XP system restore
Author
Discussion

Edt

Original Poster:

5,239 posts

314 months

Thursday 10th November 2005
quotequote all
anyone know... If I do an XP system restore will I lose mails, files etc or is it just the system (ie installed progs, system update etc) as name suggests?

ta mucho

Ed

Prof Higgins

11,706 posts

269 months

Thursday 10th November 2005
quotequote all
No just system config stuff and software intalls etc. All files and emails will be fine. Bit hairy when I first did it but all was fine.

Edt

Original Poster:

5,239 posts

314 months

Thursday 10th November 2005
quotequote all
Right here goes . Been pulling out hair trying to suss why DVD burner so crap all of a sudden so will jump back a month & see if any better. If not, the bin !
Ed

GregE240

10,857 posts

297 months

Thursday 10th November 2005
quotequote all
Ed, it could be nothing more than the DVD burner is on its way out (how old is it?).

EG, when I bought my desktop back in 2001, I bought a Ricoh 20x CDRW. A firmaware upgrade (OEM, not some kid in his bedroom), and it burned at 40x. Great! A 40-speeder for 20x money. The dream lasted literally just over a year, i.e. just as it went out of warranty. Then one day, I noticed its untimely disappearance from My Computer. Saw it in the BIOS, but nowt in XP. Tried all sorts (including a fancy lens cleaner), but no avail. Thought it might be my PC, so took it into work and chucked it in another XP desktop. Same deal. Phoned Ricoh in the UK who basically said, its out of warranty mate, tough. Vowed never to buy Rico again.

Bought Plextor 52x and never looked back.

If its only a 4.7Gb capable, why not upgrade to a dual layer one? I've just bought Tom an NEC DVD dual layer writer and it its quite superb. OEM kit and it was cheap as chips.

That any good to you?

Greg

Edt

Original Poster:

5,239 posts

314 months

Thursday 10th November 2005
quotequote all
cheers Greb.. sound advice I've noticed that they're beer money now. Might just try 1 jump back to about a month ago (Which is when it started being useless) & if that's no use ditch it & get me a nice dual layer, which would be handy.

Savastore are doing this chappy

DW-Q30A Dual Layer 16X DVD +/-R/RW oem
£24.10 ex.
£28.32 inc.

!!! bl..dy hell

Ed

GregE240

10,857 posts

297 months

Friday 11th November 2005
quotequote all
Ed, check out E-Buyer as well, thats where I got the NEC from (3540, sorry).

The NEC and Pioneer ones are highly rated. Seems the LG GSA-4167 is worth a look too.

Good review site here: www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/Reviews/Specific.aspx?ArticleId=14511

Greg

>> Edited by GregE240 on Friday 11th November 00:04

Edt

Original Poster:

5,239 posts

314 months

Sunday 13th November 2005
quotequote all
well took a deep breath having backup loads of stuff to an external drive.. and set XP off doing a restore to about 6 weeks ago. Took quite a while as the progress bar crept along.

LAter... without a hitch.. PC restarted & loaded up all fine. THe result? Exactly the same setup what a swizz. All the stuff I installed recently still installed! Hah

Anyway.. set about uninstalling loads & whatever was making the DVD burning fail has gone as it's A OK now. Some reason I think it may be something I had XPize 4.0 which makes the desktop more 'fancy' but I'll never know as not installing it again just in case!
Ed

ErnestM

11,621 posts

297 months

Sunday 13th November 2005
quotequote all
I've tried several dual layer pieces of kit and can firmly say that nobody does it better than Pioneer. Currently I have the 16x16 DVR-109 but the 16x16 DVR-R100 offers even more compatibility. Their drives seem much more "bulletproof" then any of the others I have used (Sony, NEC, etc, etc)

ErnestM

Edt

Original Poster:

5,239 posts

314 months

Monday 14th November 2005
quotequote all
Spoke too soon it's crap again.. better get the wallet out
Ed

pmanson

13,388 posts

283 months

Monday 14th November 2005
quotequote all
Ed.

Try www.bigpockets.co.uk i've got a Pioneer 110D (or similar) in a USB2 external drive. Seems to work ok but at 16x (I think its the media i'm using though not the drive)

Edt

Original Poster:

5,239 posts

314 months

Wednesday 16th November 2005
quotequote all
stumped up for one of these last night

www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=97237

fingers x'd its not the PC. In fact quite sure it is the writer as have had a few 'power calibration' errors reported now

Ed

GregE240

10,857 posts

297 months

Wednesday 16th November 2005
quotequote all
Nice one Ed.

My old Lite-On single layer can burn a 4.7GB DVD in just over 5 minutes, I'll be interested to see what you make of this LG one as I'm thinking of going dual layer sometime soon.

ATB,
Greg

GregE240

10,857 posts

297 months

Wednesday 16th November 2005
quotequote all
PS Ed - what are you using to burn the DVDs? Nero?

Edt

Original Poster:

5,239 posts

314 months

Wednesday 16th November 2005
quotequote all
GregE240 said:
PS Ed - what are you using to burn the DVDs? Nero?


yup 6 point something think it is. Nice n easy drag and drop

Should arrive tomorrow fit weekend will let you know after so hopeful high speed tests
Ed

Edt

Original Poster:

5,239 posts

314 months

Saturday 19th November 2005
quotequote all
just an update.. nice new LG dual layer drive fitted (a whopping £30) and burning away at 8 x very happily as I type this (buffer boucing around - always above 90% so far)
So I t hink the old NEC burner's time was up, simple as that ! Was only about 18 months old but now so cheap cant really lose sleep over it.
Ed