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4826

General Software Discussion / Re: Just discovered a HUGE annoyance in Windows 7

« Last post by 4wd on January 17, 2010, 08:27 PM »

Well, running the same hardware and Outpost Security Suite on both XP and Win7 - XP was faster to connect here.

4827

General Software Discussion / Re: Just discovered a HUGE annoyance in Windows 7

« Last post by 4wd on January 17, 2010, 07:20 PM »

4wd - not my experience. Restarting and network connections seem to be fast on my system than XP or Vista

-Carol Haynes (January 17, 2010, 07:13 PM)

Maybe your controller ignores the order to spin down the HDDs and you're running Win7's firewall?

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General Software Discussion / Re: Just discovered a HUGE annoyance in Windows 7

« Last post by 4wd on January 17, 2010, 07:07 PM »

You can now "pin" applications to the taskbar - this is supposed to replace the Quick Launch bar, whatever. Obviously no-one at MS has ever seen True Launch Bar, or they would know how to do it right.

-tranglos (January 17, 2010, 05:53 PM)

That lasted about 90 minutes before all the crappy pinned stuff was removed, (just long enough to do a Google to fix it and install some basic apps to replace them), and the Quick Launch was reinstated.

Some more annoyances with Win7 I've found:
It is the slowest of all Windows versions to do a simple Restart.
Why?  Because it insists in turning off the HDDs before doing it, so upon rebooting the HDDs spin up one by one as the controller addresses/identifies them.  It takes about 2 to 3 times longer to do a Restart than an initial system boot.
Can't Microsoft tell the difference between a Restart and a Shutdown?

And this might be subjective but Win7 seems to be slower at connecting to a network at boot than XP ever was.  Win7 actually defaults to an APIPA IP before finally getting a DHCP assigned IP, something XP never did at boot.

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Living Room / Re: Need NAS Enclosure recommendation

« Last post by 4wd on January 16, 2010, 01:43 AM »

I've had great luck with it in the past even with the old origional 10-14Mb units.

-Stoic Joker (January 15, 2010, 10:32 PM)

What kind of throughput did you get?

I'm thinking of replacing the only WiFi linked computer with a pair of HomePlug units.

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Living Room / Re: Need NAS Enclosure recommendation

« Last post by 4wd on January 15, 2010, 06:52 PM »

If you have a few WiFi based devices/computers it would probably be better to upgrade the router, (the Netgear WNR3500L I mention above or similar), that way you'll get an all-round higher throughput, assuming of course that you upgrade the WiFi devices to 802.11n also, plus by plugging in the USB HDD, an easy NAS solution.

The difference in price between the Addonics NAS Adapter V2 and the Netgear WNR3500L is ~EU$70, (EU$41 vs EU$110 ex. any shipping and ripoff).  Then your limiting factor will be the 802.11b/g in the rest of the WLAN.

If you only have one WiFi device then perhaps a pair of HomePlug units, (at least the 85Mbps versions), might be suitable to increase throughput between it and the router, (assuming suitable electrical house wiring of course), the price of them has been progressively dropping and the 85Mbps units will be cheaper than the HomePlug AV 200Mbps versions.
Even if the routers USB port is v1.1 you should be able to get at least 1MBps throughput via the HomePlug units.

Of course, for the cost of these adapters, (and a bit of exercise), you could also buy a fair amount of CAT5 cable and get some real speed

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Living Room / Re: Need NAS Enclosure recommendation

« Last post by 4wd on January 14, 2010, 07:19 PM »

Just as a matter of interest, (and to better understand what you're trying to achieve), what's the WLAN based devices used for?

ie. Do you want to stream data from the USB HDD to a media player, use it for data backup for your computers, both, etc, etc.

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Living Room / Re: Need NAS Enclosure recommendation

« Last post by 4wd on January 14, 2010, 06:21 AM »

G+, (if you can get a reliable connection), should be about the same as 100Mb LAN.

But I've found that even with an apparently rock solid 54Mbps link, (at a distance of 700mm), I rarely get more than about 500kBps.

AFAIAC, WLAN speeds are in the same category as statistics - 80% BS 

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Living Room / Re: Need NAS Enclosure recommendation

« Last post by 4wd on January 14, 2010, 06:05 AM »

If you want to upgrade your whole router and get access to the USB HDD also, check out the new NetGear WNR3500L.

Open Source firmware, Gigabit wired, 802.11n WLAN and USB port to plug in external storage.

Just had a quick search, they're ~AU$173 - mmmmm, tempting.

With my current USB port (on the router), I reach about 300 KB/s.  
(Via WLAN.)

-Tuxman (January 14, 2010, 05:55 AM)

Naturally, you'll still only get 300kBps transferring by WLAN - it'd be quicker to transfer by flash drive  

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Living Room / Re: Need NAS Enclosure recommendation

« Last post by 4wd on January 14, 2010, 05:52 AM »

Now these NAS adapters need to be attached to my router anyway... so we're back on USB 1.1 then, right?

-Tuxman (January 14, 2010, 05:32 AM)

The adapter plugs into the 100Mbps network and your USB2.0 HDD plugs into it - so let's be generous and say you'll get around 8MB/s read/write to the drive.

USB1.1 is 12Mbps, so you'll get approx. 7 times USB1.1 data rate, (after overheads).

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Living Room / Re: Need NAS Enclosure recommendation

« Last post by 4wd on January 14, 2010, 05:23 AM »

What would be the cheapest way to bring the HD with USB 2.0 into my network? Is there some "USB hard disk to WLAN adapter", or should I upgrade my router?

-Tuxman (January 14, 2010, 04:55 AM)

How about US$50?

Addonics NAS adapter.


Or, if you want Gb then Addonics NAS Adapter V2 for US$60.


Or, a Linksys NSLU2.


With the NSLU2 there are alternative firmwares available, see References section in Wikipedia^w.

There's also the Hitachi SimpleNET adapter for US$68 on Amazon, (which looks like the Addonics NAS Adapter V2).

4836

Living Room / Re: Something on computer is fubar

« Last post by 4wd on January 13, 2010, 06:46 PM »

Just wondering, possibly a interrupt clash?

Or the slot it's plugged into is sharing interrupts with another card?

Maybe try another slot if you want to keep it otherwise just dump it since, as f0dder has said, onboard audio has come a long way and unless you have really good hearing, (or need the features), you probably wouldn't know the difference.

Good to find the problem though.

4837

Living Room / Re: Something on computer is fubar

« Last post by 4wd on January 10, 2010, 08:29 PM »

AFAIK there hasn't been such a thing as "low-level format" after MFM drives were phased out... tools claiming to do "low-level format" usually just overwrite every sector with zeroes.

-f0dder (January 10, 2010, 08:12 PM)

Actually, I thought current HDDs, (as in after MFM like you said), just ignored the command completely - didn't know about the sector zeroing but if it works I'm all for it

4838

General Software Discussion / Re: JumpTo v1.1

« Last post by 4wd on January 10, 2010, 08:21 PM »

Hey!  Your site name is suspiciously similar to my own Apathyware license, (created way back in my Amiga days, circa 1992/3).  

I'm gonna sue for copyright infringement.



Then again, do I care?  

4839

Living Room / Re: Netbooks, Portable Applications, and USB/SDHC Flash Drives.

« Last post by 4wd on January 10, 2010, 05:37 PM »

The main reason for all of this is that I want to avoid the scenario of having my documents lost/stolen with the netbook as well as the ability to easily ship it off for repair if need be.

-tinjaw (January 10, 2010, 04:19 PM)

If you concerned about them being on your netbook when it goes missing, the same should apply for a flash drive or SDHC card, (which are even easier to misplace).

Keep the online storage option but change the removable to something like the IronKey Flash drive.   Or possibly Truecrypt the entire flash drive for something a fair bit cheaper.

4840

Living Room / Re: Something on computer is fubar

« Last post by 4wd on January 10, 2010, 04:10 AM »

However if you're out of guarantee and want to remap or discard the broken sectors, would you mind telling how the drive behaves afterwards?

-Shades (January 09, 2010, 11:14 PM)

I decided to go with the Low Level Format tool at HDDGuru first rather than diving straight in with MHDD.

At the moment the results seem positive, transferring files to it at about 70-90MB/s.

Interesting to note that S.M.A.R.T. doesn't show any indication of sectors being remapped.  So at the moment I'll let it run with volatile data to see how it goes.

As I said, the drive is only around 3 months old so I'm making a guess that possibly the Conficker virus I caught might have glitched it since the two events were coincident.

EDIT: Over 500GB copied to it and it's still working OK.

@nite_monkey: This may help, (or not), determine if the problem is a specific drive.  Open up the Resource Monitor and switch to the Disk tab, in the Disk Activity pane on the left is a column called Response Time.
With that open, start copying files on both drives but only to the same physical drive. eg. If the whole of one drive is C: and the other is E:, then start copy files from C: -> C: and E: -> E:

I found that the response time for one drive would blow out to 3+ seconds when the system would apparently "freeze", (obviously it was hitting bad sectors at this point), whereas other drives would still have significantly lower response times, (unless the transaction also involved the faulty drive).

It helps if you can minimise OS writes during the test period, eg. disable Pagefile if you have enough memory, stop the indexing service, etc, etc.

4841

Living Room / Re: Something on computer is fubar

« Last post by 4wd on January 09, 2010, 08:50 PM »

Well, I have to say that as far as I can remember this is actually the first HDD I've had go faulty on any machine I've had, including my old Amigas - guess my luck had to run out sometime.  Usually I've upgraded the HDD before the old one has reached its 'your screwed' date.

I plugged it into a PCIe SI-3132 card and while it didn't cause the computer to freeze, the transfer rate dropped to <100kB/s during copying - so it's hitting bad blocks somewhere.

I'm just intrigued they aren't being mapped out.  Wish WDs utility had a low level format option.

EDIT: S.M.A.R.T.s Remapped Sectors Count doesn't indicate anything wrong - maybe I'll have a play with MHDD on it.

4842

Living Room / Re: Something on computer is fubar

« Last post by 4wd on January 09, 2010, 11:01 AM »

Well, after error checking the the two WDs using their own tool they both reported as being OK, (a few hours later).

So, both HDDs then got full formatted, (not quick formatted), and Win7HP installed on the WD 640 no problems until..............I plugged the WD 1TB, (newly mindwiped), back in and started copying things to it.

The freezes returned, so out came the 1TB and the system began behaving normally.

So, even after a few formats, error checking, etc, etc which all reported OK, the drive has some bad blocks somewhere, possibly the firmware has gone buggy or it just may be a firmware incompatibility with the new motherboard.

Bit annoying, now to dig out a receipt and see who I got it from since it's only about 3 months old.

4843

General Software Discussion / Re: Very scary! I just completely lost a bunch of files [FALSE ALARM!]

« Last post by 4wd on January 07, 2010, 06:53 PM »

Ah, then you could have entered ch: and seen all changes in the last hour, (providing you're using a later alpha version of course).

4844

General Software Discussion / Re: 'Everything' is one FAST file search engine

« Last post by 4wd on January 07, 2010, 06:05 PM »

Alpha version Everything 1.2.1.451a released

Changes:

• improved searching for folders by up to 20 times faster.
• fixed unrecognized included volumes in the options window.
• fixed an issue with the volume monitors not releasing handles when safely remove device requested to unmount a volume.
• fixed a display issue with new recently change dates/times.
• fixed a crash when sorting by size then second sorting by recent changes.

Hopefully I won't have to kill it occasionally when unplugging SATA drives now. 

4845

General Software Discussion / Re: Very scary! I just completely lost a bunch of files [FALSE ALARM!]

« Last post by 4wd on January 07, 2010, 04:32 PM »

Actually, when I was initially writing my post the very first line I had was:

"And you've search your entire system?"

But then I removed it because it seemed like I would have been stating the very obvious.

4846

General Software Discussion / Re: Very scary! I just completely lost a bunch of files

« Last post by 4wd on January 07, 2010, 12:32 AM »

Use some file recovery software and scan the drive for them.

The main thing is DO NOT ALLOW any more write operations on the drive in question.

If this happens to be the default system drive then your chances of recovering the files in their entirety have plummeted a fair bit - a very good reason why you don't keep your data on the system partition/drive.

eg. Recuva - download the portable build and extract it to a flash drive and then run.  Recover to a separate drive, (not the one you're recovering from).
     PhotoRec - very good also.

If it was your system drive they were on, turn off the computer, go to another computer and download UBCD4Win CD ISO, burn it and then boot your computer off of it and use the file recovery tools on it to scan for them.

EDIT: I should mention that depending on the size of the drive/partition this could take a very long time - I've spent 4+ hours waiting for a scan of a drive before the software presented a list of files that could be recovered.

Oh yeah, and the obvious recovery method - restore from the backup you had

4847

Living Room / Re: Nch Software

« Last post by 4wd on January 06, 2010, 06:59 PM »

I've only used their WavePad Audio Editor, (IIRC, they had a free version but I can't seem to find it - maybe it's the default if you don't purchase), so my experience is limited to:

1) Installed it, saying No to any optional extras.
2) It installed a load of extra shortcuts for their software - that's OK, it put them all under one menu item, not spread all over the place.
3) Copy WavePad Audio Editor executable elsewhere and uninstall it - it works fine as a portable app, (even though I don't use it anymore).

I've never received any email from them in over 12+ months.

Anyway, not what you probably want to hear but just my limited dealings with them.

4848

Living Room / Re: Something on computer is fubar

« Last post by 4wd on January 06, 2010, 06:33 PM »

I completely pulled apart, (CPU, RAM, HDD, motherboard, PSU - everything), and rebuilt the computer from scratch removing any contamination, (dust, etc), as I went - made no change.

My drives consist of: 2 Samsung 1TB, WD 640, WD 750 and WD 1TB.

I found this thread which describes a problem similar to what I'm experiencing, (except I don't get any noises from the drives).

So, having added a Seagate 1.5TB so I could get the data off of my HDDs, I thought I'd give it a try - low level format every drive in turn using the appropriate manufacturers util.

Watching Win7s' Resource Monitor Disk Activity, I see when it happens that the Response Time blows out to 1-3 seconds on access on only 2 of my HDDs, (WD 640 and WD 1TB), even though another HDD is in use, (Samsung 1TB), it's access times are normal.  The WD 640 just happens to be my system drive and the WD 1TB is where the portable apps I use are located - so I think those two are next for the low level format.

Maybe that's why I see it most when using Firefox, all that caching of small files just happens to make it more likely to hit a defect on a HDD.

Maybe something to try if you have somewhere to shift data to - took 4.5 hours to low level format one of the Samsungs.

4849

General Software Discussion / Re: "God Mode" in Win7? (All Tasks)

« Last post by 4wd on January 05, 2010, 05:41 AM »

Worked fine on the Desktop for me (Win7 x64)

-Stoic Joker (January 05, 2010, 05:36 AM)

Oopss!, I think I just cut'n'paste from zaines original post that had the extra space, I then did it into C:\ but used the text from the website.

My bad.

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General Software Discussion / Re: "God Mode" in Win7? (All Tasks)

« Last post by 4wd on January 05, 2010, 04:40 AM »

Didn't work if I did it on the Desktop but did if I created it in C:\.

EDIT: It does work on Desktop.