Rebuild - Bah Humbug!

[jdhurst]

So it finally happened. My IBM Desktop NetVista has been running for about 32 months non-stop on one build. It has seen a plethora of changes since the start - several versions of VMware, several versions of Safe Net Netscreen, several versions of BlackIce and then a change to Symantec Client Security and several of those, Office XP and thence to Office 2003, several versions of WS_FTP and so on. Some of these (VMware and Safe Net) play in the network card(s) protocols which is deep into the OS.

For whatever reason, the network protocols broke and the machine became unstable. Try as I might (for about a day), I could not fix it. Further, the main hard drive was seeming small nowadays, so a rebuild (bah humbug!) was now in order. I got a new 100Gb drive and where I had 40Gb main and 80Gb secondary, I now have an 80Gb main and a 100Gb secondary. I wanted "basic" drives (not dynamic) so a 200Gb was out of the question (I tried one and could to configure as "dynamic" which is useless).

Some things I noticed along the way:
1. The 80Gb was set for PIO and was slow. I could not fix this. The new config shows the 100GB as Ultra DMA Mode 5.
2. The defective machine could not recognize the new large drive properly (no driver). The rebuild recognizes it just fine and the drive is very fast.
3. The network card protocol issue got resolved.
4. Other niggling issues (none serious) have also been resolved.
5. I used my recovery CD's and I had to do it twice. I have noticed in past that recovery CD's don't always work the same way twice in row, and this was no exception.

The first time, only two CD's were used, Windows started, and said it needed activating. This *never* happens on a proper load. I shut down, and on restart, the rest of the CD's were used, but there were errors. In addition, there was no F11 recovery function.

The second time, all four CD's were used, the F11 recovery function returned and the machine is working fine. Patience is a virtue where recovery CD's are involved.

5. Speed: Once the initial build was complete (Windows, Office, Tools, VMWare, Netscreen and Symantec), the machine is no faster or no slower that the 30-month build just before it failed. This is a point I have made before when I have noted that proper maintenance will keep a machine running fast.

6. Cause: I noticed that my internet was going out at the same time the network drivers failed. Did the cable modem cause a failure, or did the broken machine cause the cable modem to quit. Both failed, but should not really affect each other. So I badgered Rogers into supplying a new modem. I went from a "no-name" modem to a Motorola modem. Rogers was upset at replacing it, but I was able to convince them. The new modem is also working fine. Speed is about 3.3Mbits down.

So, while I really hate to rebuild my own computers (time well wasted), the results were truly worth it in that all the errors I knew about have been fixed. For 29 of the first 30 months, there were no serious errors but the niggling bits have also cleared up.

This desktop will be good now until Vista becomes a reality (probably still a year away) and then it will be an excellent spare.
... JD Hurst

[K0LO]

jd:

Watch your 80 GB drive carefully. The last time something like that happened to me it was a harbinger of things to come.

When one of my machines started acting strangely slow, I noted that the main HDD had switched from UDMA5 to PIO. To fix, I deleted the device in Device Manager, rebooted, and it then correctly recognized that the drive was to be UDMA5.

However, upon later reading I found that Windows will automatically "downshift" a drive's transfer rate whenever it starts encountering read errors. It keeps downshifting until the read process is stable.

A couple of months later the drive failed.

Check your drive carefully!

[jdhurst]

Thank you for that advice. The 80Gb drive is a Maxtor which has been humming along quietly without errors for over 2 years now. I fdisk'd it, formatted it, made it my main drive and reloaded Windows. I hope I will not have problems, but I printed this thread to keep with my notes. Thanks again. ... JD Hurst