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WSjrclen
AskWoody LoungerSo how many programs do we want running in the background degrading the performance of our computers? I agree Spyware Blaster and my F-Prot were not enough and should probably just be uninstalled. Also, as fast as Microsoft releases hundreds of security fixes, bad guys figure out how to get around them. So what is the point of installing them? Some of them work and some of them leave you with a boat anchor for a computer. I am very happy that you have had no problem with your Firewall and your SP2. The majority of users seem not to have problems with them. But that is no consolation to those of us who have had very serious problems with both. I can honestly say I have had no problems with XP SP1 with NO upgrades at all on 2 of my computers, and 98 SE, also with NO upgrades, on three others. I have been computing and online now for many years. This is the first attack I have suffered due to my lack of running a score of background programs. I was able to restore my computer in about a half hour. I cannot even guess at how many hours I have wasted, in trying to get firewalls to work, installing Windows upgrades that crashed my systems and required reformats and reinstalls, buying and installing and configuring all those anti this and anti that programs, and in the resulting slow performance due to all those programs running in the back ground to protect me from something that happened once in 12 or so years. Hmmmmmm. I wonder who is better off? With all due respect to your your way of handling the threats, I think I will stick with my method. In fact, I think I will uninstall my F-Prot and Spyware Blaster, which did nothing for me anyway. That is the first time I have ever seen F-Prot pop up. And it didn’t work. So the threat must not be so great. I am beguinning to think all this is hype that feeds on itself. Please comment on my idea to simply do daily backups of data, and in the rare event something bad happens, simply restore the partition with True Image, and get on with life.
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WSjrclen
AskWoody LoungerYes it may have been. See my next post.
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WSjrclen
AskWoody LoungerI have SpywareBlaster and F-Prot AV. Both had been updated less than an hour before the attack. No other protection. I didn’t even get a chance to see what page I was directed to. It was not the page I expected. I was doing a search and clicked on a likely site in google. But where I went had nothing to do with the site name listed in google. I saw the F-Prot box open first and warn me of a virus. Then another F-Prot box listing a different virus. I closed IE. That is when I found my new desktop with the black page and ad for a spyware fixer program. I don’t know which one, but nothing I have seen before or mentioned in the forums. I closed the F-Prot boxes and reopened IE6. I had cool web search as a home page. I closed IE again and ran F-Prot scan. It listed 3 or 4 viruses which I didn’t have the sense to write down. It deleated some and gave me a message on others saying they could not be cleaned without being able to identify the virus. After the scan I tried to reboot. I saw the bios screen and then got a flash of a message at the top of the screen over and over. The XP splash screen never started. I tried safe mode and got the same result. Things happened so fast I was unprepared to take note of excactly what happened. I should have.
I hide behind a router on my home network. I have had big problems trying to run firewalls so I gave up on them. I had to reformat 2 computers to get rid of XP service release 2 in order for my internet to work, so I also gave up on that idea too. Going through all that is when I decided I needed a program that would restore my drives after a nice clean install of plain old XP SR1. And it worked great.
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WSjrclen
AskWoody LoungerOK, that could be. The one that took longer did have twice as much to back up and does have less ram. 256 meg compared to 384 meg. The speeds of the drives and the processors are the same and both are win 98. I’ll try creating an image on the same partition and see what happens. But either way, I am very pleased with the program. All I need now is a disaster or slow down to try it out and see if it works.
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WSjrclen
AskWoody LoungerWell Jeff, the image was created on one of my xp computers. My main one. I created it on the C drive. But I am storing the images on another computer with fat 32 so I figured that the image would not be accepted due to the 4.2 gig file size limit in fat 32. So I created another image of the same drive and on the same drive, but this time I told TI to make it in 4 gig files. TI did what I asked and created the image. But the three files it decided to create ended up being twice as large as when I let it create one file.
Another thing I noticed was the speed. On the xp computers and one of the 98 computers the image was created in 6 or 7 minutes, creating the image on the C drive. But on the other 98 computer I created the image on a second partition (D) of the hard drive. That one took 40 minutes. I will try an experiment and create another image to the C drive on that computer just to compare, but I suspect the image takes a lot longer to create when another drive or even another partition is the target. Interesting.
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WSjrclen
AskWoody LoungerI guess I wasn’t clear what I was asking. I created an image in one file. Then I created the excact same image in three files. The total size for the three is twice as big as the single file. It’s no big deal. But it makes me wonder what would have happened if I split the file into cd rom size files.
Thanks for the tip about booting with the cd and checking to see if I can access the files where I have them stored. Great idea.
John -
WSjrclen
AskWoody LoungerSo far so good. I installed the program on each computer and made an image on each. On one computer the image was 5.6 gig. The others were under 4 gig. On all but one I am going to store the image files on a partition on one of the windows 98 computers with fat 32. I think if I am looking at things correctly I am limited to 4.2 gig file size on fat 32. So I made another image of the computer with 5.6 and told TI to use 3.9 gig file size. What I got was three files. 4.09 on 2 of them and 3.04 on the third. Why are these so big when the original image I created was 5.6? I don’t mind, but found that a little odd. But the image creation and verification went great. So the images are now each stored on another computer on the network and not its own. I think I am protected now. I also created the bootable cd. Thanks for all the help.
John -
WSjrclen
AskWoody LoungerThanks Jeff. that’s what I thought but wanted to double check. If understand correctly, I can create the image in 650 MB files on the hard drive for burning on the computer with the CD burner later.
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WSjrclen
AskWoody LoungerAs always there is a tremendous amount of information in these threads in the lounge. My new True Image software has been delivered today so I am ready to install and go. I’d like to ask one more thing if I may. My purpose for the program is to simply create an image for future use for each computer so when things go bad or the computers get all gunked up and slow I can format and restore the hard drive to this point. I have just redone each of them so they are now clean with all the software on each one that I want. And all have all the drivers and settings and options set as I want them. So I don’t expect to need more backups or incremental backups or anything like that. I am leaning toward just creating an image on each computer, then storing those images either on cd rom or on a different hard drive on the network, or both. So I would just as soon not have anything running in the back ground for the next year or two that I don’t need, and I am leary about the feature that changes the MBR so I can use the F 11 key ect. In the future if I need to restore a particular hard drive on one of the computers I will be able to format that drive and then resore the image I make. Like the cds that came with my lap top for instance. Am I heading in the right direction here? I just want to avoid having to install the OS, all the drivers, the settings, the network, and the core software, one piece at a time like I do now. Thanks to all of you for the information and suggestions and experiences you share. I have read all the threads on True Image and the entire PDF file from Acronis. Now I am looking for the best option to meet the need I took way to long to say above.
John -
WSjrclen
AskWoody LoungerOK. I’ve done some rethinking on this after reading the replys to my questions. The secure zone sounds good to me. I own partition magic so I could create a new partition on each computer to hold the image. Would that be an advantage over creating the secure zone on the main partition? I understand if the hard drive itself goes south I will be out of luck but I would be willing to risk that. All my drives are fairly new WD 7200 rpm drives so I am not to worried about them. If I purchase an external usb drive and need to restore a hard drive what do I do about the usb drivers ect to restore? And can one usb drive be used for all the computers? I have an average of 4 to 6 gig of space used on each computer so even using no compression I am looking at less than 30 gig. Thanks for the feedback.
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WSjrclen
AskWoody LoungerI’ve been watching the threads here on True Image and decided I had to have it. I ordered it today. I have been reading through the pdf manual but couldn’t find an answer to this. I have 4 computers on a home lan. 2 XP home SR1 and 2 98 2nd ed. I want to make disk images on cd roms for each computer for ez restoring after a disaster. I would like to pop the series of cds (one set for each computer) into the drive of any computer and format and restore the HDD on that computer. So far so good. My cd burner is on one of the xp computors. Can I make the image on say one of the 98 computers, copy it to the computer with the burner, and make the image cd’s? Will they be bootable back on the 98 computer the image came from so I can format and restore? Do I install the True Image program on each computer to make the image file or files? Does the program just keep spanning CD’s until the image is all copied? I recently restored my laptop with the image cd’s it came with and was very impressed and delighted with the process. I want to be able to do that with all my computers. Thanks for your help and suggestions.
John -
WSjrclen
AskWoody LoungerThank you Stuart, I will take a look at those.
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WSjrclen
AskWoody LoungerAccess your router settings and see how many computers are set up.
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WSjrclen
AskWoody LoungerAfter all this time I found the problem with the help of my providers tech support. They have tried to resolve this before, but this time I got ahold of another techie who walked me right to it. He had me open the router settings. Told me to go to the WAN section and read the addresses. 2 of the DNS adresses were old and no longer used. Evidently that isn’t an issue with Win 98 but it is with XP. I entered the new adresses and haven’t had a problem since. Thank Stuart for all your help. And to all the others too.
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WSjrclen
AskWoody LoungerThat sounds interesting. Thanks Stuart, I will try that first chance I get.
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