, optical media are cheap these days, especially compared to 15
years ago when things were just getting started, but like the guy
says, they just don't have the capacity to be taken seriously these
days. Can you imagine doing regular system backups to CD or DVD, for
example? A 40 GB backup, which is pretty typical, would take nearly 60
CD's or about 10 single-layer DVD's. Both are completely impractical.

For full HD backups, yes, I agree with you. I do mine onto a 2.5" 1TB
external HD. Well actually first onto a second HD on my desktop which I
then regularly copy onto the 1TB external drive. Just in case!

Though my User Files I XXcopy onto an external drive regularly. It only
takes a couple of minutes to copy my User Files. But if you want to give
some photos to a friend or give them a copy of various pdf files or
downloads etc, they giving it to them on a CD or a DVD makes sense as it
would be too expensive to give them copies of such files on flash sticks.

I remember the days when music CDs sold in the UK for £12.99 and a blank
CD cost £16.99. Last year I bought 100 blank CDs for £8! DVDs at less
than double that price.

And surprise, surprise, guess what? You know how some cameras etc can't
recognize ultra modern SDHC and SDXC cards... The other day I went to
stick a very old SD card into one of my brand new camera and it wouldn't
recognize it. So it works both ways! Yet my computer recognized it and I
could see the photos on that very old and very low capacity SD card.

As I said, it works both ways!--
choro
*****

On Wed, 22 Aug 2012 06:39:55 +0100, choro wrote:

On 22/08/2012 05:58, Char Jackson wrote:

Yes, optical media are cheap these days, especially compared to 15
years ago when things were just getting started, but like the guy
says, they just don't have the capacity to be taken seriously these
days. Can you imagine doing regular system backups to CD or DVD, for
example? A 40 GB backup, which is pretty typical, would take nearly 60
CD's or about 10 single-layer DVD's. Both are completely impractical.

For full HD backups, yes, I agree with you. I do mine onto a 2.5" 1TB
external HD. Well actually first onto a second HD on my desktop which I
then regularly copy onto the 1TB external drive. Just in case!

Though my User Files I XXcopy onto an external drive regularly. It only
takes a couple of minutes to copy my User Files. But if you want to give
some photos to a friend or give them a copy of various pdf files or
downloads etc, they giving it to them on a CD or a DVD makes sense as it
would be too expensive to give them copies of such files on flash sticks.

I don't think it would have occurred to me to transfer files to a
friend via CD or DVD. I'm more likely to put the files online and let
the other person retrieve them at their convenience.

--

Char Jackson

On Wed, 22 Aug 2012 01:30:30 -0400, Paul wrote:

Char Jackson wrote:
On Tue, 21 Aug 2012 23:47:33 -0400, Paul wrote:

Char Jackson wrote:

I still don't understand Paul's examples, above, of two CD's that only
boot from an internal drive. I don't think the CD has any say in the
matter, so I hope he'll revisit this thread and explain what he means.

USB plays a part in it.

If the USB subsystem does "resets" during the boot process,
an external optical can be "disconnected" while the boot process
is reading files off it. Then the boot process dies.

So you're thinking that something on the CD is being executed that
causes the PC's USB subsystem to do a reset?


While it's not related to the two particular problem instances
I mentioned, try a search term like "BootBusExtender USB", which
provides a way to fix this for Windows. USB can be added to
the boot bus options, such that USB is up and running, before
other parts of the OS are loaded. Something like that. That's how
you get older Windows to run from USB storage drives. It's an
example of moving USB commissioning forward enough, so it doesn't
cause the boot media to disappear part way through the boot.

If I read that correctly, there are at least 3 issues all tangled up
in there, none of which are likely to be encountered in the context of
this thread. You've described bringing up the USB subsystem sooner,
keeping it up reliably, and relating all of it to older versions of
Windows. When new laptops are introduced that no longer have an
internal optical drive, it won't be a mainstream action to install
older versions of Windows on that hardware. In addition, if USB is the
primary means of I/O, it's safe to say that it will receive more
attention than it may have received in years past. Bottom line, I'm
not seeing a cause for concern at this time.

--

Char Jackson

On 22/08/2012 07:20, Char Jackson wrote:
On Wed, 22 Aug 2012 06:39:55 +0100, choro wrote:

On 22/08/2012 05:58, Char Jackson wrote:

Yes, optical media are cheap these days, especially compared to 15
years ago when things were just getting started, but like the guy
says, they just don't have the capacity to be taken seriously these
days. Can you imagine doing regular system backups to CD or DVD, for
example? A 40 GB backup, which is pretty typical, would take nearly 60
CD's or about 10 single-layer DVD's. Both are completely impractical.

For full HD backups, yes, I agree with you. I do mine onto a 2.5" 1TB
external HD. Well actually first onto a second HD on my desktop which I
then regularly copy onto the 1TB external drive. Just in case!

Though my User Files I XXcopy onto an external drive regularly. It only
takes a couple of minutes to copy my User Files. But if you want to give
some photos to a friend or give them a copy of various pdf files or
downloads etc, they giving it to them on a CD or a DVD makes sense as it
would be too expensive to give them copies of such files on flash sticks.

I don't think it would have occurred to me to transfer files to a
friend via CD or DVD. I'm more likely to put the files online and let
the other person retrieve them at their convenience.

What if you are going to see that person later that day? And what if the
files were a few hundred JPG files that filled more than one DVD? Would
you still email the images to your friend? Recently I burnt over 2,000
images onto 3 DVDs for a friend who is, shall we say, not very savvy
with computers. And these were quite large DSLR pics. No, not RAW images
but still around 7MB each. I still say that CDs and DVDs of the
non-rewritable type are still safer to keep than on a flash stick. And
have you tried putting oveer 2,000 7 to 8 MB pics online recently? ;-)
--
choro
*****

On 8/21/2012 8:24 PM, Char Jackson wrote:
I still don't understand Paul's examples, above, of two CD's that only
boot from an internal drive. I don't think the CD has any say in the
matter, so I hope he'll revisit this thread and explain what he means.

My Alienware M9700 machines can only install XP from the internal DVD
drive. This is from the Alienware OEM XP CD. It works at first from USB
until the install reboots and then it can't find the CD in the USB
drive. The internal optical drive it continues on without problems.

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Thunderbird v12
Centrino Core2 Duo T7400 2.16 GHz - 4GB - Windows 7 SP1

On Wed, 22 Aug 2012 09:41:56 +0100, choro wrote:

On 22/08/2012 07:20, Char Jackson wrote:
On Wed, 22 Aug 2012 06:39:55 +0100, choro wrote:

On 22/08/2012 05:58, Char Jackson wrote:

Yes, optical media are cheap these days, especially compared to 15
years ago when things were just getting started, but like the guy
says, they just don't have the capacity to be taken seriously these
days. Can you imagine doing regular system backups to CD or DVD, for
example? A 40 GB backup, which is pretty typical, would take nearly 60
CD's or about 10 single-layer DVD's. Both are completely impractical.

For full HD backups, yes, I agree with you. I do mine onto a 2.5" 1TB
external HD. Well actually first onto a second HD on my desktop which I
then regularly copy onto the 1TB external drive. Just in case!

Though my User Files I XXcopy onto an external drive regularly. It only
takes a couple of minutes to copy my User Files. But if you want to give
some photos to a friend or give them a copy of various pdf files or
downloads etc, they giving it to them on a CD or a DVD makes sense as it
would be too expensive to give them copies of such files on flash sticks.

I don't think it would have occurred to me to transfer files to a
friend via CD or DVD. I'm more likely to put the files online and let
the other person retrieve them at their convenience.

What if you are going to see that person later that day? And what if the
files were a few hundred JPG files that filled more than one DVD? Would
you still email the images to your friend? Recently I burnt over 2,000
images onto 3 DVDs for a friend who is, shall we say, not very savvy
with computers. And these were quite large DSLR pics. No, not RAW images
but still around 7MB each. I still say that CDs and DVDs of the
non-rewritable type are still safer to keep than on a flash stick. And
have you tried putting oveer 2,000 7 to 8 MB pics online recently? ;-)

Once you're dealing with more than a couple of files, or even one
large file, email becomes completely inappropriate. Instead, upload
the files somewhere like Dropbox and just send the link.

About 18 months ago I got back from an 11-day vacation with over 6600
digital photos and wanted to share them with my extended family. I
uploaded them to a photo hosting site and sent the link to everyone
via email. At their leisure, they browsed the photos and downloaded
the ones they liked. It would have been a killer to try to email the
photos directly (using multiple emails!) or burning them to optical
media and mailing the results. The upload took awhile, but I didn't
have to babysit it, so it didn't matter.

--

Char Jackson

In ,
Wolf K typed:
On 22/08/2012 4:53 AM, BillW50 wrote:
On 8/21/2012 8:24 PM, Char Jackson wrote:
I still don't understand Paul's examples, above, of two CD's that
only boot from an internal drive. I don't think the CD has any say
in the matter, so I hope he'll revisit this thread and explain what
he means.

My Alienware M9700 machines can only install XP from the internal DVD
drive. This is from the Alienware OEM XP CD. It works at first from
USB until the install reboots and then it can't find the CD in the
USB drive. The internal optical drive it continues on without
problems.

I suspect the reboot code uses a path to the files needed, and that
path includes the CD drive letter instead of a variable. I see no
technical reason for not using a drive letter variable, but maybe a
better informed person can explain further.

Well those Alienware M9700 laptops have two hard drive bays. So there is
no telling what the internal optical drive letter will be anyway. And I
disabled the internal one through the BIOS so the USB optical would end
up as drive D anyway. And it still couldn't find the USB after the first
reboot. Yet it had no problems booting from the USB drive to begin with.
The problem occurs when it boots from the hard drive for the first time
and needs more files from the USB optical drive and can't find USB
drives, just internal ones.

The internal drive was bad at the time and I was going to replace it
anyway. But I decided that I would replace the internal drive after I
get Windows installed. Since that wouldn't work, I had to replace the
internal optical drive first. :-(

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - OE-QuoteFix v1.19.2
Centrino Core2 Duo T5600 1.83GHz - 4GB - Windows XP SP2

On Tue, 21 Aug 2012 16:18:32 -0400, Wolf K wrote:

On 21/08/2012 4:12 PM, wrote:
[...]


And USB sticks are coming down in price, on sale you can find them at 75
cents/GB or less. I just bought a 32GB drive for $25 plus tax. Enough
for a complete OS, the most used apps, and about 20GB of storage. Which
means you can borrow someone else's laptop, and run your own stuff
without affecting his/her installation. ;-)

$15.75 for my 32GB from Meritline, free shipping. Note: Price was a
special offer, but they make frequent offers.

On 8/22/2012 11:41 AM, BillW50 wrote:
In ,
Wolf K typed:
On 22/08/2012 4:53 AM, BillW50 wrote:
On 8/21/2012 8:24 PM, Char Jackson wrote:
I still don't understand Paul's examples, above, of two CD's that
only boot from an internal drive. I don't think the CD has any say
in the matter, so I hope he'll revisit this thread and explain what
he means.

My Alienware M9700 machines can only install XP from the internal DVD
drive. This is from the Alienware OEM XP CD. It works at first from
USB until the install reboots and then it can't find the CD in the
USB drive. The internal optical drive it continues on without
problems.

I suspect the reboot code uses a path to the files needed, and that
path includes the CD drive letter instead of a variable. I see no
technical reason for not using a drive letter variable, but maybe a
better informed person can explain further.

Well those Alienware M9700 laptops have two hard drive bays. So there is
no telling what the internal optical drive letter will be anyway. And I
disabled the internal one through the BIOS so the USB optical would end
up as drive D anyway. And it still couldn't find the USB after the first
reboot. Yet it had no problems booting from the USB drive to begin with.
The problem occurs when it boots from the hard drive for the first time
and needs more files from the USB optical drive and can't find USB
drives, just internal ones.

The internal drive was bad at the time and I was going to replace it
anyway. But I decided that I would replace the internal drive after I
get Windows installed. Since that wouldn't work, I had to replace the
internal optical drive first. :-(

I've got external USB optical and 3.5 inch floppy drives for emergency
use . They were not expensive at Micro Center.

--
Jim Silverton (Potomac, MD)

Extraneous "not" in Reply To.

On 8/22/2012 10:53 AM, James Silverton wrote:
On 8/22/2012 11:41 AM, BillW50 wrote:
In ,
Wolf K typed:
On 22/08/2012 4:53 AM, BillW50 wrote:
On 8/21/2012 8:24 PM, Char Jackson wrote:
I still don't understand Paul's examples, above, of two CD's that
only boot from an internal drive. I don't think the CD has any say
in the matter, so I hope he'll revisit this thread and explain what
he means.

My Alienware M9700 machines can only install XP from the internal DVD
drive. This is from the Alienware OEM XP CD. It works at first from
USB until the install reboots and then it can't find the CD in the
USB drive. The internal optical drive it continues on without
problems.

I suspect the reboot code uses a path to the files needed, and that
path includes the CD drive letter instead of a variable. I see no
technical reason for not using a drive letter variable, but maybe a
better informed person can explain further.

Well those Alienware M9700 laptops have two hard drive bays. So there is
no telling what the internal optical drive letter will be anyway. And I
disabled the internal one through the BIOS so the USB optical would end
up as drive D anyway. And it still couldn't find the USB after the first
reboot. Yet it had no problems booting from the USB drive to begin with.
The problem occurs when it boots from the hard drive for the first time
and needs more files from the USB optical drive and can't find USB
drives, just internal ones.

The internal drive was bad at the time and I was going to replace it
anyway. But I decided that I would replace the internal drive after I
get Windows installed. Since that wouldn't work, I had to replace the
internal optical drive first. :-(

I've got external USB optical and 3.5 inch floppy drives for emergency
use . They were not expensive at Micro Center.

I do too. But they won't work in all cases. At least not for XP anyway.
I never found a case were Windows 7 wouldn't install from an USB optical
drive yet. But that doesn't mean that nobody will.

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Thunderbird v12
Centrino Core2 Duo T5600 1.83GHz - 4GB - Windows XP SP2

On Wed, 22 Aug 2012 01:20:17 -0500, Char Jackson
wrote:

[snip]

I don't think it would have occurred to me to transfer files to a
friend via CD or DVD. I'm more likely to put the files online and let
the other person retrieve them at their convenience.

CD/DVD for data transfer is just a modern update of "Never
underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling
down the highway." -- Tanenbaum, Andrew S. (1996). Computer Networks.
New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. p. 83. ISBN 0-13-349945-6.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sneakernet for more examples.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

On 8/22/2012 11:58 AM, BillW50 wrote:
On 8/22/2012 10:53 AM, James Silverton wrote:
On 8/22/2012 11:41 AM, BillW50 wrote:
In ,
Wolf K typed:
On 22/08/2012 4:53 AM, BillW50 wrote:
On 8/21/2012 8:24 PM, Char Jackson wrote:
I still don't understand Paul's examples, above, of two CD's that
only boot from an internal drive. I don't think the CD has any say
in the matter, so I hope he'll revisit this thread and explain what
he means.

My Alienware M9700 machines can only install XP from the internal DVD
drive. This is from the Alienware OEM XP CD. It works at first from
USB until the install reboots and then it can't find the CD in the
USB drive. The internal optical drive it continues on without
problems.

I suspect the reboot code uses a path to the files needed, and that
path includes the CD drive letter instead of a variable. I see no
technical reason for not using a drive letter variable, but maybe a
better informed person can explain further.

Well those Alienware M9700 laptops have two hard drive bays. So there is
no telling what the internal optical drive letter will be anyway. And I
disabled the internal one through the BIOS so the USB optical would end
up as drive D anyway. And it still couldn't find the USB after the first
reboot. Yet it had no problems booting from the USB drive to begin with.
The problem occurs when it boots from the hard drive for the first time
and needs more files from the USB optical drive and can't find USB
drives, just internal ones.

The internal drive was bad at the time and I was going to replace it
anyway. But I decided that I would replace the internal drive after I
get Windows installed. Since that wouldn't work, I had to replace the
internal optical drive first. :-(

I've got external USB optical and 3.5 inch floppy drives for emergency
use . They were not expensive at Micro Center.

I do too. But they won't work in all cases. At least not for XP anyway.
I never found a case were Windows 7 wouldn't install from an USB optical
drive yet. But that doesn't mean that nobody will.

My small lap-top does not have a built-in CD drive but runs XP without
problems. I suppose I might consider using W7 but I think that unlikely.

My workaday machine does not have any floppy drives and that's why I
have the floppy reader. Are there such things as plugin-in USB 5 inch
floppy drives? I've still got my old desk top that I can get to run and
read 3.5 inch floppies but I will probably dispose of it soon. It does
have a ZIP-disc slot but I think I've gotten all the essential files.

For file transfer to others, I send them as e-mail attachments or use a
memory stick.

--
Jim Silverton (Potomac, MD)

Extraneous "not" in Reply To.