With the new Seagate "160GB" drive installed into the TC1100 and formatted to the full binary-adjusted 149GB I once again set about rebuilding the PC. So I had spent the entire day loading the operating system, installing all the updates, installing all the drivers, loading in the applications, entering the registration keys, tweaking up the interfaces, copying across all my pictures, music, documents and files, importing all the archived data and generally dotting all the i's and crossing the t's.
That's when things starting throwing up error messages and apps starting shutting down in the blinking of an eye. The real tell-tale was the ominous "Delayed Write" error message. I had seen these a couple of times before with 3.5" drives and both times they spelled doom.
I rebooted and was imformed "error with operating system". This seemed to be a permanent fatal error and when I tried plugging the drive into the Pavilion laptop, it was seen as an unformatted disc.
To cut the rest of the story short, I repeated the process once again (this time spreading the effort over two days) only to get the same outcome. Not wanting to give up on the benefits of 149GB I organised sending back the Seagate and replaced it with a Hitachi version. This drive claimed a lower operating power requirement and things went splendidly with all those i's dotted and t's crossed once again, right up to the point of failing to boot up.
With four full installations now under my belt, I reverted to the tried and tested 100GB NON-PERPENDICULAR drive on which I am successfully writing this blog.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Engineers' GigaBytes vs Mathematicians' Gigabytes vs Formatting limitations
I'm going though the usual rigmarole of installing a tasty newer and bigger hard drive into my Tablo (HP TC1100 tablet).
The setup on my current 100GB drive had started playing up and my preference is to go with a fresh installation from scratch - none of this ghost image malarky for me.
I'd had my eye on the newish perpendicular recording technology and saw that it was now available in 160GB form at a reasonable cost. Of the two models available from Seagate and Hitachi, the Seagate was in stock and I put in my order.
On fitting the drive into the PC and formatting I was surprised to see only 137GB registering. This seemed decidedly low even taking into account the 'binary calculation adjustment' which should have yielded 149GB (or 152,590MB or 156,250,000KB).
Having gone ahead with the full Windows installation and loaded in all the software, a bit of scouting around finally revealed the problem - most BIOSs will only partition a maximum 137GB. The only way to get around this is to format using either a special boot-disc or by using Windows XP itself to format. Since I had no special boot disc but did have a spare PC running XP, I was able to format the full quota of GB and thus free up another not unhealthy 20GB.
The setup on my current 100GB drive had started playing up and my preference is to go with a fresh installation from scratch - none of this ghost image malarky for me.
I'd had my eye on the newish perpendicular recording technology and saw that it was now available in 160GB form at a reasonable cost. Of the two models available from Seagate and Hitachi, the Seagate was in stock and I put in my order.
On fitting the drive into the PC and formatting I was surprised to see only 137GB registering. This seemed decidedly low even taking into account the 'binary calculation adjustment' which should have yielded 149GB (or 152,590MB or 156,250,000KB).
Having gone ahead with the full Windows installation and loaded in all the software, a bit of scouting around finally revealed the problem - most BIOSs will only partition a maximum 137GB. The only way to get around this is to format using either a special boot-disc or by using Windows XP itself to format. Since I had no special boot disc but did have a spare PC running XP, I was able to format the full quota of GB and thus free up another not unhealthy 20GB.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Vans Boa Snowboard Boot repairs : To whom it may concern
This is an overly long and boring post for most readers, and is intended merely as advice for users of Vans (or any other) Boa system boots.
I bought my Vans Boa Switch boots at Board-X in November 2003. They were the last pair on the shelf and were the 2002/2003 model. The word was that they were more comfy that the new version and since I was looking for a pair I snapped them up at their £100 price tag. I had also looked at the Salomon boots and a few others, but really liked the cable lacing idea. Only downer was that they were softback and required some highback Switch bindings making my Switch setup redundant. I bought a pair second hand for £20 and the job was a good-un.
So in Tahoe last year one of my cable laces snapped. Not surprising after about three months of hard use. I went to the nearest board/ski/hire and general snow-clobber shop and they fixed it for me on the spot for around ten dollars.
Now I already had a spare cable that came with the boots, and the Tahoe repair left me with another spare cable from the repair kit they used in the shop. However I still managed to not pack either of those items when I set off for two weeks in Whistler.
Halfway through the holiday as I hopped off a lift I noticed that my back boot was slack and proceeded to tighten the cable. Having twisted the winder a few times I realised that it was actually a broken cable and all I was doing was winding extra cable into the winder.
This, as it turns out was bad. The problem was that more cable had now been wound into the winder than was ever meant to. The whole thing was jammed up, and following the instructions to "pull the excess cable from the winder by hand" was impossible. Since we didn't have a clue as to the internal mechanism and the likelihood of the cable spilling over the spool and jamming around the axle, we didn't know if pulling the cable ends with pliers would help or just tighten the thing more. There was no way to dismantle the unit as it was stitched and sealed in place at the time of manufacture. We spent some time considering the options, and the final decision was that it would be ok to pull with pliers as hard as we could. It worked and it didn't take as much force as we had expected.
With the new lace in place I continued my boarding until the penultimate run of the holidays when the front boot went slack. By now I'd learned my lesson and checked the cable for a break rather than just tighten the thing. Typically I had emptied my pocket the previous night and not repacked my spares kit. With help I continued with a knotted lace and the distinct possibility of shredding the plastic guides in my boot like a cheese slicer. Well they survived the punishment and I went out and bought a few more spares so that the future of these boots is assured for a good while.
Bottom line: I love these boots - best I've ever used - and I love the Boa system. If it seems like a lot of lace snappage then consider that we are talking three laces in 135 days of riding. I've never found a problem with pressure points that some people have and even if I did I think the benefits from the system outweigh any shortcomings (for me). It seems that the winding mechanism is pretty tough and even if jammed, will shrug off a bit of brute-force required to free it. In future I will always make sure I have an emergency lace and associated hex-driver (included in spares packs) with me.
I bought my Vans Boa Switch boots at Board-X in November 2003. They were the last pair on the shelf and were the 2002/2003 model. The word was that they were more comfy that the new version and since I was looking for a pair I snapped them up at their £100 price tag. I had also looked at the Salomon boots and a few others, but really liked the cable lacing idea. Only downer was that they were softback and required some highback Switch bindings making my Switch setup redundant. I bought a pair second hand for £20 and the job was a good-un.
So in Tahoe last year one of my cable laces snapped. Not surprising after about three months of hard use. I went to the nearest board/ski/hire and general snow-clobber shop and they fixed it for me on the spot for around ten dollars.
Now I already had a spare cable that came with the boots, and the Tahoe repair left me with another spare cable from the repair kit they used in the shop. However I still managed to not pack either of those items when I set off for two weeks in Whistler.
Halfway through the holiday as I hopped off a lift I noticed that my back boot was slack and proceeded to tighten the cable. Having twisted the winder a few times I realised that it was actually a broken cable and all I was doing was winding extra cable into the winder.
This, as it turns out was bad. The problem was that more cable had now been wound into the winder than was ever meant to. The whole thing was jammed up, and following the instructions to "pull the excess cable from the winder by hand" was impossible. Since we didn't have a clue as to the internal mechanism and the likelihood of the cable spilling over the spool and jamming around the axle, we didn't know if pulling the cable ends with pliers would help or just tighten the thing more. There was no way to dismantle the unit as it was stitched and sealed in place at the time of manufacture. We spent some time considering the options, and the final decision was that it would be ok to pull with pliers as hard as we could. It worked and it didn't take as much force as we had expected.
With the new lace in place I continued my boarding until the penultimate run of the holidays when the front boot went slack. By now I'd learned my lesson and checked the cable for a break rather than just tighten the thing. Typically I had emptied my pocket the previous night and not repacked my spares kit. With help I continued with a knotted lace and the distinct possibility of shredding the plastic guides in my boot like a cheese slicer. Well they survived the punishment and I went out and bought a few more spares so that the future of these boots is assured for a good while.
Bottom line: I love these boots - best I've ever used - and I love the Boa system. If it seems like a lot of lace snappage then consider that we are talking three laces in 135 days of riding. I've never found a problem with pressure points that some people have and even if I did I think the benefits from the system outweigh any shortcomings (for me). It seems that the winding mechanism is pretty tough and even if jammed, will shrug off a bit of brute-force required to free it. In future I will always make sure I have an emergency lace and associated hex-driver (included in spares packs) with me.
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