General Computer Help

[SAT (aka GANDHI)]

As most of the new games Arcade and Slot are now starting to use off the shelf computer parts in there system
and that most Tech's are  "Computer Geeks in Hiding"
We Hope you injoy this topic..... 

[SAT (aka GANDHI)]

We use a Octel 250 by Lucent / Avaya. The replacement drives are 10K for a 360mb drive.
I have USB flash drives that are bigger than that and are a fraction of the price.
I told our telecom lady next time the Octel crashes that we should buy a couple of 250's and just part them out ourselves.

[SAT (aka GANDHI)]

Winblows settings 

[SAT (aka GANDHI)]

Winblows settings 

  /\
  ||
  ||
Now thats funny

[SAT (aka GANDHI)]

We use a Octel 250 by Lucent / Avaya. The replacement drives are 10K for a 360mb drive.
I have USB flash drives that are bigger than that and are a fraction of the price.
I told our telecom lady next time the Octel crashes that we should buy a couple of 250's and just part them out ourselves.

If it were my system, I'd take the 360Mb drive out and see what the make/mfg of the drive was... Then I'd put it into a regular PC to see what the BIOS identifies the drive as. If it IDs the drive as a regular drive then you have an easy fix... Scour eBay and other places regularly for replacement drives of the same make/model.

If it IDs as a special drive then you need to either find some utility to reflash the firmware on the replacement drive or find the same make/model of drives and ghost or bitcopy from the old drive to the replacement drive BEFORE it fails... Then after the drive fails you can swap logic boards to get the special firmware needed onto the new drive.

Please keep in mind that this only works between same makes/models of hard drives and may not work between different revisions of drive models if they change the data format in any way. BUT - if it does work (and it has on other arcade games that use special drives) it will save you lots of money!

RJ

[SAT (aka GANDHI)]

I think the interface on the drive is like an IDA (Pre IDE). I am sure there is nothing special about the drive. Its all the electronics around it. The issue is if you start putting some kind of jury rigged drive in there the vendor won't support the unit. Its just ugly.

[SAT (aka GANDHI)]

To revive a REALLY old help topic...
My Compaq laptop took a nose dive. Shut it down the other night and next day it would not boot up.
I got the following error:

lsass.exe - System Error
Security Accounts Manager initialization failed because of the following error: The handle is invalid.
Error Status: 0xc0000008. Please click OK to shutdown this system and reboot into Safe Mode,
check the event log for more detailed information

I am running Windows XP Home Edition. This error would not allow Windows to boot up in any way.
Not in safe mode and not with boot from cd rom. Just would not let you in no matter what.

I tried to repair Windows with the cd but could not get past Administrators Password...I can't even
remember even having one...I bought this computer new from Best Buy. So out of desperation I
re-installed Windows without conducting a format of the drive...hoping info on drive would be accessible
as I would only be re-installing Windows and not conducting a complete system restore.

After the install it was as if I had restored to just a basic Windows installation. None of the Compaq options
and none of the files from before. The computer does now boot up to Windows so I figure I need to
run some sort of Data Recovery program.

Does anybody have any experience, ideas, and/or suggestions as to recovering lost files etc from a hard drive?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Travis

[SAT (aka GANDHI)]

Well if you installed windows as a "new installatin" then you probably formatted your old data.  There's a screen when you install windows that asks if you want to leave the file system intact or if you want to format it, which option did you choose.  If you said, leave intact, then you might want to look into the folder:

C:\Documents and Settings

Under that directory there will be some directories.  Look into each folder that has a username and check the folders inside.  You might be able to find your data.

If you did choose format filesystem, then you will most likely have lost your data.  A Data recovery program may help, but since you installed over your old installation it's very possible you overwrote some or all of your data.
You will probably want to remove the drive from the laptop and run the recovery procedure on a pc that has it's own os and attach the notebook drive through the usb port.  The longer you keep using your pc with the original drive in it, the more likely you are overwriting your data.

[SAT (aka GANDHI)]

Also, "C:\Program Files" may have some usable Compaq utilities left in it.

It didn't come with a "Restore Disk"?

[SAT (aka GANDHI)]

Also, "C:\Program Files" may have some usable Compaq utilities left in it.

It didn't come with a "Restore Disk"?

I was going to post that he should have received a separate disk for the Compaq programs and utilities. The thing is that he must follow Rick's advice FIRST if he has overwritten his data and wants a chance to recover it. Installing more on that hard drive would ruin any chance of getting his data back if he formatted during the Windows installation.

[SAT (aka GANDHI)]

The drivers et all you can probably download.  You may even be able to buy a recovery disk, depending on the age of the PC.

[SAT (aka GANDHI)]

Some computers come with only a restore disk that has Windows and some of the core programs. I know with my mom's compaq, she has the restore CD, but it works in conjuction with a separate partition on the HD that has the model specific stuff.

[SAT (aka GANDHI)]

That partition might (should) still be there if Travis just did a Windows format because it is usually in a non-microsoft format and that part of the disk is not seen. Windows would only format the visible partition.

[SAT (aka GANDHI)]

A format generally won't effect other partitions. Only if he were to run "Fdisk", or choose "remove existing partitions" when installing XP.

[SAT (aka GANDHI)]

Thanks for all of the replies guys.
I did not format the drive.
I did not use the Compaq Quick Restore disks as I did not want to do a full system restore...hopes of recovering the data.
I only used the Operating System CD to re-install Windows.
The re-install program asked if I wanted to format and which file system to format to. I selected in-stall operating system only. (leave file system intact)
After the installation, I downloaded a Trial Version of a data recovery program to try out. This program did find a WHOLE LOT
of data but sadly nothing I was hoping to see.
My drive IS partitioned but the Partion is for Compaq restore. It is still there. I am not too worried about doing a full restore and
having the drivers etc. I just want to salvage some data before doing so.
Basically, I did the MINIMUM amount I could just to get into the drive...before I couldn't even get a command prompt.
So if anyone has any suggestions for a good data recovery program or methods to recover data, I am ALL EARS.

Thanks Again.
Travis

[SAT (aka GANDHI)]

I have come across that before on a corrupted OS.
The admin password doesn't actually exist.

I got a USB flash program from a hackers web site. It basically boots from USB then you are able to write whatever password you want into the MS-OS.

[SAT (aka GANDHI)]

I have come across that before on a corrupted OS.
The admin password doesn't actually exist.

I got a USB flash program from a hackers web site. It basically boots from USB then you are able to write whatever password you want into the MS-OS.

Jay, THANKS for the reply. I thought I lost my mind. I tried EVERY password I have ever had practically since the
inception of passwords and nothing worked. I told my wife I could not remember ever even setting a password
on my computer.
I am now VERY curious where I can get this USB info you spoke of...it could come in quite handy should I come
across this situation again.

[SAT (aka GANDHI)]

Jay, THANKS for the reply. I thought I lost my mind. I tried EVERY password I have ever had practically since the
inception of passwords and nothing worked. I told my wife I could not remember ever even setting a password
on my computer.
I am now VERY curious where I can get this USB info you spoke of...it could come in quite handy should I come
across this situation again.

Google pointed me here:
http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/

Note: I haven't tried this boot disk. Play at your own risk.

[SAT (aka GANDHI)]

Yeah Jay!! Pony up!.    I always hesitate to download things like that from google searches because of the virus/worm possibilities. We are dealing with shady websites. I always prefer to get a link from a friend who knows that it's a valid program and an only slightly illegal site.

[SAT (aka GANDHI)]

Sounds like a worm got your computer.

Next time that happens try to download the Stinger software from McAfee.com. Boot the PC in safe mode and run it to find those nasty worms.

Make sure you are updated on patches and that you have a real hardware firewall - not some of that software firewall crap (Zone Alarm, etc..) as that won't stop most worms.

RJ

[SAT (aka GANDHI)]

Sounds like a worm got your computer.

Next time that happens try to download the Stinger software from McAfee.com. Boot the PC in safe mode and run it to find those nasty worms.

Make sure you are updated on patches and that you have a real hardware firewall - not some of that software firewall crap (Zone Alarm, etc..) as that won't stop most worms.

RJ

Thanks for the info on the Stinger software. I've never had a worm. I do have a hardware firewall.

I have gotten a virus from a downloaded program, and from Tucows no less. I had a realtime virus checker running. I scanned the file twice with two different brands of anti-virus software scans before opening it. They all said the damned thing was clean. As soon as I opened it, WHAM. Fortunately, Norton was able to clean it up, even if it was totally useless in prevention. I downloaded the program to clean that particular virus from their website and no real damage was done to the computer. Several hours were killed though. Police never made an arrest in the hour killings investigation.

Oh, and naturally Windows System Restore didn't work. (now why I would dignify these words with capital letters is beyond me. )

Has anyone else ever noticed that after SR has been running for a few months that every restore point you try to use comes back as "unable to restore to this point. Try selecting a different restore point"? It seems that the entire restore database grows too large and gets corrupted.

I have now instituted my own best practice of turning SR off to delete all entries, rebooting, and then turning SR back on to create a single restore point before installing anything that might be a risk. It's a pain, but it's worth it.

[SAT (aka GANDHI)]

Sounds like a worm got your computer.

Next time that happens try to download the Stinger software from McAfee.com. Boot the PC in safe mode and run it to find those nasty worms.

Make sure you are updated on patches and that you have a real hardware firewall - not some of that software firewall crap (Zone Alarm, etc..) as that won't stop most worms.

RJ

RJ, I think that is exactly what happened. I use AVG and have for many years...It's proven to be quite reliable up until this incident.
Thanks for the advice.

Has anyone else ever noticed that after SR has been running for a few months that every restore point you try to use comes back as "unable to restore to this point. Try selecting a different restore point"? It seems that the entire restore database grows too large and gets corrupted.

I have now instituted my own best practice of turning SR off to delete all entries, rebooting, and then turning SR back on to create a single restore point before installing anything that might be a risk. It's a pain, but it's worth it.

Stat, Thanks for the reply and advice.

Google pointed me here:
http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/

Note: I haven't tried this boot disk. Play at your own risk.

Brichter, thanks for the info. Hmmm, maybe...?

[SAT (aka GANDHI)]

tjkeller, if you do end up downloading that program let us know if it works.

The site did look legitamate, but who knows?

[SAT (aka GANDHI)]

I uploaded the USB_MEMORY_BOOT.EXE as a PDF in the Submit a new file section. You need to rename it to .EXE after you download it.

[SAT (aka GANDHI)]

BTW ---- Use at your own risk.