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Pastimes : Computer Learning -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Magnatizer who wrote (17446)	3/8/2001 5:08:37 PM
From: thecow	Respond to of 110652

Not trying to revive a dead subject but thought it was funny that I ran across this a few minutes ago. From an old Langa piece. "A Couple Of "Doh!" Moments It happens, but it's embarrassing: I had some major "Doh" moments in the last few days. I can tap-dance around them by explaining how I'd been working late and had averaged about 5 hours sleep for 4 consecutive nights--- but that's only making excuses. There were just plain mistakes: Doh #1 happened after I'd been having trouble with my CD Recorder. I use it a lot--- almost daily--- for "burning" backup images of my hard drives. (See winmag.com ). But I moved systems around recently, added new software and replaced some hardware. The CD-R, which had been ultra-reliable for a couple years, suddenly started generating errors and was having trouble completing a recording session. I have some large hard drives here, so I was still able to continue making daily backups and storing the files on a live drive. That's OK, but not ideal. It's far better to have your backups on a portable medium that's independent of any particular PC, and that even can be stored offsite, away from your PCs entirely. I tried troubleshooting the PC that has the CD-R installed: The cables were still tight. No jumpers or switches had been changed. The system BIOS saw all the hardware properly, as did Windows. Hmmm. I uninstalled and reinstalled the CD-R software. Nope; the errors kept happening. Hmmm. I used a master backup (on a CD I'd burned when the system---including the CD-R--- was working properly); this put the system back into a known-good state. Nope; the errors kept happening. Hmmm! Finally, light dawned: I unmounted the drive and physically removed it from the system. I gently pried the CD door open and manually extended the CD tray. Next, I blew in the case--- and was astonished at how much dust came out. I'm not talking anything as benign as a "dust bunny." This looked like something that escaped from Jurassic Park. Doh moment #1: Keep your equipment clean, Fred." tc :-) Now if I could just remember what I was looking for...hmmm