Napoleonic Wargame Club (NWC)

Warning -- my automatic update for windows downloaded and installed an update this morning and when I rebooted the computer for the updates to take effect, my computer became trapped in an eternal reboot loop. Can't access windows to recover and spent a wasterful 2-hours on the phone with microsoft tech support.

Bottom line -- the desktop (my main gaming computer) is down (possibly for the count) and out. I'll stew over it for a day or two before I decide what drastic action to take. HELGA, I need some strong ale here!!!

<font color="red">Complete failure to get the machine back up and runnin. I have 24 hours to try to troubleshoot with microsoft before my tech support arrives at the house on friday to try to rescue my programs and data and to reinstall windows. Has anybody tried the windows 7 yet?</font id="red">

<font color="orange">The deed is done. I had a tech guy come over the house today and try to recover data off my system. No joy. Whatever crashed the operating system (I strongly believe it was Microsoft's Novemeber updates) destroyed the file and partition recognition system for the hard drive. I did a clean install of Windows XP and lost everything save what I have backed up on the external hard drive. My big loss is my Outlook address book and all archived emails and attachments. That stuff had years of important correspondence (I don't know why I wasn't backing that up). Anyway, I will be rebuilding that system for a few weeks but I should slowly get back to my last configuration. Its like a new beginning...</font id="orange">

<font color="limegreen">I can't freakin believe it but I turned my desktop pc on this evening and got the message that it couldn't start windows because the config\system file was missing or corrupted. I JUST HAD IT FIXED! This tells me that either the hard drive has a bad sector or there is some kind of virus out there that is sneaking past multiple layers of detection. I don't have the energy to deal with it - or another couple hundred dollars.</font id="limegreen">

<font color="teal"><b>Diagnosis is that the hard drive is failing or has failed. It seems odd given the timing of the initial failure. I am off to the computer store to get another drive</b></font id="teal">.

FM Sir 'Muddy' Jones, KG
2nd Life Guards, Household Cavalry

If there is a topic for suggested Xmas gifts --- then someone get Ken one of those USB hard drives ... and then make sure he uses it!





Cadet S Trauth
Armée du Rhin
VI Corps,
19ème Division,
1ère Brigade,
1ère Lieb Régiment

If you take it to your local PC shop they should be able to fix it for you. Its probably just a OS thing that they know about.

I mean, you dont really expect MS to be able to fix their own errors do you?

My system just underwent the update and it seems to be working fine. Sorry this happened to you Ken.

Colonel Bill Peters
Armee du Rhin - V Corps, Cavalerie du V Corps, 20ème légère Brigade de Cavalerie, 13ème Hussar Regiment
HPS Napoleonic Scenario Designer (Eckmuhl, Wagram, Jena-Auerstaedt, Austerlitz and ... more to come)
Not the President of the Musket and Cannon Club

Hi Ken.
Start your computer . keep your finger on F8 , and that will put you in safe mode.. once there
go to your start . press Accessories . then go to System tools . and press System restore .. when it opens.. get your computer to restart up from the day before this update was added or to the closes date to it were it will let you..

Then your computer should restart ... once it starts back up turn of Auto update .. so the computer will ask before any updates can be added to your computer..



<font color="red">Maréchal</font id="red">
<font color="red">BEECHAM</font id="red">
<font color="blue">La</font id="blue"> Commandeur, <font color="red">II Corps</font id="red">
ADN

Prince d` Istria et Comte d` Arles La Jeune Garde

"Toujours féroce,jamais étourdi"

Thanks for the advice guys but we've tried all that. I can't open windows os even in safe mode. I can only get to dos -- remember that? Anyway, will be working with ms today again to try to unwind the update. Bill, I do have an external drive and backup so the loss of data is not a huge issue but the applications, drivers, etc will be lost if I have to do a reinstall. So frustrating but we've all been there before...

Do these games work on a MAC?

FM Sir 'Muddy' Jones, KG
2nd Life Guards, Household Cavalry

Check with Rich Hamilton on the Mac compatibility issues. They do have software you can buy that allows PC programs to work on Macs.

I still think that working with MS is the wrong step. A local PC should with a good tech is usually far better than MS. Frankly I don't think they are good at troubleshooting their own products.

For instance: I had an issue in Outlook for my users and MS had nothing on it that worked. Lo and behold one of our guys on our IT staff figured it out (never told me where he found the fix though) and had the user's PCs corrected in no time. MS couldn't help!

My experience with Macs is not fun. I didn't enjoy working in the environment. Seemed like working with Legos that have circuit boards you couldn't see. When you went to fix something one of the ways you did was via a hex editor! [:D] (hope you caught the pun on hexagons)

Colonel Bill Peters
Armee du Rhin - V Corps, Cavalerie du V Corps, 20ème légère Brigade de Cavalerie, 13ème Hussar Regiment
HPS Napoleonic Scenario Designer (Eckmuhl, Wagram, Jena-Auerstaedt, Austerlitz and ... more to come)
Not the President of the Musket and Cannon Club

Muddy pundits are calling this the screen of death. I see I have the update waiting to be loaded in my queue of windows updates. There is a section on the MS website about it.

You have to be dissapointed with MS performance the last few years. For me when I have PC problems it costs me a lot of money in wasted (ie unbilled) time. So I understand your frustration.

These tech companies are failing to deliver value now days. Bill is right though. My techy team use google to find solutions usually shared by other geeks in forums.

General de Brigade Knox
Grand Duc d'Austerlitz et Comte de Argentan



Escadron Mamelouks
Chasseurs a'Cheval
Division de Cavalerie la Vieille Garde.





CO. 1er Brigade, III Division Cavalerie Legere, III Corps Armee du Nord
http://www.aspire.co.nz/colinknoxnwc.htm

[V][xx(] So sorry to hear this Ken.

The day I can finally toss my PCs out the window is the day I get a new life!

MS controls too much of what we do. After I heard of your problems, well I just decided to turn Auto-Updates off. From now on it will prompt me that something is out there and I will wait several weeks before I install them!

Hope you get back up and running soon. I have a nice 100 GB hard drive (external case - USB) that I use for stuff like this. They are cheap and easy to find these days. Treat yourself to one when you can!

Colonel Bill Peters
Armee du Rhin - V Corps, Cavalerie du V Corps, 20ème légère Brigade de Cavalerie, 13ème Hussar Regiment
HPS Napoleonic Scenario Designer (Eckmuhl, Wagram, Jena-Auerstaedt, Austerlitz and ... more to come)
Not the President of the Musket and Cannon Club

Actually, about the FASTEST external hard drive setup is with an ESATA drive. Something like 10+ times the speed of USB or Firewire. If you do not already have ESATA on your computer, an ESATA card is cheap and easy to install.

<b><font color="gold">Ernie Sands
General, 1ère Brigade, 19ème Division, VI Corps, L'Armee du Rhin
President, Colonial Campaign Club
</b></font id="gold">

What is the price tradeoff Ernie?

I just start my backup and go down to watch TV or get food.

Colonel Bill Peters
Armee du Rhin - V Corps, Cavalerie du V Corps, 20ème légère Brigade de Cavalerie, 13ème Hussar Regiment
HPS Napoleonic Scenario Designer (Eckmuhl, Wagram, Jena-Auerstaedt, Austerlitz and ... more to come)
Not the President of the Musket and Cannon Club

Hi Guys..
I must to get.. Theres a program i have it. its called Acronis ..

what it dos is a backup of your computer once the back up is done. you save it to an Ext hard drive as a zip file .. so if you have a 200G computer hard drive . its only 100G once it dos its work.. this will be saved..

Any time your computer gets a bug or gos down.. you can reinstall the Computer from the Acronis program to what your computer was set up as when it was saved ..

I do it here . I have a back up of peoples computers in my town , If there computer ever gos down i can go round and reinstall there hard drive to were it was when i saved it.

I have another program on its way to me, I can not remember its name right now. but what that can do is get any info from a hard drive that will not work.

Lets say you have a hard drive like Kens and you can not get the computer to start..
What you do is turn computer on, put in the CD for this program and turn of computer. Then turn it back on the computer will start up from this program.. and you will be able to get all info whats on your hard drive. The progame can also get info from a Hard drive thats been formated it will see a ghost out line what was on the hard drive and can still get the info of..

These are 2 programs shops use to get peoples computers back working and they charge you alot.. then it can be done by your self .. I will get the name of this program so if anyone has hard drives they think the info on it is lost.. Its not you can still get it.



<font color="red">Maréchal</font id="red">
<font color="red">BEECHAM</font id="red">
<font color="blue">La</font id="blue"> Commandeur, <font color="red">II Corps</font id="red">
ADN

Prince d` Istria et Comte d` Arles La Jeune Garde

"Toujours féroce,jamais étourdi"

With all the record keeping I do I learned the hard way about backing up emails.

Now I have email rules, back up my address book and archive my emails very regularly

External hard drive is the way to go for back up storage

<center>
</center>
<center>
[img]</center>
<center>Monsieur le Marechal Baron John Corbin
Chief of Staff - La Grande Armee
Grande Duc de Piave et Comte de Beauvais
Commanding the Division de Cavalerie de la Moyenne Garde
NWC President</center>

Helga a keg of ale here for the FM and please pop over to Microsoft with the rest of my squadron of Mamalukes and see to those fools for us.




General de Brigade Knox
Grand Duc d'Austerlitz et Comte de Argentan



Escadron Mamelouks
Chasseurs a'Cheval
Division de Cavalerie la Vieille Garde.





CO. 1er Brigade, III Division Cavalerie Legere, III Corps Armee du Nord
http://www.aspire.co.nz/colinknoxnwc.htm

Ken,

I am truly sorry you're going through this. I feel for you. If I had a second computer laying about, I'd send it to you. All the best, sir.

Colonel Al Amos
1ère Brigade Commandant, 2ème Division de Dragons "Gare aux Dragons!"
Ier Corps de Réserve de Cavalerie "Vae Victis!"
L'Armée du Nord

Ken - I have a second PC if you are interested. Could get my sys guys to reformat it and we could work on a price.

I could use the bucks and its a good PC.

Its got Windows XP 64 on it (its a 64 bit processor).

If interested drop me a line.

Colonel Bill Peters
Armee du Rhin - V Corps, Cavalerie du V Corps, 20ème légère Brigade de Cavalerie, 13ème Hussar Regiment
HPS Napoleonic Scenario Designer (Eckmuhl, Wagram, Jena-Auerstaedt, Austerlitz and ... more to come)
Not the President of the Musket and Cannon Club