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Thursday, May 06, 2004

Poor Boy’s RAID   Last evening, all three of my systems bluescreened and I was too tired to dick around with them. I have them all set to do a memory dump when this happens (Device Manager => Advanced => Startup and Recovery, Settings => System Failure: Remove the checkmark from “Automatically Restart” and set “Write debugging information” to “Complete Memory Dump.” Then you can use the dumpchk.exe utility from the OS installation CD to get some useful information about the cause of the system crash if you’re so inclined) and I was a bit paranoid about Sasser and all its variations.   I didn’t have an infection, but I decided it was time to back up my main system. There are many ways of doing this, but I prefer a quick and dirty method using a boot disk with Norton Ghost automatically set to copy the entire primary hard drive to the secondary. Then you can use either as your hard drive and have a backup that’s as easy as swapping the new drive in and changer the jumper from secondary to primary. All your data is on both drives and, if you like, you can do this again in a few weeks to minimize wear and tear on your drives (especially if you’re in an “always on” cable or DSL setting).   In between, if you like, you can back up critical files to a second hard drive, USB, or network drive. While you’re inside the case, use a little canned air to get all the dust bunnies out of the fans and other nooks and crannies. They block air circulation and cause unnecessary heat stress on the system.   Here’s my backup method:   (1)   Hook up “new” drive as a secondary and just pull the cabling (power and data) from the current secondary if you have one and connect it. The “new” drive should be the same size or larger than your current drive. (2)   Boot up to a Ghost diskette and do a drive copy from the primary to the secondary drive. (3)   With a 120G primary (~50G used) and a 160G (I upgraded) secondary, this took about 40 minutes. Pretty darned fast! Swap the drives or keep the new drive as a backup. Total time = about 1 hour, unless you forget to hook up the power to the drives and put the system back together and wonder why it won’t boot, like I did. Then it takes about 5 minutes longer. 7:10:02 PM    comment []

The new Virtual Occoquan is still on hold. Mark got hit with the Sasser virus last Saturday, recovered, but then had a computer crash on Sunday. He plans to have VO up this weekend. Once again, our apologies to all the contributers. 5:50:23 AM    comment []

Saltbush Baldock is an actor, but he is only credited in one movie. He is “Sentry” in Peter Weir’s Gallipoli, meaning he probably got to die on screen – living out the ultimate childhood fantasy, even though it’s a bit part. With a name like “Saltbush Baldock,” if it is real, he might have become a great sidekick like Gabby Hayes, Jay Silverheels, or Smiley Burnette. That might have been his goal, if he chose it as a stage name.   I watched Gallipoli again last night on IFC. I can’t watch it without being reminded of The Charge of The Light Brigade or Pickett’s Charge. For the former, Tennyson commented, “Drayton's Agincourt was not in my mind; my poem is dactylic, and founded on the phrase, ‘Some one had blundered.’” I’ve always liked dactylic poetry (though not nearly as much as pterodactylic) because the meter is a waltz. 5:38:44 AM    comment []