[ale] [OT] - system crapped out

[Jim Kinney]

Was looking at that but snag is a parallel port dongle. Kvm doesn't (qemu
precisely ) not sure of others.
Old DOS app (runs under freedos) requires blasted dongle. Freedos doesn't
like it either.
On Dec 6, 2012 4:46 PM, "JD" <jdp at algoloma.com> wrote:

> This is an ideal reason to deploy a virtual machine.
> Decouple the hardware from the OS.
> Move all the disk redundancy to the hostOS.
>
> As/If more compute power is needed in the future, moving the disk image to
> a
> faster host (still running a VM server), is all that it should take.
>
> Of course, the HostOS would be some sort of Linux, right?  Probably a Xen
> or
> KVM-based deployment to avoid costly license fees.
>
>
>
>  ... see how I brought it back On-Topic?
>
>
>
>
> On 12/06/2012 03:53 PM, Jim Kinney wrote:
> > This is OT because the base system here is a zillion year old XP box
> (don't ask
> > - software won't run on new crap)
> >
> > system became unresponsive to keyboard (USB) on the main connection on
> mobo but
> > worked on front panel connectors. Then those quit.
> >
> > Clearly a hardware issue.
> >
> > Noticed smell of overheated electronics from power supply so replaced it.
> > System had trouble booting but was OK going into safe mode.
> >
> > 2 main drives in RAID 1 on a 3ware sata RAID card. System not happy
> about being
> > shutdown uncleanly (many crashes before I was called) and ran a full
> chckdsk /r
> > on boot drives which reported no errors.
> > System will auto-reboot on normal startup at splash screen and now
> complains
> > about new hardware (3ware controller!) in safe-mode. The RAID
> controller(s) were
> > not changed so maybe a bit of drive scramble in that sector. Time to
> reload
> > drivers. woo.
> >
> > Original driver disk nowhere to be found so using latest download from
> LSI (2009
> > - about when the controller card went in) to add driver to OS drive(s).
> >
> > Can't. Installer requires a VC++ something that requires the windows
> installer
> > to run. But safe mode won't run the windows installer.
> >
> > reboot and cuss. Try floppy image - dug out usb floppy and found a single
> > working floppy disk (thought I had tossed all of those?). Install would
> run but
> > reboot asked for drivers again.
> >
> > cuss more when safe-mode now automatically reboots on startup. No way to
> access
> > system drives anymore.
> >
> > Replace motherboard, CPU, RAM, CD drive and power supply. Boots to safe
> mode
> > (YAY!) for new driver install. But original drivers for both RAID cards
> (other
> > is an adaptec with a mirror pair with application data) were now needing
> to be
> > installed. Plus now need to "re-authenticate" (cuss. spit.)
> >
> > ????  How are the originally working 3 days ago drivers vanishing ????
> >
> > unplug EVERYTHING, all drives, all raid cards, and try to boot from a
> known good
> > XP hard drive built on a different system
> >
> > It does the same thing as the other drives! Gets to the XP splash screen
> then
> > reboots the systems.
> >
> > F8 - set no restart on error - no change, set debug mode - just restarts
> with no
> > messages
> >
> > Insert original installation CD to try for recovery console - blue
> screens after
> > _long_ fight to get driver disk (see floppy) to work.
> >
> > Try newer XP-SP3 disk - blue screens
> >
> > memtest says all RAM is just fine (single pass all tests).
> >
> > W   T   F   !!!!!?????!!!!!?????
> >
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