Replies

The link does not reveal telephone number for my situation. It provides the telephone number only when telephone activation is required. It’s not my case.

Here is what I did to solve the problem.

I uninstalled and reinstall the trial version. This time I entered the full version product key when it prompted for product-key in the beginning of installation. I did not use the trial product key.

Actually I also did restart the PC to make sure it’s “fresh”…twice.

I clicked on the Purchase Product icon and entered the products key there.

If the Products Key entered was not valid, I believe there should be some kind of pop-out warning during the process.

It’s very frustrated.

I have used a Gateway SX2800-01 Windows Vista for TV recording for years. Since the 650GB hard drive is running out the space for all the recorded HD shows, I plan to add a 1TB USB external drive to archive those old shows.

I put a 32GB USB flash drive on the Gateway to test my new setup. I copy a recorded TV show to this flash drive and use the Add Folder to Watch in Library SetUp. Unfortunately, this flash drive does not show up in the list. Only local C: and NAS on the network show on the selection list.

Another Win7 PC on the network can see this flash drive and has no problem in adding it to Win7’s Watch Folder.

What did I do wrong in the Vista machine?

I found myself the answer.

To see the USB flash drive in the list for Windows Media Center TV recording storage, the USB flash drive must be in NTFS, not FAT32.

I had the similar problem on my band new Win7 64-bit PC before. It won’t recognize the devices I connected to the USB ports. Those devices could be connected to my good old XP without any problem. Those devices included USB flash drive, Canon T1i Camera, Canon HD camcorder…you name it. I was frustrated by not finding any solution to this problem.

Finally, I searched the internet for the possible most updated 64-bit driver for the camcorder and found someone had the same problem as mine. He said the problem was caused by the hardware, not the software or Win7.

The front USB ports on his desktop don’t provide enough power for long USB cable connection. If he connected all these “trouble” devices to the rear USB ports, Win7 would recognize them with no problem.

I followed his suggestion and solved the problem.

Dennis,

If you start with an older PST file you shouldn’t have any problems. However, if you start with a 2010 Outlook file it could be in a different format {I don’t have 2010 to test this out}. Below is a screen shot showing that my PST file is in 2002-97 format even though I’m using it in Outlook 2003 & 2007. See this Microsoft Article on .PST files.

RetiredGeek,

After reading all your inputs, I feel safe in moving the ANSI PST between Outlook 2002 and Outlook 2010.

Thank you guys!

Dennis,

As long as you keep the .PST file in the Outlook 2003-97 format you’ll have no problems. If you do something to upgrade the .PST file layout to Outlook 2007 or 2010 then you’ll have problems when you copy it back to 2002. I’ve been moving .PST files around this way between Desktop/Laptop and sharing the same .PST file on a dual boot Vista{upgraded to Win-7}/Outlook 2007 – Win XP Pro/Outlook 2003 for over a 3 years w/o problems.

Hi RetiredGeek,

Thank you for your reply.

What kind of upgraded PST file layout that I will have problems when I copy it back to 2002?

Ted means. “yes, you can apply SP3 to that installation”. He is also suggesting you create a “new” XP install CD with SP3 pre-installed – this will save some time if you need to re-install on many PCs, but for the very occasional re-load it’s as easy to have SP3 on another CD ready to load post install.

cheers, Paul

P T,

You said “for the very occasional re-load it’s as easy to have SP3 on another CD ready to load post install”.

After I install the first generation XP (which is also SP0) on a new hard drive, can I just install the SP3 or do I need to install the other SP’s first? Does SP3 already include SP’s 1 and 2?

This post shows one possible solution. And here is another possible solution.

Hi Ted,

Thanks for the reply. Before reading your reply, I used Ghost 14.0 to roll back the system. If I dare to delete the user account again and bump into the same problem, I will definitely to try these two methods.

What is the reason for the switch in the first place? I go directly from my ISP moden to my wired/wireless router. Have a desktop directly wired and several laptops conn. through wireless portion of router. I originally tried a range extender, but this just screwed up my connections.

Hi Ted,

My router has only four ports. I need more ports to support my wired network (six desktop PCs, one networked printer…). I added this switch to expand the number of port. The wireless is not the issue here.

Sounds like the router does not like having a dead device on the line – powered off switch. You could try a crossover cable to see if that helps – the switch/router negotiate the connection when the power is on. You could also try a 10 or 20 metre cable between the switch and router – it might be long enough for the router to work out what is going on and remain alive.

cheers, Paul

Hi Paul,

According to my original post, I did try the crossover cable. It did not help.

Hi BATcher,

Though my PC is Gigabit Ethernet enabled, the router is not. I need to get a Gibabit router to use the NAS devices. But, if I am correct, the speed of Gigabit NAS is in the same range of USB 2.0, 100MB to 1000MB.

USB2 is not fast enough, but if your computer supports eSATA then this runs at a decent speed.

Hi Stuart,

Before I posted this topic, I did try to use a 2.5″/3.5″ SATA to USB 2.0/eSATA Dual Bay Hard Drive Dock. For unknown reasons, my PC had difficulty in recognizing the inserted hard drive in either eSATA or USB connection. I thought it was an isolated problem caused by my PC. So I moved the dock station to another Vista PC. Same problem!

Since one side of my PC case is always open, I have been able to connect the 2TB directly to the mother board SATA port and disconnect/connect the cable conveniently.

Put it into an external case and connect it via the USB port? USB is plug and play…

Hi BATcher,

Thanks for your comment.

This 2TB SATA HD is for intensive large files storage. External USB enclosure is too slow for the work.

I searched on the internet and found people suggested enabling the AHCI in the BIOS. Unfortunately, it requires the reinstallation of Windows.

HotSwap may be is another way to enable the hot swap capability of SATA drive. I have not tried it yet.

I found myself a way to hot swap SATA drive. It is not as easy as using the USB enclosure. But, it works for me. The basic theory is to use the Device Manager, not Disk Manager, in the Control Panel to manage the hot swap.

If I want to disconnect the 2TB from the system, I need to disable it from the Device Manager first before unplug the power or cable from the back of the hard drive.

When I want to put the 2TB back to the system, just plug in the power and cable and do the Scan for Hardware Changes under the Action menu in Device Manager. Then enable this hard drive. 2TB will show up in My Computer.

Yes, I can disconnect the power and cable from the back without disabling the device first. But, to prevent accidentally disconnect the hard drive while it is doing the data transfer, I would add the disable procedure as safety measure.

Ah!

It sounds to me that there is something badly wrong. There would be nothing gained on spending $90 (or whatever) on a new router before you’ve eliminated other possibilities.

I can’t see any reason why changing to a Wireless-N router would have any effect on the Gigabit Hub which you say both the current Wireless-G router has and the new Wireless-N router will include! Are you sure they have Gigabit ethernet ports? Much more usual would be 100 Mbps ports. I would obtain two Cat 5E (or even Cat 6) patch cables of appropriate length and connect them between each PC and the router “over the floor and up the stairs” or wherever they need to go, and do the tests with these, and with the current cables.

If the tests come out with similar data rates, then the problem might relate to the configuration of the ethernet ports on the PCs – Stuart knows more about full- and half-duplex, fixing speeds rather than allowing them to be negotiated, and so on, than I do!

Test results report:

The delay of playing 1080p video files through 10/100 LAN was not caused by the LAN transfer speed. It was caused by the underpowered PC. The WinXP Home PC (E4500 CPU, 2GB Memory and Intel 82945G (128MB) video card) was not power enough to process the 1080p video. If I used a Vista 64-bit Home premium PC ( Intel 8200 CPU, 4GB Memory and Intel G45/G43 (1759MB) video card, it played the 1080p movie over the 10/100 LAN with no delay.

There is no need to replace the 10/100 router with the 10/100/1000 router for my application. However, a better computer is needed.

Ah!

It sounds to me that there is something badly wrong. There would be nothing gained on spending $90 (or whatever) on a new router before you’ve eliminated other possibilities.

I can’t see any reason why changing to a Wireless-N router would have any effect on the Gigabit Hub which you say both the current Wireless-G router has and the new Wireless-N router will include! Are you sure they have Gigabit ethernet ports? Much more usual would be 100 Mbps ports. I would obtain two Cat 5E (or even Cat 6) patch cables of appropriate length and connect them between each PC and the router “over the floor and up the stairs” or wherever they need to go, and do the tests with these, and with the current cables.

If the tests come out with similar data rates, then the problem might relate to the configuration of the ethernet ports on the PCs – Stuart knows more about full- and half-duplex, fixing speeds rather than allowing them to be negotiated, and so on, than I do!

Hi BATcher,

The current router, Linksys WRT54G, is a 10/100 router, not a Gbit router. The reason I chose Belkin N+ gigabit router for upgrade was this wireless gigabit router was cheaper than other gigabit routers with no wireless function.

If the upgrade will not help me as DaveA said after I have run the tests, I still have the opportunity to return it to the local store.

Since the entire network cables are running inside the wall and the attics buried under the insulation, to run a new cable or change the cables is not an easy job.