hansolo77

Sounds like everything we agreed on. Good work, like where it's all going.

All I ever backed up with WHS was my OS drive. I figured that would be the one you need to restore anyway. Stuff like the games are on their own dedicated drive. If I lose them, I'm hosed; they're on a 1tb drive and I ain't buying another 1tb drive just to have a backup. What I did for that is keep a DVD with all the roms and emulators. The artwork I can live without since they're easily obtainable now through emumovies. My other drive in the computer is just a temporary holding/storage drive where I put stuff like DVD's, things like software install files I've downloaded but not moved to the server, pictures from my camera I've not moved the server, etc. Nothing I can't live without should THAT drive die. The biggest thing to me to lose is the OS drive and of course that's the one that goes (by my own error). Once I get this fully up and running again, I really need to find a good backup utility that can do automated scheduled backups to a specified location, and won't require anything special other than knowing where to locate those files. With the whole WHS setup, the disk needs to be able to access the server in a pre-defined network setup, and any customizations will stop it working. Renaming the server broke it. Having a locked password protected router broke it. I even think I may have changed the workgroup name (It's WORKGROUP now, but I think it's supposed to be Workgroup). I'm still hoping somebody from Microsoft Support will see my thread and offer the solution I need. If not, I'm going to have to find another solution. I don't mind reinstalling Windows before I can access the backup from the server. I just need to have some way to restore FROM that location that isn't simply copying files one by one. In other news.. here's a progress report.. I've been trying to install drivers and what not, and updating program paths in the mean while. I've hit a major snag though and I'm REALLY upset about it. My tuner cards seem to be messed up. I never did anything like uninstall them from the mobo or unplug the cables, but for some reason all my channels are coming up with static. I mean 90% covered or so, they're still showing SOMETHING beneath it all, but it's completely unwatchable. The audio is fine though, so it's not like it's interference. I think it's the drivers, but I've tried fixing that. First Windows used their own drivers. Then I installed the ones I had backed up on the server ON TOP of them. After that was when I first tried to use the tuners. So I backtracked, uninstalled the drivers and put checks in the boxes to delete all software on the computer related to them. After rebooting, I let Windows install the drivers again. Before doing anything else, I checked the tuners, and they're still showing static. So I did the whole uninstall and reboot again. This time I disabled the automatic driver install and installed only the ones I had backed up on the server. Wouldn't you know? They STILL have static. Something is messed up somewhere. This is another reason I hope Microsoft can come through with a restore solution for me. There must have been some trick or something I did YEARS ago that fixed this problem, but I can't remember. Anybody have any suggestions?

Sounds interesting. I don't want to be the first to post in the new forum though, so I'll just reply here. Man a dedicated pinball front end huh? Now I really REALLY want to build a pinball cabinet. More than a MAME cabinet I think. As it stands right now though, I have a huge problem with my pinball setup with just the tables themselves. I've got so many tables and versions of tables, and misplaced extras and everything, it's such a headache I don't want to even mess with it. I would definitely dedicate some time to doing it right if I had a decent setup like standalone pinball cab. Can we see some graphics or a video in action?

Uhg this is torture! I can't do a restore from the WHS. Nobody over at Microsoft has given me any pointers. I was able to access the files though and started copying them over yesterday. That's a joke. Almost all of the files require permission to copy, and apparently they need more than administrative permissions. So I was able to copy a lot of the programs and stuff, just not things in the /windows/ path. The bad part now is that whenever I try to LAUNCH a program, it says it can't be found, or files are missing. So I have to, once again, download and reinstall those programs manually. Some of the programs seem to be all inclusive though without depending on files scattered elsewhere. But I have a feeling a lot of my emulator stuff is going to require manual reinstalls. I just hope the settings I've made stick and they just need files reassociated in the registry. The other bad part is that even though the files exist in the /program files/ path, I can't launch them because their shortcuts don't exist in the start menu! So I have to install those again too, or just remake shortcuts. It's going to be a long trip, but at least I'm back up and running. I'm able to get back into the GameEx community at least and not have to rely on my dad's computer or my kindle. Anybody had any opportunity to do some quick research for me on alternative backup methods? I mean, you don't HAVE to, and I certainly don't want to push off the work for somebody else to do. I'm just curious if anybody has any methods that work(ed) well from them.

I dunno.. sounds kinda fishy.. lol it's cool. I did that on another game we haven't been playing. My true initials are AML, but I started using HAN so you guys will know it's me. No biggie. I'll update the OP! And the whole HAN thing is actually kinda fun. I can picture in a future Star Wars movie the main character going into the Mos Eisley cantina and seeing a Star Wars arcade game there, and if you pause the movie at just the right frame, you can see that all the high scores were set by a mysterious stranger named HAN that nobody can beat. EDIT -> And with that score, rtkiii takes the lead!

Nice. I was lucky when I hit my +100k. I had an extra ship still when I was around 80k. I'll update the OP now!

LOL! Not true, I could always see that and the admin forum.. I just couldn't access it, it prompts for a password. But it is weird that only admins/mods can have 3-way PM's... can you add an additional person after the PM thread has started perhaps? It lists the people participating on the left hand side. Maybe you can't START a 3-way, but can add a 3rd after the thread has started?

That would be a nice feature to have. I don't know anything about programming and stuff though, so somebody else will have to do all the work and then make a super dumb explanation on how it all works.

Could be, I have the same options at GC and I'm an elite (bragging status only really, no power except access to the private VIP forum).

Yeah I'm really surprised that the software doesn't work as advertised. It's supposed to be a simple thing.. boot up off the restore CD on the computer you're going to restore, connect network cables, connect to server, select most recent (or any other) backup, execute, an hour or so later come back to a fully working computer like you never left it. Unfortunately in my case, it gets stuck at the "connect to server" part. I wonder if there are any other alternatives that might work better? Like, if there's a backup program out there that will do an automatic (on schedule) backup with incremental updates, that you can choose to save the backup on another computer, and actually have the restore CD detect the computer for the recovery? If not, I might have to invest in another drive for backup purposes only. I hate having to go through this reinstall stuff. It only took like 15-20 minutes to install Windows 7 but it's taken probably 4 hours to download and install the updates! I haven't even started reinstalling programs yet. So yeah, if anybody knows of a good backup utility that can do what I need, speak up!

Well the problem is that the WHS backups are locked up archives, you can't just access the files directly. If it were that simple I would have connected the drive directly to the WHS and copied the files straight over. But since they're archived, you can only access the files after WHS extracts them to a temporary mapped network folder. Once you turn off the computer, the network share is gone and all your extracted files too. I wish there was some other way to do this. What I'm definately going to invest some time into after this is all done is getting a decent utility that makes backups that I can access. I had used Acronis True Image at one point. But that was before I upgraded Vista to 7. I made a complete backup image on 5 dvd's of my system drive. So if 7 didn't work it could directly restore everything exactly how it was before. After upgrading to 7 I got a copy of WHS and built my own server out of a computer case. My soul intention was to have a file server with redunancy backups incase of drive failure (good thing too hehe). The added benefit of having daily scheduled backups was just extra. But in retrospect, it hasn't really served me any benefit at all since I can't do a restore. There's gotta be something somewhere I can do to be able to get the Restore CD to access the server and do what it was meant to do. This is rediculous. Definately not the way I planned to spend my day off work.

Well it may only sound like I've got it under control. In reality, it's a very different story.. I've got Windows 7 installed. I then installed the WHS Console software. Wouldn't you know? My idea was wrong. There is no way to do a restore of the drive through the Windows software. You absolutely HAVE to use the Restore CD. My theory is that it's because it does a complete restore, re-writing the MBR and Partition Tables, and the system state/registry. What the restore options give you are the ability to browse the backup and select individual files to copy back onto your computer if they had somehow become corrupted or accidentally deleted. So unfortunately, there's no way to do a complete restore from within Windows. I'm trying to do the copy one by one but it's coming up with a bunch of errors, saying I need permissons (I should have them, same username/password and it's an admin account). So I'm really only getting about 25-30% of the files. What I may just have to do is format the partition AGAIN and re-install Windows 7 AGAIN and just start from scratch. I posted a message over at the Microsoft Knowledge Base Support forums to see if anybody can give me some advice. But I'm really starting to feel like this is a lost cause. DAMN MY IGNORANCE! Why'd I have to go and do a wipe on this drive?! And the worst part, the drive I wanted to wipe that isn't detectable in Windows is still sitting here waiting to be rescanned for RMA.

It shouldn't be a problem. I can still access the forum from my Kindle and my Dad's computer in the other room (where I am now). Long as I have access to the internet, I should be able to continually update stuff. I just won't be able to participate in playing the games until I'm back up and running. So here's where I am right now... The WHS restore cd is still telling me that it can't find the server. I did a search and found a thread where somebody else was having this same kind of problem. It might have been something to do with the drivers on the cd not being fully compatible with the network card. So I disabled the onboard LAN in the BIOS and attempted to use my Dad's USB NIC dongle. When I booted up with that, the WHS restore cd actually didn't even discover the USB. So I'm out of luck on that. I don't have any other NIC's to install, so I'm going to have to rely on the onboard. My next task is to try and reinstall Windows 7 on the primary partition. After that's done, I'm going to try to reinstall the WHS console utility and try to do a direct restore from that. Theoretically it should work because all the correct drivers would have been installed and I'd be able to access the server directly. If I can get the restore to work, I should have a backed up OS drive on the server from just 2 or 3 days ago. I backup nightly around 2 in the morning, but the last couple of days the backup service was offline because of the failed hard drive. But I have high hopes this will all be resolved with a fresh temporary install of Windows 7. If all else fails, I'll have to start from scratch again with the fresh install. That's the most gut-wrenching idea of them all. When I think about all the data I had on my Desktop that I've lost. All the install paths for my emulators. All the programs like Photoshop, my Camera utilities, the Kindle utilities (and books sitting on the C drive I never transferred), all those notepad's I had cluttered on the desktop with important doctor phone numbers and stuff.. AND ALL MY PORN!! Lol just kidding about that. But this is a major pain and I really don't want to have to go back through re-installing everything. UHG!

You answered your own question. If you want to play the game currently on the screensaver, just insert a coin!

Ok storytime... So everybody knows by now about the fire we had. Well its been a slow recovery. my homeserver keeps crashing down because of hard drives dying. This week has been no different. Another drive died. After 2 days of waiting for the server to finish re-copying the reduntant files to new locations, i was finally able to run the WHS addon that tells me which drive location was mising. I removed the drive and hooked it up to my primary computer. I needed to run Seagate's SeaTools program on the drive so I could get the error code for proper RMA. I never got the chance for Windows to detect the drive so I tried to run it through Hirens Boot Cd's version. I got the error code, but there was no way to sumbit the RMA through dos. So I knew I would have to reboot and try again. But before I did, I wanted to try and wipe the drive before I got ready to return it. That was my mistake. I loaded up another utility which does a blind wipe on the drive. However, when I started it up, I selected the wrong drive! I stopped its writing procedures as soon as I noticed, but it had already wiped the first 1gb worth of data from the drive. That drive is my primary drive that is repartitoned into one 50gb chunk for OS use, and the remaining 450gb for Recoreded TV. This is also my boot up drive. So needless to say, it wiped the MBR and the partition tables from the drive. Now I have a computer with no boot drive or Operating System, and a dead drive from the server that I can't RMA for new one. Im just screwed on everything. I tried to use a recovery utility on the partitions. It was able to find the location of the split, and wrote a proper table for me. I was then able to browse the drive with a linux utility. Luckily all the recorded tv stuff is on the other enf of the drive away from everything else. Unfortunately the only part of the OS drive remaining is 1 folder in the Program Files x86 path. I tried to do a recovery of the OS drive using the WHS recovery cd but it keeps kicking me out saying it can't find the server. So until I get that all figured out, I'm afraid I might be stuck with no computer for a while.

No; I mean a registered user of GameEx. There are 2 different versions, and more features are unlocked if you buy the software. The installer may be checking for the registry key and, after not finding it, only offering options to a free user.

Show off

I see a significant improvement. Time for a break!

Lol I was thinking about that song too. Interesting read there Tempest. Thanks for the find. Dad said he ran the chain around about 10 times today and it never slipped once. I think I might still invest in some of that PB Blaster though. Dad also said he found that nowadays manufacture's make chains to be user maintenanced and replaced regularly because they 'stretch' and can than cause wear on the teeth of the gears. So in the long run I might be ahead to just seek out a bike shop and have somebody put a chain on it for me. My biggest concern is the gears now because it won't shift up past 3.

Is it maybe a registered only feature?

Yeah what I discovered was that the original settings on the mobo had been tweaked before I got it. I originally had a mobo I bought at the store brand new, but after 3 years and a fire it suddenly stopped booting up. I posted about it in the social forum. I had specific limitations to the type of mobo I could replace it with, since I have an HTPC with tuner cards, and the already existing ram and cpu. So I couldn't find a new exact copy of my original and ended up buying a different brand, used, from eBay. It works great. It's just the guy who had it before must have had a slower cpu since all the settings in the BIOS were configured for that. I didn't even think of that when I hooked my stuff into it. I just installed everything and booted and it worked, so I just never bothered to mess with it again. After now realizing this during my attempt at overclocking, I decided to just set everything to their default "fail-safe" settings and then continued through to customize it. The BIOS is throttling the CPU to keep the speed down when not needed. I'm ok with that. When I did the burn in test, with Orthos, I suddenly realized how hot my CPU temp really was. That was another thing that I had to get used.. When I tried to install my old cpu into the new/used mobo, I broke one of the screws and actually damaged the mount on the heatsink, so I had to buy a new one. Again; I bought a used heatsink/fan but it was the OEM kind that comes with the CPU as if bought brand new. So it's definitely not designed for overclocking. In the future, if money starts flowing better, I'll probably check out getting a new heatsink first and then try the overclocking again. Perhaps by that time prices would have come down on the better/faster chips anyway and I may just go all out and upgrade to all new equipment. I remember years ago when I needed to upgrade it was no big deal; I'd just go out and buy it. Now I'm going week by week struggling just to pay my dad $60/week for rent.

Yeah this has chain guides. We thought about taking it off in one piece but it's not going to come off that way. I'll mention the soaking part with the rag. The problem is, the 3 or so links are actually spread apart, not together. We got the toughest one loose and can move it back and forth with some work, so they're getting better. It's just going to take some time. Dad might have given up though. He just came up to tell me we should look into maybe calling a bike shop to get a new chain, but mostly because of the shifter's not being able to change past the 3rd gear. He doesn't feel ready to try and work them and I don't blame him. So we may end up just going that route.

Well that's the problem. We don't know how to remove the chain. Dad was looking for a "Master Link" that you take apart so you can remove the chain but we couldn't find it. He later learned through the power of Google that you need some kind of tool to push the a link pin out before you can remove the chain. We don't have that. Even if we did, how do you get the chain submerged in WD40? LOL

Just to update; I still don't have any pictures yet... We took the wheels off today. Apparently the axel's were modified with some type of quick release and they were much easier to remove than I was fearing. The front was easy enough but the back was more difficult because of the chain. The biggest problem removing them was getting the tires through the brakes. But since they were flat it was a simple matter of squeezing the tire skinny so they would slide through. We took them to the gas station and filled them up with 40psi air. The tire said 35-80 but we didn't want to over fill since there's no telling how old the rubber is. Granted, the tire looks brand new though, and was very pliable. Once the tires were refilled we started to tackle the chain. It's a hit or miss. The chain was in great condition for the most part. I mean, it's a 20 year old bike, probably still had the original chain. It wasn't as orange as I remembered. The first thing I did was crank the pedals and spray the WD40 on a continuous stream for the whole chain, then worked it around 5 or 6 to get everything well lubed. I then sprayed everything else gently that had moving parts, like the pedals, brake caliper hinges, turning wheel, etc. Once that was done we went inside and had some bratwurst patties for lunch. Then we went back to look at the chain some more. There are like 3 links that were frozen but the rest seemed pretty loose. We tried for about 2 hours working the links that were stuck and were able to get them moving, but once the chain went around the gears they locked up again. Regardless, I went for a test run. Drove it around the block and confirmed the chain was slipping after every 8 pedals or so. We still had the gears on their lowest/smallest setting so it was really only 1 spin on the chain. After that I tried to change gears. I can only get the back gears to go up 3 spots. The front ones I can get up to the 2nd gear rather difficultly and then again to the 3rd difficultly. I still couldn't get the back to go past 3. As it is right now though I had to take a break for the day. It's too hot to mess around with this thing for TOO long. Especially without any shade. But on the positive side, it looks like the tires are still inflated (we'll confirm tomorrow) and the bike is ride-able for the moment. Still some work needs done on the chain and possibly adjusting the shifters some how. But's it's a work in progress moving the right direction. EDIT - Before I forget... its a Raleigh Technium E9. Good luck finding information about it though. The best I can come up with is expired auctions and people talking about owning it, but nothing like manuals and stuff (which would be nice). I can't even find a picture of what mine looks like. I found a few that matches the frame, but I think that's the best I can find. I really think this bike was customized.

Yeah I hope. I'm truly amazed at how "street dumb" I am. I know more about computers than I do about simple stuff it seems most other people would know. Like I don't know ANYTHING about cars other than how to drive them and put gas in them. When something breaks, I don't know the first thing on how to fix it on my own and instead spend way more money than needed to have some place do it for me. The same is true with something as simple as a bike. I know how to ride them and fill the tires as needed, that's about it. I don't know how to do anything else, and it seems like most people know at least something about it. I don't even really know how the gears and stuff really work. I know that some how the thing pops the chain off of one and onto another, but I don't know how it does it. Brakes seem a little easier to understand; pull the level and the tension pulls the cable that pulls close the brakes. But if I had to adjust it, or replace the cable, I'm completely lost. I want to learn, but I also don't want to ruin it and make it no longer work at all.