Active Boot Disk

Posted by Brad

In the course of fixing computers, I occasionally have to backup the data from an unbootable drive or reset a password to login to Windows. Under Windows XP, I had used ERD Commander, a bootable CD of utilities from Winternals. For better or worse, Microsoft recently purchased Winternals/Sysinternals. Microsoft is no longer offering software such as ERD Commander for sale, only saying that it may integrate this software into future products (see http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/winternals.mspx for more details).

Recently I was faced with the task of resetting an account password on a laptop. Unfortunately the laptop was running Windows Vista. I knew sooner or later I would need to update some of my software to deal with Vista problems, so this was not unexpected. But with the Winternals situation, I had to find a similar piece of software from a reputable company. I began by searching for password reset utilities for Vista. I stumbled across a few promising ones, one of which was Active Password Changer. Looking into the company that makes the product, I found out they offered quite a few different utilities including a boot disk set of utilities called Active Boot Disk. Once I saw the amount of useful utilities that came with the product and the very reasonable price of $79.99, it was a no-brainer to make the purchase.

Once purchased, I was sent a link from which to download the product (I opted for the digital download delivery method). I installed the software which was essentially an ISO image and an ISO burning utility, a nice touch if a person does not have a utility already for this purpose. The software also included a pdf manual for the product. I used their ISO burning utility, which was very simple to use, and burned a CD with the software on it.

With the CD in hand, I inserted it into the Vista laptop and booted off of it. Active Boot Disk uses a Windows PE 2.0 environment, and its shell gives you the option of running several different types of software, including data backup and recovery, a hex editor, partition manager and recovery, password reset, disk wiper, and many others. Using the password reset utility, I cleared the password on the user’s account. You also have the option of disabling accounts.

I had to end up running the boot disk twice because the laptop included some kind of child safe software which didn’t like me clearing the user’s password; it went ahead and reset the password to what it had been before. I then cleared not only the user’s password, but also the Administrator account’s password and disabled the child safe user account (it had its own account). The software was unable to reset the Administrator password (I don’t know if there ever was one or not) instead prompting me to enter a new password for the Administrator account. With that done, I was able to login and change the user’s password from within Windows. When I gave the laptop back to the user, she didn’t want a password on her account, so I had to uninstall the child safe software and then remove her password.

As you can see, I’ve barely used Active Boot Disk, but was impressed with the number of options I have with it. I know I will be needing it in the future as more people buy new PCs with Vista and run into problems. At this time I feel good recommending Active Boot Disk to anyone for either personal use or business use to fix particular PC problems or backup data from an unbootable drive.

Click here for more information about Active Boot Disk and other Active products or here for more information about LSoft Technologies.

Brad’s Game Reviews – An Introduction

Posted by Brad

It’s taken me a while, but I plan on doing reviews of games I’ve finished (or quit playing) since I’ve started blogging. Since I only play PC games, you won’t find any console game reviews here. The second major point to make is if you are looking for reviews of the latest and greatest games (emphasis on the latest), you probably won’t find those here either. Although my friend Chris likes to give me a hard time about being behind the curve on playing recent games, fact is I just have too many games to play and not a lot of time to play them. Thus, I might be playing games that first came out 5 or even 10 years ago; but that does not mean they are no good.

Some of these older games might still be available for a very low price, and almost all could certainly be found on eBay. What I’d like to do, besides just talk about the games, is also comment on any issues I had playing the games whether it be with the OS or a hardware issue. For example, I have found that while some of the games written for Windows 95/98 can only be played on these OS’s, some can be played without issue on Windows XP, even without compatibility mode.

Look for upcoming reviews in the Games section of the blog.

Iomega Jaz Drive Still a Viable Backup Solution – Part 2 – Installation

Posted by Brad

Last week I was finally able to install the Jaz 2Gb drive at our office. The installation went without a hitch. I installed the Adaptec 2930 SCSI card in the PC, and at startup Windows recognized it and loaded a driver for it. Next I shutdown, connected the Jaz drive and booted up. Sure I could have hot plugged the Jaz drive in, but I’m a little nervous about such things since I damaged a PC by plugging a serial cable in while it was running (static electricity? who knows). The Jaz came up fine; I had Iomega Tools installed from the Zip 250 drive that I removed so the software even put a nice Jaz icon next to the drive in My Computer.

One thing I’ve always hated about the Jaz is that Iomega formatted the disks as FAT. Now granted the Jaz came out either before or right when FAT32 had just debuted, so this is not a surprise. Unfortunately, Iomega Tools replaces the normal format right-click menu command with its own which does not give you a choice as to which file system to use when formatting a disk. So I popped in the first disk, fired up the Disk Management console, verified the file system was FAT, then formatted it as FAT32. I formatted 2 more disks this way, but on the fourth disk I noticed it was already FAT32. The next two were the same. I looked at the disk cases and their model number was 10597. The other disks that were FAT formatted were model 10599. The first batch I acquired in a 3-pack, the others as part of a group of 10. Anyway, I thought this was interesting – maybe Iomega finally decided to format the disks as FAT32.

The only other problem I ran across was while inserting the Jaz disks. The disks need to be fully inserted to work properly. While testing my batch of 10 disks previously and while checking the current disks, I did not fully insert 1 disk at each time. When this happens, you can here the drive trying to spin up the disk but it cannot. The only thing I could do was turn off the drive then turn it back on. I was then able to eject the disk and reinsert it without further troubles. When the disks are fully inserted into the original green Jaz 2 GB drive (which I am using here), the disks actually go in farther than the lip off the insertion area. They are not flush with the front like the 1 GB Jaz disks are in the 1 GB Jaz drive.

So with the drive fully installed, I preceded to do a test backup. The batch file I use to copy the files from particular folders needed no changes and worked perfectly. So with that, I consider this a successful project with cost savings over the Rev solution mentioned in part 1, even with the extra disks and drives I purchased. With the amount of data currently being backed up, I figure I have at least 3 years until the Jaz 2 GB disks approach full. This is perfectly acceptable, giving me one less headache for a few years.

USB to SCSI Adapter Problem Solved

Posted by Brad

Finally figured out the problem with the USB to SCSI adapter not working with my Jaz 2GB drives. Turns out the SCSI id must be set to 0 for the adapter to work. I tried it with termination off and on, and this made no difference. The SCSI id was the difference on my Jaz 1GB drive – I’m glad I remembered that little fact.

So the adapter works now, but, as expected, is not fast. As a test I tried to copy a 275 MB file to a Jaz 2GB drive on the USB to SCSI adapter. Windows said it would take about 10 minutes to complete. I did not time the whole file to see the actual time, since I figured if Windows was anywhere close to accurate it would be a lousy interface to use. I figure I’ll use it if I have problems hooking up the Jaz 2GB to the Dell PC at the office with the Adaptec 2930 card; otherwise it is still a nice accessory to have in a pinch.

Iomega Jaz Drive Still a Viable Backup Solution – Part 1.5 – Interesting eBay Events

Posted by Brad

Well now I’ve just about received all of the parts for my Jaz Drive solution. Just waiting on a batch of disks to arrive. A few interesting things happened during the acquisition stage of this project:

As mentioned previously, I bought a USB to SCSI adapter thinking this would make it easier to connect the Jaz to a PC since it would eliminate the need for a SCSI controller card. Going generic may have been part of my problem here. But I figured why pay $60-70 for a brand name adapter if I could get one for around $20 with shipping? Here is the adapter in question (I bought mine from DigiGear).

Now, the adapter does work, but I had a little trouble with it initially. I connected it to both one of the Jaz 2GB drives and an external SCSI CD-ROM drive, and although both showed up in device manager, they both said there was a problem with the device and would not work. Now I know I set the Jaz drive to auto and on with termination and the CD-ROM drive was set to on. Ultimately I was able to make the adapter work with my Jaz 1GB drive; I checked its termination, which was set to off. So termination may have been a factor here. During the troubleshooting stage I thought I needed a driver. I found out the driver for a Microtech International USB to SCSI adapter works for this one, but it only has drivers for Windows 98 and 2000. I did test it in Windows 98 successfully, though. I found the driver on driverguide.com here. The only thing that really bugged me was when I found out the adapter was USB 1.1. I looked back at the auction and could not find any mention of this fact there. Although I’m not sorry I bought the adapter, I don’t think I’ll use it with the Jaz drive because of speed issues.

Second issue I faced, and the reason why I have not received all of my items yet, is I had my first ever problem with a seller on eBay. His eBay id is johannas2 and he looked ok because he had about 1600 positives and only a few negatives. Unfortunately the negatives started rising while I was waiting for my disks to arrive. I had purchased 3 Jaz disks from him and paid immediately for them via Paypal. I waited about 2 weeks and sent him an email since I had not received the items yet. After waiting 3 more days without a response, I sent another email requesting information on the items. After 3 weeks and 2 emails, i figured I’d ask for a refund since it was obvious he wasn’t going to ship the items. Luckily, he promptly responded and refunded my money via Paypal.

Last issue was the final purchase of disks I am currently waiting on. A guy had 50 Jaz disks for sale at $9.95 each Buy It Now or Make an Offer. The shipping listed at the top of the auction was $12.95, so I figured 5 disks plus shipping would be about $63. Then I decided to check out the Make an Offer, which I had never used before. It says a person can make an offer at any price and the seller has to respond within 48 hours if he agrees to the offer. If so, the person making the offer has won the auction at the offer price (plus shipping and any other fees) and must pay according to the seller’s listing. Since this might only set me back a couple of days, I figured it was worth it. Since he was selling 50 disks, I thought he might go for $5 per disk if I said I’d buy 10 disks, still thinking this would put me at the same price as 5 @ $9.95. A few hours later, the seller ok’d the offer, and I thought I just scored another good deal (my other good deal will be mentioned shortly). Unfortunately, when I went to pay for the items, I noticed the shipping was about $66. Thinking there must be a mistake, I asked the seller to confirm the price (which he did later), but meanwhile, I looked at the auction again to see if I’d missed something. Sure enough, at the bottom of the auction, the shipping said $12.95 first item, $5.95 each additional item. Funny that the seller didn’t mention this at the beginning of the auction. Even though I thought this was just a little sneaky on his part, I made the purchase happy that I still bought the disks @ about $11.60 per disk. The lesson here is read the fine print or at least thoroughly check for all shipping and other fees throughout the entire auction listing.

Now, I don’t want anybody to think this ordeal totally stunk, because it did have some good turns as well. The first (and only) Jaz 2GB drive I planned on purchasing came with free shipping and a free Adaptec SCSI card if I did Buy It Now (which I did) for $75. Considering some of the shipping people charge to make a product look like it costs less than it does (as mentioned previously), I thought this wasn’t a bad deal.

Now the super deal I scored was on an auction for 3 Jaz 2GB drives (government surplus) going for $9.95 plus $27 shipping (there’s those shipping charges again). I had previously bid on another lot from the seller (Myers Computers) but lost at $62. The only bad thing about these auctions was that the product was not guaranteed even though these drives were NIB (new in box). But I figured (correctly) these drives had been sitting on a shelf somewhere and would be fine. So when another similar auction from the seller came up, I watched it, coming on just a few minutes before closing. I was shocked to see no one had bid on the auction yet. I waited until about a minute left, hitting refresh to see the price. Refresh was taking a while, so it was very tense. On the last refresh, I almost hit refresh again because so much time was passing, but finally I saw 18 seconds left and no bids. I entered something (maybe $60) and bid asap. Well, I came through with the only winning bid, getting this incredible deal at $9.95 plus $27 shipping for a whopping total of $36.95 for 3 brand new Jaz 2GB drives!! Needless to say I was pleased with this, even more so since they all work. I figure, worst case, I have some spares and, since I now will have 13 total disks, can put another drive in service at another office sometime down the road.

Hopefully, with these disks arriving in the next day or so, I will be able to setup the drive within a week and can report on the final stage of this saga.

Iomega Jaz Drive Still a Viable Backup Solution – Part 1

Posted by Brad

I found myself in a bit of a backup quandary recently after one of my office’s backup media became maxed out. We are using an Iomega Zip 250 with a daily 6 disk rotation for backups. That has worked fine until the staff began scanning a lot of documents. Now that 250 MB isn’t quite big enough anymore. So I had to decide what backup solution to change to.

I’ve setup Iomega Rev drives at a few offices, including one of my own. However, considering I would need to buy the USB starter version (which comes with 6 disks), I thought $500-600 a little pricey considering the office does not need near 35 GB of backup space any time soon.

A solution between these two extremes was what I was shooting for. Since I have personally used an Iomega 1 GB Jaz drive for about ten years without any problems with the drive (I had 1 of 4 disks go bad, but it was replaced under warranty), a 2 GB Jaz drive seemed a good fit. Unfortunately, these drives have not been sold new for a few years. So I decided to check eBay and found some really good deals. There are a lot of used drives and disks for sale, and even some new disks and drives available (still sealed in the box). Although it took a few auctions, I was able to acquire a new Jaz drive, 6 disks, and a SCSI to USB adapter (Jaz drives all had SCSI interfaces) for just under $200. If this works out for a few years, I think it will be a great deal.

In part 2 of this thread, I will talk about how the deployment of the drive goes.

Stay tuned.

LogMeIn

Posted by Brad

How many times have you (you meaning people either in the IT field or who know enough about computers on their own to consider themselves above average in know-how) had to help to family member or friend with a computer problem? How many times has this been someone in another city, state, country? If you have had to deal with this, not being at the computer with the problem (or the user, as the case may be) can make helping out anywhere from difficult to madly frustrating. That’s where remote access comes in.

Sure, Windows now comes with remote help through a cut down version of Terminal Services. Or there are free offerings such as VNC or even Microsoft Netmeeting if you deal only with Windows computers. But how do you deal with firewalls and dynamic IP addresses? For businesses, I recommend DSL with a static IP address and a VPN router, with VNC to perform remote access. But this is not feasible for most home users (or even some small businesses). You could use a dynamic DNS service with a host name or, like my friend Chris, use scripting to help the user determine his or her IP address. Then with some router or software firewall configuration plus VNC, you’re in. Of course, you would have to make at least one visit to the location to do the initial setup and testing. Long distance support makes this difficult, unless you plan ahead for something like this.

A great solution I have just found and used successfully is one of the commercially hosted remote access solutions. You may have seen ads for GoToMyPC, one of these services. Unfortunately, they are “try for free” but “buy to use.” Then I found LogMeIn.com. What is great about this service is that they have several different levels of remote access, but the basic one is free. They also provide end to end encryption over the connection. Getting started could not be easier: just sign up for an account by giving your email address. They then send you a confirmation email with a link back to their site. Once there, you create a password and are asked what you will use the service for. They tailor their paid offerings to you based on your answer, from what I could tell. They give you a 30 day trial of their paid offerings, but you don’t have to ever use them, or you could try them out to see if you are interested. At this point, though, you are done with account creation and you can immediately do things such as add computers or other users to your account.

What put me on to this idea originally was a customer’s need. He had an employee who would be in the field with a laptop and Internet access through a Verizon PC card. He was looking for two things: he wanted to be able to see what the employee was doing on the laptop at any given time and he wanted the employee to be able to access the office PC which held their data files. With LogMeIn I was able to accomplish both tasks. With the free service, I setup the access client on 3 of his PCs (the only hitch with this service is you have to be at the PC you want remote access to to initially setup the client; however, I found a way around this (more on this later)). The only hiccup with this part was that the company did not officially support Vista yet (but they did have a beta client which worked just fine). One of these PCs was the data holder, so we setup this one with the LogMeIn Pro subscription, so he has to pay a monthly fee for this, but he did not mind. LogMeIn Pro allows you to transfer files between 2 PCs and perform remote printing. We tried the file transfer feature, which brought up a program similar to a GUI FTP program: you selected a file on one PC and transferred it to a folder on the other PC. BY the way, another great feature of this service is that it is all browser based. I have used it on both IE and Firefox. So, anywhere you are with a PC which has a supported browser, you can connect to the service and access the PCs on your list.

Finally, today I had to deal with the chicken and the egg wrinkle to all of this: you need to connect to a PC to help a user but that PC is somewhere else. But before you connect to the PC, you have to go to the computer to setup the remote access client. Well, I needed to help my mother. Since she is infamous for having any number of spyware, trojan, etc. programs on her PC, I did not want her to login with my user credentials to download the client. So what I did is create an admin account for her, but only gave her rights to add new PCs. I put in her email address, she was sent an email, and we went through account setup and client download (which took 2 tries, but worked in the end). Once I could see her PC, I removed her admin account, and we were good to go. I was able to connect to her PC and do what needed to be done myself instead of trying to walk her through it. She was thrilled saying, “I guess we won’t have to ship you our PC anymore to work on it.” Hopefully not.

Like I said in the beginning, LogMeIn has other subscriptions and features I have not discussed. But if you do IT support for external users or family and friends, I highly recommend trying the free solution. You can find more information on LogMeIn here. Finally, all my use of this product was done between PCs with broadband Internet connections (except the Verizon card, which still worked fine). I would not recommend trying this over dial-up.

DOSBox

Posted by Brad

Since reading about this great little program somewhere, I have had a chance to play with it on the PC and Mac. On the PC I setup version .65 with the D-Fend front-end interface. DOSBox by itself, like DOS in the old days, takes a bit of manual configuring (this is made easier in the latest version, .70, discussed later) so I chose the D-Fend front-end for it. I was very pleased with D-Fend because of its ease of use, separate profile for each game, and base interface which allows you to immediately launch any configured game once you’ve started D-Fend.

On my PC, I setup Buzz Aldrin’s Race into Space, Warcraft, and Pirate’s Gold. Buzz Aldrin takes a long time to load and I’ve spent the least time with it of the 3 games. One of the things I’ve found about DOSBox is with some games you have to tweak the computer cycle setting to enable the game to run right. This is easily done within DOSBox by using ctrl – F8 and ctrl – F12. Warcraft ran fine, although the RTS interface, being from the dawn of the RTS genre, left much to be desired; I only made it through a couple of levels in the Orc campaign. Lastly, I played Pirate’s Gold quite a bit. I always loved this game and the original Pirates way back in the early 90’s, so once I figured out the controls again, the game was a joy to play. Besides the slow load time for Buzz Aldrin, I don’t recall any other problems using DOSBox on my PC.

On a recent trip out of town, I had a chance to finally mess with DOSBox on my Macbook. Since D-Fend was not available for the Mac, I tried dosboxer. Either I was not seeing everything, or this is not a good program. The program setup was nothing like D-Fend; in fact I didn’t see any kind of profile for my games. After messing with it for a while, I decided it would be easier just to run DOSBox on its own. I was able to get an old startegy game called MAX to work on it just fine. I eventually sought and found the .70 version of DOSBox which includes a sample configuration file which you can edit for different settings such as how fast to run, the different memory settings, and which directory to map the C drive to on your computer.

Anyone who has or wants to play some old DOS games (or use DOS programs) should definitely try DOSBox.

You can get more information on DOSBox and download it here. The downloads section also has links to the many front-ends for DOSBox.