That’s a fairly common problem, and the reason for it is that your computer has a specialised sound codec that requires a specialised driver that’s not included with your copy of Windows. Windows might either have installed the best driver that it could find, which, it turns out, isn’t up to the job, or it can’t find a suitable driver, realises it, and therefore gives up trying to install any driver.

What is a driver?

A driver is a piece of software, specific to a relevant piece of hardware, that translates the instruction data from the machine in which it is situated into a command sequence that is recognisable by that piece of hardware. Without that driver the piece of hardware might as well not exist as far as the operating system is concerned, as it has no other way of recognising it or communicating with it except through the driver.

Imagine you came face to face with an alien: You have no idea what anything the alien says means, and the alien can’t understand your language either: Therefore, unless you can find an interpreter that speaks both your own language as well as the alien’s language, there is no way of you and the alien communicating properly. Now imagine that you are the computer, the alien is the piece of hardware, and the driver is the interpreter… You now get the idea.

Each is special

All drivers are hardware-specific, but Windows, particularly in the case of Windows XP, includes driver models that in many cases will just translate enough to allow your hardware to function in a limited capacity until you can download and install the proper driver. There are two other cases that could be possible too: Either Windows has the exact driver for the hardware, in which case it’ll install it and the piece of hardware in question will run properly from the outset, or the case may be that either Windows will attempt to install a driver that fails to install properly because it’s not the right one, or Windows will see that it doesn’t have the correct driver and won’t try to install anything at all in relation to that piece of hardware – With the result that when the operating system is fully installed and begins functioning, it won’t even see that the related hardware exists at all.

If Windows attempts to install a driver that it thinks might work but finds that it doesn’t it’ll, in the case of XP anyway, abandon attempts to try further and leave a bad driver in place at times:This will result in a similar outcome to not having any driver installed usually, plus a black exclamation-mark on a yellow background will appear in the Device Manager in relation to that piece of hardware, indicating that the operating system sees that a device is present, but the installed driver is the wrong one and thus there is a fault somewhere. The device may show up as something like “PCI Multimedia Device”, indicating that Windows knows what type of device it is, but no more. In short; without the drivers Windows has no way to control the hardware so it treats it as if it’s not there.

In such cases the right thing to do would be to totally uninstall the device in Device Manager, and install the correct driver(s).

How do I find the correct driver(s)?

Drivers come from one of two places; those being either your Windows installation or your hardware manufacturer.

The good news is that it’s usually not too hard to find drivers; particularly for recent versions of Windows from XP onwards.

Manufacturer-specific hardware drivers can be obtained from places such as the HP support site, if your machine was manufactured by HP.

Other major computer vendors like Dell and others also take advantage of the internet to have support sites that provide the latest software drivers and updates for the machines that they sell. And most also have fairly active support forums these days where you can get specific help for your computer and hardware from other users as well as, occasionally, the vendor’s staff too.

In some cases you might need to actually determine what specific piece of “driverless” hardware is in the computer, and then visit that hardware manufacturer’s site to download the latest updated drivers. That’s very common for custom built machines, or machines from smaller vendors: ‘Not as common in mass-manufactured machines, such as Dell computers, for instance.

Once you’ve found the correct driver(s) for your piece of hardware, you’ll probably find instructions for installation from the manufacturer either on their website or in a readme file within the installation-package itself. – Usually it’s a pretty straightforward case of simply running the .exe file and an installation wizard takes care of the rest of the process with minimal user interaction.

In your particular case you may find that you have a particular specification of Realtek driver required to operate the onboard sound hardware on your motherboard, perhaps, or something similar.

7

Windows 7, at time of launch, appears to have either a proper a driver or a substitute-driver that’ll make the hardware operate at reduced-level for almost every piece of hardware imaginable at the time. – Another thing about Windows 7 is that it’ll search Windows Update for drivers that aren’t included on the DVD during installation, so it’ll possibly7 be quite rare to discover that a driver is missing after installation in the case of that operating system. Having said that, though, there will no doubt be new drivers produced for new hardware over time that neither Windows 7 nor Windows Update will have in their respective driver-arsenals.

At the end of the day; the best place to go for drivers is to the manufacturer’s website; particularly in the case of graphics card drivers. See this article for more on that.

Have you anything that you’d like to add to that? If so then please do comment.

After much deliberation and decision-making in the last few days; my final plans for this blog have been somewhat set in stone, subject to minor alteration as and when necessary and dependant upon circumstances as time goes by:

The plan is to continue posting to this blog until January 2010. Some of those posts will be duplicated on shazzalive.com; with video if practical to do so. Furthermore, some of the posts that have proven to be popular and valuable that are already posted on this blog will be rewritten/edited and posted on shazzalive.com along with audio and/or video.

As already mentioned; most content will cease to be produced for this blog from January 2010., and I’ll be producing content for shazzalive.com only. – But that doesn’t mean all content will cease production for this blog. – For one thing there are my members-only newsletter subscribers who may well be in for a bonus if they remain subscribed. All existing members-only newsletter subscribers will have the email address that is on record put into the signup process for shazzalive.co.uk (Shazzalive.com simply redirects to shazzalive.co.uk. Shazzalive.com is easier to remember, easier to type, and is used as the URL generally.) as and when. Hopefully people will join the shazzalive mailing list also. If anyone on my list receives a confirmation email for shazzalive.co.uk but doesn’t want to join, then simply ignore that email. I do hope that everyone on my list will join up to the shazzalive mailing list, though, as there’ll be so much more on shazzalive.com: There’ll be videos, audio files, transcripts, probably reviews too. There will be some amazing offers, interviews, technical and business advice…

Of course, all this won’t suddenly appear on the new blog in January 2010 itself: It’s going to take time to build up contributors, readers, advertisers, writers… I don’t promise you the entire world instantly, as if I did I simply wouldn’t be able to deliver. What I am intending is to produce something bigger and better than kkomp.com; whist at the same time allowing kkomp.com to languish online as a reference library.

This week on kkomp.com has seen 3 new articles appear: -

Video

The first of these is simply called “Video”: Video is not something that I’m well practiced in, so I’m going to be creating a number of trial runs leading up to the opening of shazzalive.com. This was my first attempt. It could do with a few tweaks here and there; but it’s passable. The video advertises a product from David Risley; himself a well experienced video-jockey who produces some outstanding-quality videos; but not just videos: David has been blogging since before blogging was invented, and has accumulated a wealth of knowledge which has allowed him to build up and run an online-business generating a six-figure income, with which he supports a family and lives quite comfortably in his home in Tampa Bay, Florida.

Let David Risley teach you the basics of a six-figure problogger business in only 3 days. The course includes 14 videos, and has a 92 page transcript, checklist, and audio podcasts of all modules included. Download my FREE 5-page .pdf report on 3-Day Money

In 3-Day-Money, David shares his wealth of knowledge with you: From the fundamentals of starting up a blog, including choosing a decent market niche, right through to the techniques and marketing tactics he uses to continue to generate an income-stream and keep his entrepreneurship on the rails of success. 3-day-Money also acts as a great forerunner-course for David’s current project; Blog Masters Club, which will be opening its doors again in or around January 2010

How To Launch System Restore From a Command Prompt in Windows XP

- Tells you how to launch System Restore whilst in Windows XP’s Safe Mode.

List All Installed Drivers in Windows XP Professional is an article for those running Windows XP Professional that shows how to get XP Pro to list all installed drivers from the command-prompt.(This post is also duplicated on shazzalive.com.)

Keep watching this space for more articles that show you how to do more with your computer, give you practical advice on practical electronics, and add to your technical knowledge.

That’s all for this newsletter, Enjoy your weekend, whatever you’ve got planned.

There’s quite a lot of information below: Some of it might be applicable to you, some might not. I’ve tried to cover this matter as comprehensively as I can; but if you do run up against problems and obstacles that aren’t covered herein; there are many more similar resources online which may or may not deal with your particular issue(s).

I’ve collected data on this subject from a number of leading online resources, as well as contributing to it myself from my own experience. I hope that this article has all the information that you’ll need contained within it. It was quite an effort to collate, write, adapt, and update all of the info from my sources, and I hope I’ve done the subject justice.

The physical act of installation in itself is actually quite easy. It’s the preparation and getting the thing ready for use that may take a little longer; particularly if it’s an IDE (PATA) drive.

If you’re installing an IDE (PATA) hard drive then you’ll first need to set the jumpers on the drive so that it works correctly with your current hardware. IDE hard drives have settings for master, slave and cable select. This is because of the multi-drive-connected ribbon-cable used: The drive has to tell the controller on the other end of the cable how it’s been connected; otherwise confusion will reign. For Serial ATA drives (SATA), you don’t need to worry about jumpers as there aren’t any: SATA drives have a single cable running to a single corresponding port for each drive cable. See your motherboard’s manual if you’re using SATA for more details on how the drives should be connected and if there is a particular special sequence of connections pertaining to certain drives. – More on IDE drives and their jumpers and connections below.

Next: -

Before you do anything else, take a look at the inside of the computer’s case and work out where you want the drive be positioned. If you’re using an IDE hard drive, it would be best to connect the drive on a different IDE channel than your DVD/CD drives if at all possible. Some (older) motherboards have two IDE channel connectors, but most modern motherboards have only one. If you can do so, it’s a better idea to connect your disc drives to IDE2, and connect your hard drives to IDE1.

SATA drives are totally different. Each SATA drive has it’s own channel. It’s usually fairly straightforward to work out the connections; but if in doubt check your motherboard’s manual. Now that SATA optical drives are fairly commonplace, you might not even require an IDE connector, even if your motherboard has one or maybe more: – Providing, of course, that it has SATA capability. If it doesn’t then it’s getting well past its prime anyway, to be perfectly frank, and you may consider changing it: This operation will probably entail, by necessity, also upgrading the RAM and processor too. – So if you do feel that you’d like to have a change of motherboard, then you might consider building or purchasing a new computer. If not; and you’re happy with your existing motherboard, then you’ll probably get anything between 5 minutes and 5 years of life from it yet. – Just don’t expect it to have the capabilities of more modern components.

Back to the subject at hand; and let’s take a look at the materials required: –

• You’ll obviously need a hard drive to fit to your machine.

• You might need a copy of the hard drive manual if you need to set jumpers on an IDE drive: This can be downloaded if your drive didn’t come with one or you’ve lost it.

• You might need a controller card if you’re fitting an IDE drive but don’t have a spare connector on the motherboard, or space on an existing ribbon cable to connect your drive to.  You can also purchase a SATA controller card if necessary. These controller cards will usually fit into a spare PCI slot; although you may find some that fit into a PCIe x 1 port.

• You’ll need a data cable for the drive; unless you’re installing an IDE drive as a slave-drive on an existing cable.

• You might also need a power cable Y-splitter if you don’t have a spare power connector. There are 2 types available; the 4-pin “Molex” connector, and also the standard SATA power connector. Which one you use will depend upon the type of power connector on the drive you’re installing. (If you only have 4-pin Molex connectors, but require a SATA power connector; you cab buy an adapter which is satisfactory for most cases.)

• Drive-cloning software for if you want to clone your old hard drive to your new one, or a recent drive backup of your old drive if you only want to copy some of the files off the old drive.

Whichever drive you’re replacing, if you are indeed replacing a drive, make sure that you back up any data you want to save before you start, or you could well be sorry at a later time. If you don’t want to have to go through the laborious process of reinstalling Windows, you can clone the contents of your old hard drive to your new one using the setup utilities that hard drive manufacturers provide, or you can use any of the specific cloning programs available online. If you intend to reinstall Windows; make sure you have discs for Windows, all your drivers, and all your programs. This will prevent frustrations at a later point in time.

(At least one leading online publication recommends using the “Ultimate Boot CD”in this process. I don’t personally recommend using this, as I’ve had some bad experience with it. (Neither am I going to link to it.) – However if you want to use it then go right ahead. – That’s your prerogative.)

If you’re simply installing a secondary hard drive for storage then there’s no need to make any changes to the configuration of your current hard drive. If, however, you’re installing a second IDE drive, it is possible that you will need to alter the jumper configuration of your primary hard drive. If your current hard drive is set as “Cable Select” (meaning it is the only drive on the channel), then you may need to change it to “Master” which will allow you to add the second hard drive as a slave (see below).

Setting the Jumpers on IDE Drives (if using IDE)

IDE can accommodate two drives per channel. Some computers may have two channels available on the motherboard; but most modern boards will have only one. The primary drive on a single channel is called the Master, and the secondary one is called the Slave. If there are 2 IDE channels on your motherboard, then they’re labelled as Primary (or IDE1) and Secondary (or IDE2). The hard drive that the system boots from is usually the primary master. Generally, if you’re adding a second hard drive you’d set it up as the primary slave. (The secondary master and slave are usually used for optical drives, although they can accommodate hard drives if needed.)

Most IDE drives arrive pre-set to be used as masters: If you want to use one as a slave, you’ll have to change the jumpers, which are located between the power connector and the IDE connector. Each manufacturer has different jumper settings, so you’ll either have to read the diagram on the top of the drive telling you how to set the jumpers, or the instructions in your hard drive’s manual – Which you can download from the manufacturer’s website if your hard drive didn’t come with one.

If you have an 80-conductor ribbon cable, you can use Cable Select as a jumper-setting:  With both drives set to Cable Select, the computer will recognize the drive hooked up to the black end connector as the master and the one hooked up to the middle gray connector as the slave. – Just be sure that the drives are connected to the right connectors if you use this setting.

…And now – having done all the preliminary checks and adjustments; let’s get into actually physically fitting the thing: Here we go: -

Turn the computer off and switch off the power supply’s switch. You might not want to unplug it if you are using a 3-pin plug to plug it in to the AC household electrical supply: Why not? Because the case is earthed properly if you leave the 3-pin plug plugged in to the household supply power socket. – You might want to use the earthed case to discharge any static electricity in your body from time to time, and/or you might want to wear an antistatic wrist strap just to be on the safe side, (*Technician’s Tip: It’s always a good idea to wear an antistatic wrist strap whenever you do anything inside a computer. There are some companies that will sack people for failing to do so.) which you can connect to the computer’s earthed case or its chassis.  Now remove the side-panel and any other panels that you wish to remove. (It might be an idea to take digital photographs of everything inside before you start; especially if you’re new to this. If anything goes wrong at any stage or you forget what goes where, you can refer to these photographs for guidance.)

If you’re replacing an old hard drive, unplug all the cables from the old drive. You will see either a ribbon cable and a small (white) Molex power plug, or a small data connector and a larger power connector in the case of a SATA drive Do not force their plugs out: The ribbon cable connector on an IDE drive is usually fairly easy to remove, as are all connectors on a SATA drive. Sometimes the Molex power connector on an IDE drive (Occasionally on a SATA drive.) can seem hard to budge. Just rock it back and forth (Lengthwise, along the narrow side of the drive), taking care not to rip the connector off the drive (Which can happen.).

Once all the cables are disconnected, remove the mounting screws that hold the drive to the case frame. You might find that you need to tip the case or get into some strange positions to reach all the screws. You may find that the hard drive is mounted in a cage that you’ll be able to take out. Now remove the old drive from the case.

If you’re replacing the old drive, slide the new drive in the slot from where the old one came out. If you’re adding a second drive then just pick an empty drive bay, but remember that hard-drives produce heat; so try not to mount them too close together with other drives if at all possible. If you’re installing an IDE drive than a slot a bit below the current drive might work best, because it will make it easier to route cables. If you’re installing a 3.5″ drive into a 5.25″ drive bay, you may need to add an adaptor or a mounting bracket to make it fit. Screw the drive into place, making sure the screws aren’t going in crooked and cross-threading as a result.

If you need a separate controller card, install it now into a spare motherboard PCI or PCIe slot. You probably won’t need to worry about this; It’s usually only necessary to add a controller card if you want to add more IDE or SATA drives than your computer’s motherboard will support with it’s existing ports. If you are using SATA, your motherboard will probably have enough SATA ports, unless you’re running some huge RAID configuration. If there aren’t enough ports available, however, you should fit a controller card.

Attach the cable plugs to the hard drive, as well as to the motherboard and/or controller card if necessary. There are two cables: There’s the ribbon cable if the drive is IDE, or SATA data cable if the drive is SATA, and the power cable. The ribbon cable goes from the controller to the drive. Most cables are keyed to the connector so they only go in one way; if the cable isn’t going in, try flipping it over. The SATA data cable’s plug also only connects one way round, as does a SATA power plug and a Molex power plug. – Whether or not it appears to be going in – don’t force anything, or you’ll possibly end up in tears.

If you’re adding a second IDE drive, simply choose an unused connector on the same ribbon cable. Most IDE ribbon cables come with three connectors: one on the end (usually black) and one mid-way (usually gray), then one further away on the other end which connects to the motherboard (usually blue, green, or red). In general, the master drive should use the black connector on the end and the slave should use the gray connector in the middle, but if each drive is set either as master or slave, the position is not as important. (With SATA you have only 1 choice: Plug a new cable into a socket on the SATA controller on the motherboard and plug the other end into the SATA data socket on the drive.)

Now check that everything is as it should be, switch the switch on the power supply at the back of the computer on, and power up. It’s best to leave the case cover off for now in case you need to fiddle with something or troubleshoot the installation.

Your new drive may be instantly recognised by the system; but if not try the following: If you didn’t use a controller card, enter the BIOS (usually by pressing the F1, F2, F10, F12, or Delete key when you see the Power-On Self-Test or the manufacturer logo). Check the BIOS to make sure that the drives are all being recognized. If you installed a drive on an IDE connector that was not in use, you may have to set the corresponding drive to “Auto.” If your BIOS has an auto-detect feature, you can use that as well. If you did use a controller card, it will pop up a screen showing the name of the card and any drives it has detected.

If the drives are not being recognized, check that both power and data cables are in tightly (including the motherboard end for the data cables), and that the jumpers are set correctly. Windows may be able to see the drive but may need some help to display it. A reboot may be needed after Windows finds and installs drivers, or if that doesn’t work a little software coaxing may help – But some of that’s beyond the scope of this article.

If everything looks right and is working properly then proceed>.

Finally…

Now that your new drive is installed you can add data to it. If you’re replacing your current drive and cloning it to your new drive, you’ll need to connect both drives. If you’re using IDE drives only, change any necessary jumpers (see above) so that both drives as well as a CD drive are recognized. At this stage it is not important to screw in your old drive; you can just rest it somewhere convenient, but it’s not advisable to leave it hanging in mid-air. Now clone your old drive to the new one and disconnect the old one, reset the jumpers as appropriate if you’re using IDE drives.

If you’re replacing your current primary drive but you’ve no intention of cloning its contents to the new drive, put your operating system’s CD in the drive and boot from it. You’ll be prompted during the first part of setup to partition and format your drive. If you’re installing Windows XP,Vista, or 7; make sure to use the NTFS file system: it’ll make life so much easier for you as compared to FAT32.

If you’re installing a secondary drive for storage purposes, your operating system won’t see your new drive until you format it. To format the drive in Windows XP, right-click on My Computer and go to “Manage”. In the window that comes up, click Disk Management in the left pane. Once it loads, you should see an “Initialize Disk” wizard pop up. Partition and format the disk to your liking, but make sure not to convert it to a dynamic disk, as doing so will probably end in tears eventually.

Other operating systems may vary, but I can’t cover every possible operating system in this article.

That’s about it for this article: You now have a new working hard drive installed. Please see my other articles for more advice on what you can do next. You’ll find a chronological listing of articles on the page called “Blog Contents”, which you can access from the menu at the top of every page and post on this blog. In the same menu you’ll also find “Posts Listing: Computer Hardware” and “Posts Listing: Computer Software Help”; both of which could have an article or two listed on them with regards to what to do next, if you’re looking for ideas.

For more tips, tricks, products, and new content updates, please request to join the mailing list by entering your email address into the appropriate box. – You’ll then be eligible for regular content updates as well as my free members-only updates and newsletters.

This is Part Three of this series.

In Part 1 we went to the Windows Advanced Options Menu…

… And we tried using the “Last Known Good Configuration (your most recent settings that worked)” option. This sometimes, (Usually in my experience.) does the trick, but not always.

In Part 2 we looked at something else we could do if that doesn’t solve the issue: If it doesn’t solve the problem it usually means that one of the drivers is bad/corrupt/dodgy; so we looked at removing that driver by booting into Safe Mode.

What we didn’t look at was what to do if your XP computer doesn’t crash, but rather just boots and goes tits up; to put not too fine a point on it.

If you get a scrambled picture then ‘chances are that your graphics driver is playing up and needs removing and reinstalling, and/or your graphics card is either crap or has developed a fault. Some motherboards just don’t like some graphics cards: I have an Asus mobo that just hates a certain Asus nVidia graphics card. There’s nothing wrong with the graphics card; it works fine in other computers, but it just won’t work properly with this one board.

OK so we’ve covered a lot so far in parts 1 & 2; but there may be a couple more things that’s preventing XP from starting: –

These are operating system/data corruption and/or file system corruption.

Operating system corruption can result from too much buggering about and trying to be clever; – The usual scenario in my case. – or from a phenomenon (specific to Windows – ?) known as “software rot”. For whatever reason, Windows moves things around, writes, copies, deletes, all in normal operation. Eventually it makes a tiny error; which can go unnoticed. – But when a number of tiny errors build up over months of operation, then a big error happens, and things start to go downhill from there: A cascade of errors causing errors, until eventually the system becomes inoperable.

The above can take years and stay unnoticed until the machine simply stops working, or it can happen suddenly. File system corruption is much the same: The NTFS, or in some cases, the FAT32, file system, is the storage medium’s file storage structure on the disc. In short the computer stores tiny bits of data made up of a few bytes in many tiny storage areas on the disk. These are marked out before the data is added to the disk: It’s accomplished by process called “formatting”; which is the first thing that needs to be done if a new hard-drive is installed, or if the old one needs to be wiped. Also in the file system are indexes of these little areas of data; which can also be prone to error.

Since we’re on the subject of the file system; the way to correct a file system error is by using the chkdsk function built into Windows. In Windows XP this can be activated from the command prompt as well as the GUI. Open a command prompt (Start>Run and type “cmd”.) and type “chkdsk C: /f”. (Assuming that C: is the disc that you want to check for file system errors.) This instructs Windows to run chkdsk on drive C:, and the parameter f instructs the operating system to check specifically for file system errors and repair them.

Similarly; chkdsk can also check the disc for file system and data errors, and repair them. To instruct Windows to do this, open a command prompt, (Start>Run and type “cmd”.) and type “chkdsk C: /r” (Assuming that C: is the disc that you want to check for errors.) Using the parameter r instructs the operating system to repair any errors it finds on the disc: These include file system errors, corrupt data, and bad sectors. As you may imagine; this can be a long process on some occasions.

While chkdsk attends to disc errors, there is another process that checks further for data errors in the essential operating system files. This process is called the system file checker. To run it; first insert your (original) XP CD into the optical drive, then open a command prompt, (Start>Run and type “cmd”.) and type “sfc /scannow”. This instructs the operating system to run the system file checker, check the crucial system files that Windows needs in order to be able to operate, check their parity, and, if there are any errors; delete the file and replace it from the files on CD. – Short of performing a repair reinstallation, this is the best way to clear operating system corruption.

So that’s covered pretty much everything. If you’ve done everything suggested and it still won’t boot, then you have a choice of a repair reinstall or a disk-format-and-reinstall.

Before you do that, though, try pulling out all the USB plugs and other peripherals and seeing if the machine boots with no peripherals connected. If it does then you have a faulty peripheral device. Plug things back in one by one and boot after every device you plug in. When your computer fails to boot you’ll know that the last peripheral device you plugged in is faulty.

“ – After I’ve spent hours doing all that, from Part 1, 2 and 3; and now you tell me it’s a faulty peripheral device!”

- Don’t worry: You’ve just given your machine a full software service, and it’ll work a lot better as a result.

This is part 2 of the series. I’m assuming you’ve already read Part 1.

In Part 1 we brought up the Windows Advanced Options Menu:

We selected the option “Last Known Good Configuration (your most recent settings that worked)”, but that still hasn’t worked and your Windows XP computer still won’t boot: Either it’s crashing with a BSOD as it boots up, or it’s just not working at all well when it has apparently booted up fully. – The screen is scrambled, there are things missing, whatever.

This time we’re going to try something else. Does your computer crash and restart or go to a BSOD? Does your computer automatically restart when it crashes? There’s nothing wrong about that in itself, but if it does so then you don’t get the chance to read the data presented on the BSOD. The first thing we need to do is to stop the computer from automatically restarting every time it crashes, in order that you can study the BSOD.

If the computer doesn’t go to a BSOD or automatically restart, but just doesn’t work properly when it’s fully booted for whatever reason then see Part Three of this series. (Still to be written at time of writing: It won’t be long before it’s produced though.)

Go to the Windows Advanced Options Menu and use the up and down arrow keys to select “Disable automatic restart on system failure”. Press Enter¬. Allow the computer to reboot and to crash again. You should now be able to study the blue screen. (BSOD)

On the blue screen you’ll see the reason why the computer crashed, some tips which might or might not help, and some “Technical Information”, aka gibberish. The gibberish is probably the most important part of it all. First, though, try following the stated tips to whatever extent possible. I suggest photographing the blue screen with a digital camera: You might need the information later on, and the screen might not be accessible at the time you need it.

If that particular computer is the only one you have then you’ll need to use a neighbour’s computer, or an internet cafe’, public library computer, whatever, for the next bit: –

Type the stop error code into Google.

You’ll find the stop error code in “Technical Information” on the blue screen. In the example above the stop error code is the alphanumerical sequence 0×000000D1 : -

***  STOP  0×000000D1   (0×000…

Type that code into Google and it’ll return reams of information on the error; exactly what it is, what it might be, what causes it, what people think, …

You might even find a solution there. If it’s a driver issue, however, you need to identify which driver it is that’s causing the BSOD to occur. When you’ve done that we need to remove that driver before we can restart the machine and boot into Windows proper. To do this we go into the Windows Advanced Options Menu, and use the up and down arrow keys to select “Safe Mode”. Press Enter¬.

Safe Mode is a mode where Windows runs without loading all the drivers. Essentially it loads a minimal set of drivers that are essential for it to operate, and no more. On the basis of that, ‘chances are that the driver causing the BSOD won’t be loaded, and therefore Windows will boot into Safe Mode.

Whilst in Safe Mode, having identified the driver that’s causing the issue; go into Device Manager and remove that driver. Having done so, restart the computer.

Depending upon which driver it is; Windows will either reinstall one that works from the i386 folder on the hard drive and load it at boot, or it’ll start without it and let you know. If it starts without it then the piece of hardware that the driver pertained to will be severely limited in function if it works at all. It’ll be using any default driver that comes with the OS. You’ll need to manually reinstall a driver in this case – But I do suggest that you go to the device manufacturer’s website and download/install the latest driver for the device in question.

If the driver was a specialised keyboard or mouse driver then you may have to do a repair reinstallation of Windows before you can load the new driver.

A graphics card should still work in a very limited fashion using the default drivers that come with the OS. To get it working properly again you should install the latest driver from the manufacturer’s website.

I’m getting a lot of enquiries with regard to this from the search-engines lately: It’s like there’s a rush suddenly developed to get rid of the things for whatever reason. In my personal opinion the Home Hub 2.0 upwards are quite sophisticated. – Much more so than their predecessors anyway; but each to their own. maybe the novelty’s worn off somewhat? Who knows?

Anyway; since I haven’t posted since Friday last; as I’ve been working flat out on other things to do with this blog, I thought it was worth an article all of its own: So voila: Here is the articulated article: – (~ Articulum Articulate’.)

It’s a bit of a conundrum to pin down exactly what people mean by “uninstalling” the Home Hub: ‘See the Home Hub (HH for short.) is never actually installed; hence the reason it doesn’t appear in Device Manager.

To be “installed” in the proper sense of the word; a device should be reliant on a certain standard of interaction and control by the computer’s processor: For instance; if I were to install a graphics card in a computer, the graphics card would interact with the north bridge of the chipset, the processor via the peripheral component interface controllers, (PCI/e to you and me.), the RAM, and the power supply or PSU possibly to a greater extent than any other component, depending on its power consumption requirements related to its performance.

A BT Home Hub, on the other hand, is a router; a glorified router true, but nevertheless a router. (A rose by any other name. – Shakespeare.) It’s essentially as installed in your computer as your uninterruptible power supply or UPS is. (If you don’t have a UPS I really do suggest you get one ASAP: My two have saved me from almost certain data loss, as well as possible hard-disk damage, three times in the last 12 months.) Your UPS connects to your computer; maybe even by means of a USB lead like my Belkin does. It even has related software installed on the computer. – But it’s not counted as an installed device. The software only enables the computer to understand its readout and user interface (UI). It doesn’t actually drive the device itself. That’s the difference: An installed device has a driver for it stored on the hard-disk, which loads up to the device in order for it to do its thing – Like a set of instructions,  when the system is activated. A non-installed device does not. Let me give you an example: –

I’m a human hardware device: I have limbs and a body. I know already how to move almost all parts of my body. My controller, the human CPU, wants me to perform a specific operation that I don’t have a clue how to perform. I know how to move, but I have no idea which moves to make in order to complete the task.

When the machine starts up and the human BIOS has asked me to identify myself so that she can report my status and characteristics to the processor, the human  CPU or processor sends me a set of instructions telling me a number of complex moves that I must execute in a certain way in response to specific commands. I obey, and although I have no idea myself exactly what I’m doing as such, I’m carrying out my role efficiently as a component in the human computer.

I hope that analogy gives you some idea of what it is that I’m getting at. here’s another way to put it: -

A router has its own processor and is a separate entity entirely from the computer. The router is a mini-computer in it’s own right. To say that a router is “installed” in a computer in the same way as one of the drives (A:, C:, D:, E:, etc.) is, for instance, is equivalent to saying that you are installed as part of me just like my arm is. It’s simply not true: We can communicate, we can interact. You might help me in some way if you feel like it; and vice-versa. – But I can’t instruct you to do exactly what I want and know that you’ll carry out my instructions to the letter every time I demand it; like my arm does, for instance, and like a computer’s installed component does too.

A router; on the other hand, is totally autonomous: It receives input from the source, processes it, and sends it to the computer. Likewise it receives input from the computer, processes it, and sends it to source. The computer can tell the router to slow down or “stop talking to me while I finish processing the last data”. It can even say “Shut up until I ask you to talk to me again” in a number of circumstances. If the processor fails inside the computer then the computer’s rendered useless; yet the router goes on sending data regardless.

In the same way, if I die you won’t die; but my arm which is installed will.

Have we laboured that point enough now?

OK; point made: So how do we uninstall the BT software that I installed when I started using the Home Hub?

You mean the Norton Security Suite – Ahem, err… With Difficulty. – But it can be done; using the Norton Uninstaller Tool from Symantec. Everything else, such as the Wireless Connection Manager, (Pointless software: Windows already has one and it’s much better with a decent UI too.) BT/Yahoo software, BT Broadband Desktop Help, and whatever else rubbish they provided, (I think even the Yahoo Toolbar, although it can be deactivated in the browser, comes under this category too.) can be uninstalled via Add/Remove Programs. Look for “BT” and uninstall everything that starts with it. (I hope I haven’t fallen behind the times; my original BT/Yahoo software was supplied around 5 years ago. – Yes I do get online updates.)

And that’s yer lot: It was worth writing for a few extra hits. I think BT and/or BT Home Hub must be one of the, if not THE, most popular subject on this blog. Enjoy your new router. – By the way; BT Home Hubs might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but there’s a lot worse out there. If you can; try before you buy.

Let me know how you get on BTW. See that empty box below? That’s for things called “comments”: You, my readers, have to make them for me. No you don’t need a degree in engineering to make a comment: Just type something, anything: Even tell me you love me if it makes you feel better. (Unfortunately I’m the Ice Maiden’s Boss; so you’ll almost definitely draw a blank.) Just comment; or am I all alone out here in this corner of cyberspace? 

In cyberspace; everyone can hear you scream. – It’s probably recorded on You Tube!

Sorry if this post appears a bit late: I’m watching the Darwin program on BBC4.

Having done so I’m finding it rather difficult to think of any suitable pictures other than the ones I’ve used already: I’ll come up with something eventually though no doubt.

In the past I’ve written about hard-disk failures on this and/or other blogs. A hard-disk failure is a pain in the proverbial normally, especially if you forgot to make regular data backups. Even if you’re running a RAID configuration using hot-swappable SATA disks a disk-failure causes unwanted hassle and replacement-expense that one could do without.

Imagine having a single 1.5 terabyte disk with over a terabyte of data on it that fails! You’ve made a backup; but think of the time involved in getting your machine working again. If you have a disk of this size; in fact anything bigger than 500MB, then I would advise the following: -

Either:

1) Have a smaller drive, 250GB or suchlike, fitted in addition to the massive-sized drive, on which resides your operating system and its immediately-related files: ( e.g. drive C: . The huge drive could be drive D: for example. ) . Also take regular backups of both drives.

2) Run a RAID configuration in RAID 1 or greater using 2 or more SATAII large disks (>500MB) of equal size. Take regular backups.

OR 3) A combination of both. (Inc. regular backups.)

Reasons for 1):

If your operating system screws up, gets a virus infection, or you just decide to upgrade it; it’ll be much simpler to have all the files and folders concerned separately contained on a single, smaller drive, while the massive drive exists independently of the system drive and is used for storage alone.

Whilst it’s true that there’s nothing whatsoever to prevent an invading piece of malware attacking the massive drive at the same time as the smaller C: drive, the computer is able to operate with a reinstalled operating system on C: while you are cleaning your massive data store or formatting it and reinstalling from a backup made prior to the malware infection: hence less down-time than there would have been if you’d had to reinstall all your massive amounts of data plus your OS on a single drive.

Reasons for 2):

A RAID 1 or greater configuration will automatically provide some form of backup, so that should a drive fail, or data corruption occur on one drive, there’ll always be a second drive installed as backup. This type of configuration will prevent data corruption to a greater extent, and, in the case of a drive failure, will allow you to hot-swap the faulty drive for a new one with minimal if any down-time.

In the case of a virus infection however, this approach can be problematic as the entire contents of a terabyte or more will need to be cleaned or reinstalled from a backup made prior to infection. – Thus causing a problem of down-time.

This brings me on to the last section:

Reasons for 3):

Firstly, we never properly specified what 3) actually is exactly: We just said that it’s a combination of 1) and 2). Let’s be a little more specific: -

The setup is as follows:

2 or more x 250 GB or similar drives in a RAID 1 or greater configuration containing the OS and associated files.

2 or more x 500GB+ drives in a RAID 1 or greater configuration for storage of your other files.

Most motherboards only have a single RAID controller built into them. The above involves 2 RAID configurations, each on a separate RAID controller. Fortunately the remedy; that is installing a separate RAID controller, isn’t that difficult or expensive.

A VIA VT6421 card is the cheapest option, and fits into a spare PCI slot. Silicon Image also have a RAID controller card that fits into that little-used PCIe x1 slot. Both have their own onboard BIOS although they both require an extra driver.

In the case of the Silicon Image card you’ll find this on the installation CD that is packed with it. It has drivers for pretty much every known OS included on it, including a multitude of flavours of Linux.The VIA VT6421 driver can probably be installed with or from Windows XP; but if not it also comes with a driver CD too.

So having got our RAID controller card fitted we start off (– Assuming that this is a new build.) by fitting 2 or more identical 250GB drives, connecting them to the motherboard’s RAID controller, and configuring then in RAID 1 or greater, depending upon the number of drives, in tandem with installing the operating system on this configuration.#

Having got the machine working we now fit 2 or more identical 500GB+ drives and, ensuring that the RAID controller card’s drivers are installed and working properly, we connect the big drives’ SATA connector leads to the RAID controller’s SATA ports and reboot…

Now you’ll see 2 drives in My Computer: Drive C: , which is the set of 250GB system drives in RAID configuration containing the operating system and associated files, and Drive *: , which is the set of big drives in RAID configuration.

The drawback of this method is cost: Let’s assume that you configure 2 x 250GB drives in RAID1 , as well as 2 x 1TB drives in RAID 1. That’s going to cost you about £120 to £160 extra to just having a single 1 TB HDD installed. (Including the cost of the extra RAID controller card.)

Question: Is it worth it?

For the peace of mind and the reduced hassle when it does screw up then I’d say it probably does balance out with the extra cost, and is worth doing. – Particularly if you have loads of data that is going to cause problems if it can’t be accessed instantly.

Do I use this system? I don’t have enough data on disk currently to justify it. As my CD and DVD collection (Music and data.) begins to degrade with time though, it’ll eventually end up on disk to avoid it being binned along with the failing optical disks. – So yes I’d imagine I will eventually. Probably by that time I’ll be using new computers, most likely running Windows 7, maybe dual-booted with XP (?).

Should you use this system? Only you can decide that. Please comment and tell us why you’d use it or why you wouldn’t.

Being a geekette; that is a female computer designer/builder, as well as a blogger, I often get asked by my girlfriends (And some of their boyfriends too – Shh!) to pop over for a cuppa and attend to some problem they’re having with their computer. Most of these problems turn out to be software-related, so it’s always a good idea to come prepared – Although I can download most of what I need from the internet, sometimes their internet connection is not working for whatever reason, and more than one is on dial-up – Which can make downloading a program a 2-hour job in itself.

To combat this I have a 1Gb USB flash drive with most of anything I might need on it; plus loads of links to anything useful on the internet itself that might be useful which I haven’t bothered to include because I probably won’t need it.

A Topless and Bottomless Photo of Me

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I pop the cord from which the USB stick hangs around my neck, and go to sort out their issues.

I mainly have program installers in the form of .exe files on the USB drive: These are always useful. I also am able, in a worst-case scenario, to provide them with a temporary internet connection via my mobile device, for which I also carry a USB bluetooth dongle to plug into their computer on the rare occasions where it is necessary; such as an instance a year plus ago where a friend somehow lost the driver for their network interface device and was unable to communicate with their router as a result: I removed the old driver which was faulty but obviously didn’t have that particular driver on the USB device; so I set up a temporary internet connection via my mobile phone/bluetooth and downloaded a new driver, installed it – Target neutralised.

The items I have on my USB drive are listed below: I’m sharing this with you as I’m assuming that as a geek you too get called out to similar situations; but being unable to fix it on the spot you end up taking their computer home, doing the work in your spare time, and returning their computer at a later date; which causes inconvenience to both parties.

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The files I carry around on my USB device are as follows:

1. AVG Anti-virus.exe installer: You’d be mightily surprised how many people don’t run an anti-virus program! They might find that their computer slows down with use; and, not realising that it is caused by the registry getting cluttered with crap among other things, they start removing programs which they think are unnecessary in order to attempt to get the machine to speed up again, one of those “unnecessary” programs being their anti-virus program.

2.. A free anti-spyware program; such as AdAware and Spybot Search and Destroy – For the reason stated above or that they didn’t even know what spyware was etc. The latest AVG antivirus has built-in spyware-protection, but that protection is not exhaustive, so it’s always a good idea to install extra spyware protection supplemental to that.

3. Free FTP clients in .exe installer format, such as WS-FTP-LE and FileZilla: They do occasionally come in handy.

4. Diagnostic programs; such as Core Temp.exe, Diskcheckup.exe… I know; rather than listing them all here I’ll show a picture of all the icons below and to save a lot of my time I’ll let you Google for them all.

Obviously the folders are of my own making: Batch Files contains some useful batch files that I wrote or copied, Dragons Websites contains the URLs of the websites of the millionaire entrepreneurs from the BBC series “Dragon’s Den”, Glint(Program) contains the .exe file of the Glint System Monitor program, KK contains pictures which I use regarding Kustom Komputa; Suppliers, Parts, and Circuits contains URLs to suppliers of computer hardware components, plus a few electronic circuits, Web Shortcuts contains hundreds of various useful URLs, Websites contains copies of all my website files from some of my various sites, WP Plugins contains some useful WordPress plugins. Some of the files, such as DSC00* are photos from my mobile phone. aports.zip shouldn’t be on there as it’s a program that contains malware. OEM Exel and OEM INXP are folders containing branding files which I add to the OS to indicate that I am supplier, builder, and maintenance tech for a particular computer. The file “Kustom Komputa” is a copy of some files from my Kustom Komputa website. WP Themes contains WordPress themes. The Folder “Self-Installing Scr” contains a number of screensavers that I created and which automatically install on the computer upon activation of the .exe file thereof. (No malware involved.) The folder Paint.net contains the program Paint.net, and the folder “Sounds” contains some alternative Windows sound effects as spoken by the Daleks from the BBC TV series “Dr Who”.

There are also a number of shortcuts which you don’t normally see on any Windows desktop. These shortcuts; such as “Sound Recorder“, “Volume Control“, “Command Prompt“, “Device Manager“, and “Sleep or Hibernate” are described on this site, including the method to create your very own icon(s).

So that’s pretty much it: Carry this lot plus your own personal files around on a USB flash drive and you won’t go far wrong.

HTH (‘Hope That Helps.)

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