Testing hardware (component going south)..

[ShAdOWmoNkX]

Hi,

If my dvd player is not reading CD's consistently at bootup (not even in windows, so it is DEFINITELY hardware), floppy failed (replaced with a new one, which works) ... does this sound like the motherboard is toasting stuff or that these two parts are just coincidentally failing at the same time? And in any case, how can I test my system to see what, if anything is failing (with software; I don't have enough hardware parts laying around to swap out despite knowing how to do this)?

This is unrelated, but I also accidentally opened a saved REG file for win98, I think it was, couldn't even log into WinXP after that (password would not show up as I typed it) ... and while formatting, my 36.7 GB drive is showing up as 35001 MB (35.1 GB) before formatting, and partition 1 as 34993 .... does this seem like a drive issue (e.g., hard drive sectors were nuked due to bad sectors or some kind of mistake on my part) or is this major size discrepancy normal?

Seems the motherboard is going south (either that, or the floppy and DVD drives individually are going bad, but that doesn't explain away the slowness). Sigh, have to spring for new parts or I'm prolly SOL..

Btw, here's what I mean by slow: http://www.frontiernet.net/~MYUSERNAME/soyata

Replace "MYUSERNAME" with "shadowmonkx" (omit quotes)

Sincere best thanks in advance,

[Marzman]

Firstly I am not great with computers but I can speak from experience. I don't know about your Dvd player not reading CD's properly, could be packing up or could be poo in the first place but about the floppy drive, don't worry about it failing as your computer is probably not frying it, they do sometimes just "die". I posted about your question regarding the drive not being to its full capacity after format and partition. This is because if you want to use the full capacity you have to drive space it, but I would not recommend this as a decompression if you wish to format the disk again will take a long time

[Sylvander]

If you "Opened" a ".reg" file...
Did you double-click?
Or right-click and select "Merge"?
Assuming you "Merged" the ".reg" file, then all the key settings in that file would replace the ones for those keys that were in the registry at that time, and since this was a Win98 reg file those settings would probably be totally inapropriate.

So you should have immediately undone those changes by going back to the most recent [and hopefully apropriate] WinXP "Restore Point".

It's even better to keep backups of the C: drive.
Here's my saved speil on that topic:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
RECOVER USING BACKUPS
The easy way to recover from all software [including configuration] problems [without even having to discover the cause], is:

1) As you proceed forward in time, make backups of everything on your C: drive.
Do this at regular intervals, particularly before making software changes [un/installing programs or changing configuration] and keep a log of all this.
2) When you hit trouble caused by a bad configuration change and no hardware or software changes have been made, [use "scanreg /restore" in Win98, or a restore point in WinXP, to] restore a previous good configuration.
3) When the trouble involves more than just the configuration, but involves the files [including the configuration perhaps] but no harware has been changed [this is important because the software must match the hardware], then:
----------------------------------------------------------
Re-format the C: drive and restore your latest good backup.
----------------------------------------------------------
The software will "jump back" to the way it was when the PC worked.
If this doesn’t fix things, then it probably is not a software problem but a hardware problem

It helps if you keep the C: drive "lean & mean".
I move as much as possible off the C: drive [and keep it as small as possible].
The "Windows" & "Program Files" folders account for 95% of the used space on my C: drive.
All the data that changes day by day [or are considered vital] are re-homed on another physical drive [although another partition would do].
When I "jump back" I still have up to date:
a. My Documents. [Use “TweakUI” to move their home]
b. E-mails for all identities. [use the email client to move their home]
c. Internet Explorer Favourites. [Use “TweakUI” to move their home]
d. Temporary Internet Files. [use the browser (Internet Explorer) to move them]
e. Re-home the Windows Address Book as shown here http://tinyurl.com/24q6l . Use the key “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\WAB\WAB4\Wab FileName” to specify its new address. [Its normal home address [in Win98] is C:\WINDOWS\Application Data\Microsoft\Address Book.]
f. Any other storage of data files you wouldn’t want to “jump back”.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUOTE
The AVG Rescue Disk is a special diskette where the most important parts of your computer’s boot up data will be saved. In this backup diskette, the contents of the Partition Table, Boot sectors and some other internal data will be saved. These areas are often targets of computer virus attacks and their damage can (and mostly will) cause the malfunction of the whole operating system – your computer cannot be started.

Repairing such destruction can be very difficult job. But if you have a backup copy, restoring the damaged areas is easy and safe.

In addition to the backup copy of the system areas there is a special AVG-SOS program stored on the rescue disk to handle the saved data.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Don't be so sure that the problem with reading CD's is DEFINITELY hardware.
If you can, boot from a Win98 startup disk "with CD-ROM support" and try to access a CD in the drive [using DOS commands].
If you succeed, then it isn't a hardware problem, but a software problem.
If you had diagnostic software on a floppy you could test the hardware [including the CD-ROM drive].
Tuff-Test Lite = http://www.tufftest.com/free.htm
will use its own OS and test the hardware, but not the CD-drive I believe.
It's worth having anyway.