Xmas three wise men

joxer

The Smoker
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Am I just unlucky? I got three issues in 2 days that I simply can't solve. Well… Not really, but the solutions are… Retarded.

I'm posting just because I think it's worth a shot, if you had something like that maybe you know a better solution.


1. Out of whatever reason, NTFS partition on a HDD turned into RAW. Usually when this happens, the guilty party is corrupted MBR and the solution is to restore it (with Acronis' utils or any freeware util out there, for example testdisk). In this case however, it didn't help, and windows checkdisk also fails to fix it.

According to all data I've found on internet, it's impossible to restore the partition back, but you have to use any file restoring util, get files from the corrupt partition on another disk and then format the corrupt partition. The problematic part here is that file restoring utils show everything, not just files that were yesterday on the partition, but also those that were deleted thousands of years ago. Which means you have to browse files one by one and then save one by one practically.
So, in a way, there is a solution, but it's too painful. Any other possibility?

And no, there are no bad sectors on disk (that was the first thing to check).


2. Like I didn't see enough, I got a certain Fujitsu laptop in my hands. Now… The manufacturer or model is actually irrelevant as I've seen later all over internet the same problem.

Inside it there is a wi fi card Intel Centrino Wireless-N 1030. This card, out of thin air, will sometimes function flawlessly. But usually it just doesn't work as it should. It connects to your router, but doesn't allow the internet access. Yes, you connect to your home router, you get the proper IP address and etc, but - no internet access. Driver problem? I bet it is. I did install the lastest one from Intel's site, I've messed with many options that could cause this odd behavior, but nothing helped.

Not only that, everything works fine if I plug an USB wi fi key in the laptop, but hell, if a solution is to buy an addidional wi fi gadget, then shame on Intel, Intel's drivers and money they got for selling it - it's a plain fraud. Maybe however you know a better solution?


3. God save me Dell's laptops. I've had enough problems with those before, and today yet another one happened that got me clueless. OS got busted. Okay, let's reinstall it, right? Yea, the problem is laptop won't boot from CD/DVD drive.
Well, not really a problem - if you turn a USB flash drive into a bootable Windows 7 installer by using the tool Microsoft offers (Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool).

But the problem still exists. The installer flawlessly comes to "completing installation" part and stays there for ages (LED and mouse show that it didn't freeze). I suspect on possibility that for whatever reason Dell's laptop denied the power to USB at a certain moment. And hell - I runned the installation on battery as the "culprit" didn't bring me the power cable!

Now… If it wasn't really USB power issue, a solution can be get HDD out, install it in another machine with working CD/DVD drive ant put it back in the first one, or a better one - get a working CD/DVD drive. For this one I won't cry yet, as I'll retry the installation when I get the power cord.
 
Joined
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No techies around? *sigh*

Okay, a sort of an update.

1. HDD owner said there is no reason to bother with data that was on the corrupted partition as he has a backup. The partition got formatted and is now working normally, but the question still remains - why is it impossible to turn RAW partition into NTFS while it was originally NTFS.

2. By digging deeper I've found out that it's not just 1030 model, but every single model of Intel Centrino wi fi device that's unreliable. It connects/disconnects randomly and doesn't work as it should. Because of that, till the driver gets fixed, I suggest not buying any machine with Intel Centrino wi fi device inside.
Why? Because you can't afford disconnects in MMOs, and when it comes to modern always online DRM, using a machine that won't connect out of no reason and need for restarting, disabling/enabling… Would be a plain torment.

And now imagine this, instead of blaming the retarded device for poor sales, Fujitsu president blames Win8:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-...-goal-for-pcs-as-demand-in-europe-slumps.html
Hell the problem I had was on the brand new Fujitsu laptop with deliberately installed win7, not with win8! Others also report problems with Intel Centrino on win7 and not on win8. Where does Fujitsu president live?
I'm not saying win8 ain't a fail, but you simply can't blame Microsoft for your poorly chosen hardware in machines.

3. After some more work on the matter it turned out to be an overall hardware failure. Most probably the source of the problem is the mainboard, but since it's a pretty old machine, the owner decided to ditch it and will buy a new one. Of course, many are on sales this time of the year, so buying a new stuff solution was no brainer. :)
 
Joined
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If the partition lost it's NTFS information, there's not really much you can do. That sounds like the MBR was corrupted or lost. The last recovery app I used was "File Scavenger" and as long as you know the volume name, usually you can recover just about everything. I had a lot of broken files, but mostly it was good. Since you didn't have to recover anything, that's that, though.

Windows 8 is fortuitous for everyone making shoddy hardware, as they all apparently need scapegoats for their own failures. I just hope this drama doesn't hurt PC gaming too badly. I really like all this irritating technology.
 
Joined
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In this case it was not MBR, I restored that first as it solved the problem in previous occassions. ;) For files recovery that can work also on a lost partition there are really dozens of utils, all work well.

Dunno if the win8 drama will hurt PC gaming, we can still keep good old, well not that old, win7. What could hurt PC gaming is lack of titles for PC. The big problem is exponential growth of software developed for smartphones - it's quality of that stuff is unbearably low, but in modern society for whatever reason, it's selling. Seems that today's market means if you want to sell something, make sure it's dull and stupid.
There is however a way to nullify the possible effect - by creating emulators or VMs that can run nonPC games on PC. :)
 
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