Another reason to avoid Windows XP and Microsoft utterly

[Deja Q]

FOr about three months, my video capture computer has been powered off, totally unused.

It has two hard drives: 40GB and 160GB.

The system was fine 3 months ago.

Today, I powered up the system as I want to record a show.

The whole 160GB drive was seen as corrupt by WinXP, 0 bytes free! (the 40GB drive is free)

I rebooted the system.

XP ran chkdsk and wiped out two of my captured video files. I don't trust what's left on the drive, but that's okay because I've all that backed up.

XP has SP1 installed. I am using NTFS.

I'd expect this sort of crap from prior versions of Windows, but not XP using NTFS.

And to think, Microsoft is working on a file system based on relational database technology (WinFS). :scared: So far, it is the buggiest aspect of the new Windows release in 2006. http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,1368390,00.asp?kc=ETRSS02129TX1K0000532 for more on the new Windows version, which will probably destroy Microsoft ( :party: ) but kill the PC industry as well. x(

Oh, the system is virus-free. :D

[henslee]

1. never wanted xp, repair guy installed it..it is shithouse/pain in ass/eom

[MrSoundAndVision]

2. ok hypno

You're having a bad compuday. First the sound card now this! My advice is that it is entirely XP...don't assume the data is gone.

And go with some newer flavor of Linux. It's often hell at first, but once you get the hardware compatibility situation square, you'll love all of the things you can do. And it runs soooo smoothly, there is no need ever to turn it off, at least, for years anyway, XP wants to be turned off every month at the most.

Go Red Hat, or Suse.

[Deja Q]

4. I wish Linux supported my video capture card...

It's a high-end $800 card (Pinnacle DV500+). WinTV is crap by comparison, as is the integrated video capture on my video card - they're okay if you're not a quality freak, but guess what? :evilgrin:

I'm using SuSE Linux 8.2 Pro on my computer with the popping sound card. Am considering Mandrake 9.2 Powerpack and I'm getting SuSE 9.0 Pro as well (at a low price, thanks to ebay).

Oh, I'd use Linux on all my computers if it weren't for my video capture need.

Once there are color printer drivers for my Epson Stylus Photo 2200, you bet I'll have another reason to switch for good.

[JaySherman]

3. Suggestion for next time

Always install Windows on its own partition, separate from any other data or programs (if possible). That way in the not unlikely event that Windows crashes, a reinstall won't wipe everything, just what's on the Windows resident partition. Just make sure you backup the registry too, otherwise you'll end up having to reinstall many of your progs anyway.

FYI, for older Windows a 5GB part is enough, but for XP I recommend at least 10GB, as the Updates use up ALOT of disk space. M$ never tells you that. And it's quite easy to miss until one day you're getting a "low disk space" warning from the Windows part and wondering why when you have nothing else installed on there.

And if you haven't already, get your hands on a copy of PartitionMagic. It's a wonderful program that allows you to partition from Windows without losing data.

Just a suggestion. Hope this helps.

[Deja Q]

6. Already a step ahead, but I appreciate the suggestions!

I have 2 hard drives. XP OS and apps is on the 40GB hard drive (C:). The 160GB HD (D:) is exclusively for the video. (I do keep the swap file on the C: Drive though... but with 1GB of physical RAM, I doubt I use it that much.)

The video I capture is 7.5GB per 1/2 hour. I need large partitions.

I alsao gave up diddling with multiple partitions ages ago, a while after I ditched OS/2... Lots of effort that can lead to big problems...

I appreciate the sentiment though! :D

As for PartitionMagic... versions 5 and 6, every time I tried to resize an NTFS partition (on my own system or others) I'd corrupt the volume (this was pre-XP, of course, also back when I did multiple partitions...). And I did defrag beforehand. (which is a MUST if partitions are to be resized!) FAT/FAT32 partitions always worked, even without defragging. But who wants FAT/FAT32 when Microsoft hypes up NTFS as being non-fragmenable, reliable, stable, et cetera? :D

[JaySherman]

9. I have 7.0 and 8.0

I believe it warns against resizing NTFS parts, specifically OS resident parts. I always choose create a new partition instead. This has always worked fine, without any corruption or problems. Don't know about the earlier versions though.

[Liberal Veteran]

5. Danger! Danger! Do NOT use a partition larger than 137G on WinXP

It will result in corruption.

If you have a drive larger than 137G always divide it into multiple partitions.

This is a known problem (well obviously not too well known since I did not know about this until last week when I bought a 200gb HD that would only show as 137gb in fdisk and did some research about it).

[Deja Q]

7. Bingo! Though it is possible to 'beat the barrier' with chicanery

You must have an ATA133 interface or that whatchamacallit software that lets Windows 'see' the hard drive as being >137GB in order to use it all in one partition. I think WinXP needed updated drivers as well... it's been forever since I'd set the drive up...

What's weird is, I had this computer running for a few months without any problem. How could this small unpowered hiatus wipe out the drive?!

However, thinking it was okay to use the whatchamacallit at the time, I implemented it before partitioning. Still, nothing is guaranteed and I shouldn't have slacked off... :D

[Liberal Veteran]

8. Yes, you can beat it, but I I wouldn't recommend it....

I don't trust any kind of kludge designed to get around the inherent limitations of the OS. Like back in the bad old days of Win98 I knew far too many people who lost all their data because of EZ-Bios which got them around the 2gig limit of FAT16. I haven't trusted anything like that since.

I ended up with 2 100 gig partitions.

Of course I had to buy a new one this week because my entire hard drive went south. It would literally lock up trying to format, partition, or read from it and I lost everything. I think one of the platters went bad.

[billbuckhead]

10. I switched one of my valued associates to Mac OS X a year ago.

Last week he said his entry level iBook was the best computer he ever used. I'll update him to Panther for Christmas.

[Deja Q]

11. LOL!

Let's see: New Macintosh whose power is eqivalent to mine: Let's say $2000 even though the CPU might be better and the video card power being identical, but will come with 1/4 the amount of RAM I have, less than 1/2 the disk space... I'd need a new video capture card too... And Mac versions of all my expensive Adobe software... let's make the price $4000 then. Maybe add another $200 or so to up the RAM and HD space...

Linux OS distro that works on my existing hardware (barring capture card, for now): $70. It comes with a full video editor (MainActor) too.

OS X isn't bad, but having heard from a Mac user that upgrading rom 512MB to 1GB RAM improved performance (even WinXP isn't so sloppy it needs 1GB of RAM to run better) and that, CPU aside, a PC can be had with more powerful/greater-quantity components for less money, I'm sticking with the PC. A top of the line dual-G5 Mac should not cost $3000 unless it has 1GB of RAM and a Radeon 9800 video card (it's got 512MB RAM and a puny Radeon 9600. Where's the SCSI, too?!) If people need the power, go all out with it and make the price worth it. Don't cut corners for the consumer, Apple...

[soothsayer]

12. i can't get stupid XP to let me log onto compuserve

ok, i hate AOL and I know they bought compuserve but jeez i've had it for 10 or more years, and apparently i'm a creature of habit. All i want is to be able to get my email on my shiny new computer, but noooooo. It won't even let me get it from outlook express---keeps saying invalid password or user name, but it's the same stuff i put in on THIS old laptop, so what is the beef???

I blame evil xp.