Hew Jampton
28th Feb 2003, 14:11
Major problem with the PC last week, with it frequently going to 'blue screen of death' (Enter and C+A+D then not working), or the PC otherwise freezing up; in every case having to switch the PC off then on to get it to restart. Scandisk then cut in because of the abnormal switch-off but Scandisk itself froze.
Using Windows Me Troubleshooter, I tried System Restore (Win Me), restore registry and Norton Utilities, all to no avail. Eventually I had to reformat the drive and reinstall Windows, thus losing a lot of information because, although I'd backed up most of my data etc using Backup, it seems there's some form of limit to how much can be restored from Backup (floppies).
The only recent change to the PC was to install WinMx mp3 sharing program. Putting 'WinMx' and 'scandisk' into Google results in a lot of results where people seem to have had problems.
Can WinMx cause this problem or is its recent installation a coincidence?
A caution for others who might have to reinstall Windows etc: I had backed up my OE6 inbox, sent items etc but after reinstalling Windows and OE6 I had to recreate our four email identities from scratch. These identities are filed under long alphanumeric string file names that are generated almost at random by OE6. When I tried to restore the original inboxes etc from backup it didn't put the data into the appropriate new identities but into four additional 'old' ones, using the 'old' alpha file names that I can't access. If I try to open the old inboxes (dbx files) with OE6 it isn't possible to change identities to the old ones. Perhaps it would have worked if I'd done the restore before recreating the identities.
Last question (I hope): before reinstalling Windows I made a set of 15 floppies using Backup with no problems. However I can't use all these 15 floppies in Restore because it seems that there's some form of limit to how many files or how much data can be used. I initially thought that it was a mechanical problem with one particular floppy in the set but now I don't think so. Is there such a limit to Backup's restore facility that isn't apparent at the backup stage? Is there any other backup program that can read QIC compressed backup floppies? I see that there are half a dozen or so freeware backup programs available but which of them uses QIC?
Using Windows Me Troubleshooter, I tried System Restore (Win Me), restore registry and Norton Utilities, all to no avail. Eventually I had to reformat the drive and reinstall Windows, thus losing a lot of information because, although I'd backed up most of my data etc using Backup, it seems there's some form of limit to how much can be restored from Backup (floppies).
The only recent change to the PC was to install WinMx mp3 sharing program. Putting 'WinMx' and 'scandisk' into Google results in a lot of results where people seem to have had problems.
Can WinMx cause this problem or is its recent installation a coincidence?
A caution for others who might have to reinstall Windows etc: I had backed up my OE6 inbox, sent items etc but after reinstalling Windows and OE6 I had to recreate our four email identities from scratch. These identities are filed under long alphanumeric string file names that are generated almost at random by OE6. When I tried to restore the original inboxes etc from backup it didn't put the data into the appropriate new identities but into four additional 'old' ones, using the 'old' alpha file names that I can't access. If I try to open the old inboxes (dbx files) with OE6 it isn't possible to change identities to the old ones. Perhaps it would have worked if I'd done the restore before recreating the identities.
Last question (I hope): before reinstalling Windows I made a set of 15 floppies using Backup with no problems. However I can't use all these 15 floppies in Restore because it seems that there's some form of limit to how many files or how much data can be used. I initially thought that it was a mechanical problem with one particular floppy in the set but now I don't think so. Is there such a limit to Backup's restore facility that isn't apparent at the backup stage? Is there any other backup program that can read QIC compressed backup floppies? I see that there are half a dozen or so freeware backup programs available but which of them uses QIC?