Cure

[Brian Ellis]

Hi!

Some time back, I asked what to do if you cannot set up the system to how you want/need . See http://forums.murc.ws/ubb/Forum2/HTML/003782.html

After wasting inordinate amounts of time, removing everything I could see that was video related from the registry and the hard disks and then re-installing the old PowerDesk/VideoTools, with no greater success (still the same message), I decided to do a cold re-install. I totally erased Windows and reinstalled with WIN 98SE, plus reinstalling the apps, of course, with the latest versions. Since this time, everything has worked.

I'm none the wiser what happened that totally buggered up G200-Marvel.

If you get this message about something else using video when you know damn well this ain't so, and simple cures don't work, then don't waste your time un- and re-installing. Delete Windows and reinstall everything: it's faster (voice of bitter experience )

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Brian (the terrible)



[This message has been edited by Brian Ellis (edited 29 April 2000).]

[jeff b]

Completely re-installing windows was something that I ended up having to do on a regular basis, during the two years that I used the Mystique220/Rainbow Runner Studio. I wouldn't get errors, though. What would happen was that after a few weeks and a couple of projects, I'd start losing performance, ie-dropping more and more frames on captures. I never did figure out exactly why this happened, but left it at some effect that Windows produced with all its 'clever' fixing and rearranging of things every time it boots up...

[DrMordrid]

Yup. That sounds like a Wondoze-ism alright.

Mitigate the pain by using Symantics Ghost 2000 program to back up the partition once it has been rebuilt and is working. My 3.5 gig Win98SE boot partition backs up to a 1.4g file on the RAID using high compression.

IF/when things get messed up again copy the essentials out of the C:\Windows folder (email, favorites, cookies etc.) and reinstall the .gho file. Then copy the goodies back and you're all set for another round.

This was more of an issue before I installed Win98SE than after. It doesn't seem to need as much in the way of fixing. Except for swapping betatesting .gho's in and out I'm on the same normal-use installation I had months ago.

Dr. Mordrid

[Brian Ellis]

Good idea, Doc. Just wondering though, is it possible simply to zip the Windows directory and subdirectories, save them to another computer on the network and then unzip them back again if something failed? My guess is that this would probably be a <200 Mb file if it worked. Obviously, I wouldn't have total protection against losing anything else on the C: drive, but I have only maintenance utilities on it which could be easily reloaded. All my apps are on the D: drive. I'm not too worried about them, either, as they also are reloadable. All my data (incl. video) are on the E: drive, which I back up to a massive disk on another computer at the end of each project. It is therefore only Windows itself that I have no security for and is a total pain to do a clean reinstall.

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Brian (the terrible)