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The LangaList
Standard Edition

2002-06-24

A Free Email Newsletter from Fred Langa
That Helps You Get More From Your Hardware, 
Software, and Time Online

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1) More "Dead Drive" Fixes

As mentioned in the last issue, the recent "Dead Drive Fix" items ( http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2002/2002-06-20.htm#2  and http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2002/2002-06-13.htm#2 ) prompted a flood of email. It's still pouring in!

First, I'd like to thank *everyone* who took the time to write. Much of the information submitted was truly first-rate. Alas, there's so much, there's no way I can fit it all.

So here's a sampling of the best and most-often-cited fixes and resources, as submitted by your fellow readers:

As I was reading the Dead Drive Fix article I remembered an issue that I once had with a hard drive that went dead. It was a Western Digital 8.4 Gb hard drive and part of the controller board blew out in a nice puff of smoke. I decided not to deal with software recovery and see if I could replace the board. The techs at Western Digital told me it might work, but probably not. I was able to find a hard drive with a nearly identical model on ebay and replaced the board. Voila! Everything was working correctly. I don't think it's the best method, and it rather painful to look for identical hard drives (model numbers and so forth), but it may be able to help in the recovery issue of the hard drive.--- Delbin1

Fred, I have had my share of dead hard drives. Here is something a friend passed on to me a long time ago that has saved my butt on more than one occasion. If the drive motor comes on, but the drive does not responds or clicks as the heads make their initial seek, the problem is often some solid state component that due to wear and tear primarily from heat has reached a point where it is operating outside its tolerance range. Take the hard drive out of the computer, place it a zip lock bag. Put it in the freezer and let it freeze. The purpose of the bag is to minimize frost and sweating of the drives electronics. Take it out and while still cold, plug it in, and fire it up. Sometimes, as long as the drive can stay cold, the fading component will operate within tolerance, and the drive will work. Then as fast as you can get what you need off!--- Ray Quay

May want to switch the HDD to SLAVE with the jumpers (assuming it is an IDE) and on the flat cable. Install a working HDD as the MASTER. Boot from either the new HDD or a floppy Emergency Boot Disk. Now see if you can access the old HDD. Copy your data or the entire HDD to the new one if there is capacity. May even want to purchase that new HDD for this. And check your warranty for a replacement. This has worked for me a couple of times. Info from a support tech of a HDD mfgr.--- Jules Schlechter

Fred, I don't know if this will work for him, but the identical thing  happened to me with a 30GB WD hard drive (4 months old). I was attempting to back it up to another drive, when it just stopped cold. I could not access the drive using any method and I had a lot of data on it. I decided to try calling WD to determine if I could buy another circuit board for the drive, just in case that was the problem. WD stated they did not sell parts, but offered to replace the drive as it was only 4 months old. I told them I would get back to them. Just for clarification I like WD HD. I currently have 13.... Anyway, just to try, I replaced the dead 30GB circuit board with one [from an identical drive I had] and everything started up without a hitch. I then completed my backup to two different drives and then switched the circuit boards back and sent it in to WD and they replaced the drive for me.  Just a thought! --- Hugh

Dear Fred, Re Stiction in a HD. We used to have Mac SE30's. After some years they all developed stiction. To correct this we simply turned the PCs upsidedown for a day or so, and if needed we twisted the PC back and forth upsidedown as it started up. This always seemed to work to get the HD to engage. Much easier and safer then dealing with an open back as a PC starts up. We eventually kept them on all the time. --- Robert Tollen

Turn off the PC, lift it 12 inches above the desk, then drop it. Sorts out most hard drive problems. We had a PC in a similar situation to the above in the office three months ago, although I must admit there was nothing on the drive that was irreplaceable. The young guys in the office were all set to spend the day trying their hi tech solutions, and made the mistake of asking me for advice. Stormed over, asked one of them to hold the monitor, lifted up the PC, then dropped it. You should have seen their faces when we powered up and it worked like a charm ... and still is today. In the mid 1980's, this was the textbook way of sorting out a frozen hard drive. We have come so far ..... --- Regards - Julian Eriksen

We've discussed this a couple times on thetechboard.com:
http://www.thetechboard.com/cgi2/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=3&t=000064
http://www.thetechboard.com/cgi2/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=5&t=000024
--- Keep up the good work! Jim Richards

Fred,  Perhaps the lengthy attached document from TechRepublic will help Derek Crager. Basically, it's "freeze it", "hit it", "drop it" and a few more tricks. Regards, Ron Kambourian
http://www.techrepublic.com/article.jhtml?id=r00320000511jed01.htm&src=search&_requestid=1940

Thanks again to all! And that last item from TechRepublic is a gem. You have to register (free) to get it, but when you do you'll find "200 ways to revive a hard drive!" That's right--- 200!

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2) Reader Shares Tech Fix He Had To *Pay* For

Reader Timothy Jordan writes:

Fred, I thought I would tell you a recent tip I received after paying Microsoft to help me with Microsoft Windows XP. I have had the NTFS drive system fail on me a few times since I have had windows 2000 and Windows XP. I can't get in the drive with the wimpy frustrating recovery console. (Insert cursing, bill gates dart board images etc, etc). This kind of security is of no use to me as a Home/Office user.

I have had to reinstall windows and all my applications several times. This is a several week process. The first time I re-installed it wipes out the my documents folder and erased irreplaceable pictures. To fix these problems I have come up with these tips given to me by the Microsoft Tech support pros over the course of the 4 installs.

1. Make your own my documents file. I call mine my documents main. Then put in it all the files that Windows XP would erase. My music , My pictures etc. Then use Windows Power Toys to change the default folders path from my documents to \my documents main\my pictures etc. Now your pictures, music, templates, backups etc is safe incase of a re-install. Save all your data files like Microsoft Money, Outlook backups, etc., into this file. (Have you seen the free outlook backup utility on the Microsoft office site?) Back up the My Documents Main regularly. Use CDs

2. Make a smaller (10 GB) FAT32 partition on your hard drive (I named it C ) for your Windows XP installation. Install windows into that fat 32 installation. Make the rest of the drive (mine is E ) into NTFS.

3. I have two hard drives one has c\windows and E:\ on it. It s a 40 gig drive. I have the e:\ drive compressed and use it for storage of My Documents Main . I then have my other 40 gig hard drive (D ) store my swap file and my program files.

4. Some of the early images of Windows XP sold by Microsoft make the system restore not work according to the tech. The tech sent me a new XP disk and serial number because of this free.

This set up is supposed to protect your my Documents files, allow you to get into your fried Windows XP installation with a boot up disk, and give you a little faster performance by having Windows and your program/swap files on separate drives. If you install Photoshop on D then make your E drive your swap file for Photoshop.

Thought you would like to know.

Thanks, Timothy. Indeed. There are many ways to set up hard drives, once you get past the "everything in one gigantic C: drive" thinking that pervades most setups. I use a slightly different technique as part of my backup process, so my live data can be backed up at very high speed to a second partition, and then later burned (at my leisure) to CD. ( http://www.langa.com/backups/backups.htm )

Timothy's way doesn't provide a backup in itself, but still gets his essential data off the C: drive, so he can do anything--- even completely replace the C: drive contents--- without affecting the data.

Either way, the idea of getting your essential data off the C: drive, *before* something bad happens there, is the key. <g>

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3) Weird Font/Licensing Problem

Reader Henry Thomas wrote about a *very* strange matter:

Hi Fred: A friend sent me the following which mystifies me and I wondered if you had come across it before. Keep up the good work. Regards, Henry Thomas

"I was recently installing Office 2000 onto an XP machine, all  seemed to be fine, but when Access was started it would complain that "there was no client licence" and promptly shut down again. First thought was I must have used the wrong CD or something, double checked everything re-ran the installation - same problem. It turns out that if you already have the font "hatten.ttf" (yes, that's right, the font!) installed the access gives you this message! Solution rename the font, install access with a forced re-install and rename the font back again). What boggles me about this is what possible connection can there be between having a font installed and Access licence mechanism - really what are those Microsoft guys smoking???"

That is strange indeed. I don't know if it's an Access problem or a proprietary font issue, but it's real. If you have the Hatten True Type font on your system, and install Access, you too may run into this problem.

More info:
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=hatten%2Ettf&hl=en&btnG=Google+Search

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4) New Letter, New Photo From Reyna

Remember Reyna, a 12-year-old girl who lives in Guatemala? Several months ago, she became one of the six kids supported each and every month through the LangaList Plus subscription fund.

When we first learned of Reyna, the people running the "Mundo Infantil" aid project in Coatepeque, Guatemala, said:

Reyna comes from a Latino family that speaks the Spanish language and wears westernized clothes. She has six siblings; her aunt and uncle live at home, and they work to support the family since the father passed away. The mother is illiterate; she does the house chores. The family's monthly income is below US$100 which is not enough to provide for their basic needs. They own a three-room dwelling, built of metal sheets, roof, wood walls, dirt and cement floor...

Meals lack sufficient nutrients for growing children. Their diet mostly consists of coffee, tortillas, chili and salt; occasionally they have beans and vegetables. Lack of food, combined with poor living conditions results in malnutrition and disease. However, health care is costly and therefore unattainable for families. Also, although schools are available, many youngsters do not attend because of the expense of supplies and tuition. In addition, children are expected to help their parents in the fields or at home.

More of the original information we had on Reyna is at  http://www.freetune.com/newsletters/2002/meet_reyna.htm , but I'm pleased to say we just heard from her: She sent a note and a newer photo--- and it didn't take 6 months for the mail to arrive here! (Unlike the slow mail we get from some of the other kids we help.)

Her new photo is here ( http://www.freetune.com/newsletters/2002/reyna_new.jpg ): she's in the foreground in a blue blouse, next to her mother, in a white blouse. Their home is behind them; other family members are in the background.

To me, Reyna looks older than her 12 years, which may say something about her life. But the note she wrote--- decorated with a crayon drawing of her home--- looks much truer to her age. The outside of her folded note is here: http://www.freetune.com/newsletters/2002/reyna%20note%20outside.jpg ; the inside of the note--- with her careful, penciled printing--- is here; http://www.freetune.com/newsletters/2002/reyna%20note%20inside.jpg ; and a scan of the hard-to-read translation of her note (the original was typed on very flimsy onionskin paper to save postage) is here: http://www.freetune.com/newsletters/2002/reyna%20note%20xlate.jpg .

What's this all about? Very simply this: Those of us with computers and Internet access are vastly better off than most of the world's population. Because of this, I decided that a portion of the LangaList Plus! subscription fees would be donated to registered/legitimate charities helping the underprivileged around the world.

The contribution does not increase the cost of a Plus! subscription in any way; the donation is taken "off the top" of any profits. (This is described in the pages at http://www.langa.com/plus.htm )

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5) Mozilla 1.0, and Alternatives

In response to "At Long Last: Mozilla 1.0" ( http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2002/2002-06-17.htm#9 ), reader Theo Tanalski writes:

I went to Mozilla site several days ago, and they state Mozilla is primarily for developers, and suggest end users use various products based upon Mozilla
http://www.mozilla.org/start/1.0/support.html

"Mozilla is a development project, and only provides test builds and technology demos. mozilla.org unfortunately does not have the resources to provide end-user technical support. If you are looking for a ‘polished’ end-user product, you should make use of one of the distributions listed at the bottom of the page, many of which can supply end-user support."

[they then mention] Beonex: http://www.beonex.com/

Beonex is an open-source distribution of Mozilla for Windows or Linux targetted at end-users - both individuals and companies.

Mozilla 1.0 and Beonex Communicator 0.8-stable (based on Mozilla 1.0 final) are released! The lizard is free, finally! Beware the Lizard! -)

Beonex Communicator is based on Mozilla, i.e. is a sibling of Netscape 6. Beonex Communicator contains
>Navigator - web-browser
>Mailnews - email/news client
>Composer - web page editor

Navigator has everything you expect from a browser - support for key web standards and a convenient interface. For example, it eases searching the Internet, similar to Apple's Sherlock on Macintosh. The Bookmark Manager can deal with huge collections of bookmarks and allows you to overview and sort them while you are surfing. If you want, you can track the latest headlines or webcams using the Sidebar.

The Mailnews client supports multiple IMAP, POP3 and/or news accounts for each user, so you can download and manage all your email from various accounts in one place and store them on your computer or the server. Beonex puts an strong emphasis on security and privacy and netiquette, to protect the private or confidential information on your computer and to encourage fairness.

All of this is free You can download all applications for free, and you are even allowed to modify them.

For money, we offer support for companies and development of new features. Private users can use the community mailing lists for free. There's a small FAQ collection for immediate answers to some popular questions.

http://www.beonex.com/communicator/version/0.8/install/win32/

===============================

[also found]

K-Meleon http://kmeleon.sourceforge.net/

K-Meleon (Windows) is a browser-only projects built around Mozilla technologies.  K-Meleon is a lite Web browser based on gecko (the mozilla rendering engine). It's fast, has a minimal interface, and it is fully standards-compliant. To make it simple, K-Meleon may be considered the unbloated Mozilla for Windows. [unfortunately, the latest version K-Meleon 0.6 dates from 10-30-01, so would not have 1.0 software inside] --- Theo Tanalski

Thanks, Theo!

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6) Last Week To Enter June's FREE Drawing

On June 30, I'll choose another monthly winner of a no-strings $30 Gift Certificate for any item at Amazon.Com--- books, software, hardware, kitchenware, toys... To have a shot at winning, just use the following link to recommend the LangaList to a friend. Your friend just may find a new source of useful information; I just may gain a new subscriber; and you just may win a $30 shopping spree! (Full details also available via this link): http://www.langa.com/recommend.htm

The more times you make a recommendation, the greater your chances are of winning!

Or, if you'd like to try to win $10,000(!), try this link (full details also available here):
http://www.recommend-it.com/l.z.e?s=143182

Either way, thank you, and good luck!

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7) Netscape/Mozilla Glitches Emerge

All software--- *all* software, from *all* vendors--- has bugs, glitches, or eccentricities. So it's no surprise that glitches are emerging as people begin to explore the new Netscape 7, or the Mozilla code it's built on (see item 5, above). Here's one of the first to emerge--- along with a simple workaround:

Fred: Great news letter. For those having problems signing in Netscape 7 and/or Mozilla below is Netscape's solution:

"Please note that some customers have been experiencing intermittent problems with their ability to sign in. If you try to sign-in and your browser has difficulties loading the page, please press the "Stop" button followed by the "Back" button on your browser and sign-in again."

---George Dartt

Thanks, George

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8) They Loaded The Code

Do you have a home page or website? (It doesn't matter what size.) Please click over to http://www.langa.com/code.htm , and maybe you can join the hundreds and hundreds of LangaList readers who have "Loaded the Code!" (If you've already "Loaded The Code" and are wondering if your site will appear here or on the Langa.Com web site, please see http://www.langa.com/link.txt )

Speaking of which: Here's another eclectic sample of reader sites--- some professional, some very personal:

View A Randomly-Chosen Reader Site
http://www.langa.com/randomlink.htm

Manually Browse All Posted-to-Date Sites Starting At
http://www.langa.com/readersites.htm

PogoMom (epinions)
http://www.epinions.com/user-pogomom

The Brooker Home Page
http://www.geocities.com/kadenus/index.html

Tiger Eye Jewelry
http://tigereyejewelry.tripod.com/

SoulPacks
http://www.soulpaks.com/

Going Higher
http://www.goinghigher.com/

Cygnus Design
http://members.shaw.ca/cygnusdesign/

MIGRATION TO BURNLEY
http://www.communigate.co.uk/lancs/wilkinsfamilyburnley/

British Columbia Camper Rentals
http://www.qcislands.net/karefoe/

Paul Caldwell's Home Page
http://pages.sbcglobal.net/caldwell3/

Denis' Place
http://www.accesswave.ca/~dpellet/

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9) Acronym Vs Abbreviation

We recently discussed KVM (keyboard/video/mouse) switches. See http://search.atomz.com/search/?sp-q=kvm&sp-a=0008002a-sp00000000 .

But the email discussions that I had with several readers about KVMs took an odd language-related turn that might be helpful to others--- after all, we all must wade through a morass of jargon, abbreviations, and acronyms in dealing with computers. In fact, in the KVM coverage, I stated how it was one of many TLAs--- Three Letter Abbreviations--- we have to deal with. That remark prompted this:

Dear Fred, Let me start off by saying I enjoy reading your newsletter very much. However, I noticed that you had confused the word Abbreviation with Acronym in item one of your May 16th edition. KVM is an acronym (a word formed from the initial letters of a name) and not an abbreviation (a shortened form of a word or phrase). TLA in itself is an acronym for Three Letter Acronym not abbreviation. Being former military I was exposed to an enormous amount of both abbreviations and acronyms. Its easy to get confused. Again, thanks for a great resource of information and entertainment. --- John Martin

Thanks, John, but I don't think that's quite it:

An acronym is an abbreviation that can be pronounced AS A WORD. For example, the disease AIDS is pronounced "aids," not "Ay Eye Dee Ess." Thus, "AIDS" is a true acronym. Likewise, NASA is spoken as a word, it's not pronounced "En Ay Ess Ay;" it too is a true acronym.

In contrast, no one tries to say "FBI" as a word. It's pronounced "Eff Bee Eye;" it's an abbreviation (for Federal Bureau of Investigation), not an acronym.

Computing has its share of acronyms--- "RAM" is pronounced as a word, and not as "Are Ay Em," for example. SCSI is pronounced "scuzzy," not "Ess See Ess Eye." Modem (derived from "MOdulator/DEModulator") is pronounced as a word, not spoken as the letters "Em Oh Dee Ee Em."

Some computing terms are hybrids. When you talk about a "Graphical User Interface" you can refer to it either by the acronym GUI (pronounced "gooey") or as the abbreviation "Gee You Eye." And so on.

But KVM is never spoken as a word, It's pronounced "Kay Vee Em." Likewise LCD is pronounced "El See Dee;" and CD-R is "See Dee Are." For that matter, TLA is pronounced "Tee El Ay." They and many others--- CPU, USB, URL, etc.--- all are abbreviations, not acronyms.

OK4U? <g>

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10) Just For Grins

As part of the "Dead Drive Fix" coverage, reader "Bnear" sent in this spoof of drive-recovery techniques:

Thought you might be interested in an old newsletter submission I made way back in 1991, concerning HD repair. Not sure it'll really help the reader, but it might make him forget about his problems for a minute. =8-)

"It's really not too difficult fixing your own hard drive, if the problem is a head crash, or the infamous Seagate "stiction" problem, if you know what to do. You will require #4/0 steel wool, paint thinners, WD-40, a few hand tools, and about 45 minutes.

- First, you need a clean room, so make sure the garage door is closed before you begin. Move those old lawnmower parts off the bench.  Disassemble the sealed unit and carefully wash all parts with paint thinners. Bend the read/write heads out of the way, and then disassemble the platter stack.

- VERY CAREFULLY buff the platter surfaces with the #4/0 steel wool.  This will remove any existing data, level out any surface defects, and help to redistribute the magnetic media and fill in those pesky "bad sectors" that most drives have.

- Reassemble the platter stack, and using a .015" feeler gauge, bend the read/write heads back to the platter surface, using the feeler gauge to set the gap. This is slightly higher gap than the factory uses, but it reduces the chance of head collisions with any flotsam you neglected to remove.

- Give the heads and platters a good shot of WD-40 and reassemble the unit. If your drive has a filter, replace it with a clean section of gauze pad.

All that's left is to low level and DOS format the drive, and you're back in business. I haven't tried this myself, but my friend's wife's sister-in-law's husband knows a technician that does it all the time....

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11) Plus! Edition Highlights:

• Rid Your Hard Drive Of Space Hogs
• A JPEG Worm?
• Everything Old Is New Again

Today's LangaList Plus! Edition contains all ten items above, plus about 30% more content including: a couple of free programs that can help you swiftly identify the files that are hogging the most space on your hard drives using an interesting visualization technique called a "cushion treeview;" information on a new kind of worm that rides inside ordinary JPG/JPEG image files; and news of--- and a link to--- a company selling a brand-new version of a classic computer that originally appeared in 1975!

The Plus! Edition costs just pennies per issue! Info: http://www.langa.com/plus.htm 

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See you next issue!

Best,

Fred

Please recommend the LangaList to a friend! (And maybe win $10,000!I)

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