Help: Computer problem downloading Midi files

Subject: RE: Help: Computer problem downloading Midi files
From: GUEST,Penny S.(back home but cookieless)
Date: 11 May 01 - 06:25 PM

I've restored factory settings, reinstalled utilities and ISP software, and am up and running again. And it was a problem with my computer, since I can now access the site with no problems. So posting this has been useful in picking up something before it got worse. I'm only using things juryrigged at the moment though, as the utility upgrade hasn't arrived yet, and I want to start from scratch with that to make things simpler.

It's been a funny week. Two occasions when the computer reported that it was trying to send out credit card information as I logged on (obviously stopped OK as nothing has shown up being spent, apart from the zip drive purchase). One error message on startup which was the same error message as we have had on some of the school machines on our new network, and which we had never seen before. We had to reimage them. Beautifully easy process. (No physical connection between machines. I had emailed in from home, but not back. Neither set of antivirus software had noticed anything of that sort.) And then finding that I had an unsuspected hard disk problem. Fun.

So thanks for the advice. I may not have followed it exactly, but it sent me off in the right direction.

Penny

Subject: RE: Help: Computer problem downloading Midi files
From: GUEST,Penny (elsewhere)
Date: 11 May 01 - 12:29 PM

MMario, thanks for the offer, but my email's out at the moment, until I can rebuild everything properly.

And I'm now on an alternative machine which has a different media player version, from which I can save. If it doesn't work, all get back to you. It's a fascinating site, isn't it?

Penny

Subject: RE: Help: Computer problem downloading Midi files
From: MMario
Date: 10 May 01 - 12:17 PM

penny - I can download them and e-mail them to you if you want - they have them available as a zipped file that is not that large. you can e-mail me at lpola.edutech.org if you want to try that.

Subject: RE: Help: Computer problem downloading Midi files
From: GUEST,penny again
Date: 10 May 01 - 12:05 PM

Actually, I wasn't really after the detailed computer advice, more the how to get the files stuff. So I didn't put in the detailed stuff. Apart from I got into the site, and when I clicked Early Music, all seized up. No error messages, zilch. What more is there? I wasn't going to go there any more (shame). I've just been again, and found my network won't save the files, so I can't email myself. But there are more ways to kill a cat than drowning it in cream, so I'm off to try something else.

Penny

Subject: RE: Help: Computer problem downloading Midi files
From: GUEST,Penny (guess what - offline)
Date: 10 May 01 - 11:58 AM

I've got myself an Iomega zip drive - fast as USB. Saved all the current data. Reset the hard drive to factory settings. Now I'm waiting for my new utilities before rebuilding the drive. But I didn't know I had a problem that needed drastic action.

And, guest, would it really be so wonderful to log on each day like Pollyanna and say hey! no problems, the sun is shining and the world is all new washed and bright, and my system is transparent? I do make other posts, you know.

Penny

Subject: RE: Help: Computer problem downloading Midi files
From: GUEST,Dear Penny no problem...
Date: 09 May 01 - 03:39 AM

..try this, External Cd R again HP or the IOMEGA are very popular if slow alternatives. Even better still from a sale get a used Pentium grade machine with Win32 already installed which can be bought around 70 USD.

Obtain a domestic network pack and install that on both Lap Top and Pc. Then setup - I think 98 automates this - a routine backup. These would only occur if there were new files on the Laptop. Into the Pc you can also install CD R if you wish. When not in use turn off the PC - I have two older machines for different tasks. All my terminals are networked as well but only need the one CD R for making Data backups, thats the neatest thing about a network you can attach as many thing as you like once you get it setup.

Subject: RE: Help: Computer problem downloading Midi files
From: MMario
Date: 08 May 01 - 06:13 PM

Either that - or if she would care to provide an e-mail address could mail them to her.

Subject: RE: Help: Computer problem downloading Midi files
From: GUEST
Date: 08 May 01 - 06:07 PM

Penny,

Something about you suggests that you actually 'like' problems.

Searching back through previous threads, you keep popping up with disaster stories...

My guess is that you prefer it when windows doesn't work

If you want decent advice, state your problem clearly.

If not, go home to bed

Subject: RE: Help: Computer problem downloading Midi files
From: Penny S.
Date: 08 May 01 - 04:46 PM

Back again - thanks for advice. It's a laptop, so extra drives would have to be external - I've been thinking along those lines anyway. (But why is the Win98 Backup less useful than Win95's?). (The other "why do something so irritating?" point is that the computer did not come with a Windows CD-Rom, but a restore to factory one. It means that putting things right takes days.)

I've just ordered a new version of the utilities I have (McAfee) so that I can manage things better. (I hope - I'm currently getting reports that nothing is wrong.) I'm uninstalling some new software. Then I will save my files as zip files, so that I control where they are, and only need put in one disk for one set of files. Then I will reformat.

Then I will go out into the nearby woods and scream.

Then I will reinstall all the software and my files, and all will be well until the next time.

Meanwhile, I will access the ancient music site at school, and then email myself with it.

By the way, we were discussing Ancient Greek schools at school, and which subjects we study which they did not. Some nice recursive suggestions like Ancient Greek - and IT. Does anyone else agree that an abacus just might fall into that category? Or has heard the story about the Japanese IT department with one in a glass case with the words - in case of emergency - break glass?

Penny

Subject: RE: Help: Computer problem downloading Midi files
From: GUEST,Dear Penny :)
Date: 08 May 01 - 04:06 PM

Me too, happily you will find that personal data will be saved in Unique extensions. So a Text Doument is stuff.txt. Midi used be stuff.mid.

I hope you get all the files that were chewed up. This problem can never occur again if you take these easy steps to protect your work.

Get a seperate 'Data' Hard Drive, does not have to be fast or big, anything over one Gig is fine unless you are into MP3 and/or on line Video - in that case 80 Gigs would be about right. The Data Drive is usualy connected to the Primary Hard Drive Controller as a Slave When new out of the Box they are set to master so it pays to check this out! . Later the CD R if you get one will be a Mater on the next or Second Controller.

Next move all of your Data to the Data Drive and when done make shortcuts on the desktop to the most used.

Now some more investments to defeat the ever hungry file monster lol. Buy a HP or equivalent CD R drive, these days they are about 100 pounds sterling. The nice thing is that the CD disks are as little as 50 pence each.

HP for example is idiot easy to install so that would not be a problem for you. After it is in and working make a DATA CD of the DATA drive and store that away.

Every Month make a new backup DATA CD.

Now it does not matter if the computer is smashed to pieces by a bomb your data is safe and can easily be retrieved from any Ms Windows Machine with a CD ROM drive.

Some technical consderations for the curious. Since a Hard Drive has an index in the Boot sector which points to critical data, the contents of any drive are very easily damaged when this part of the Drive is damaged or corrupted. When one installs a Second NEW data drive it has it's own Boot Sector and since it gets used 20 percent less than the C or OperatingSystem Drive it is far less likely to fail.

A handy thing to know about drives is the Boot Records are easily refreshed by doing a SYS command with the drive name as the target. Course this only applies to MS DOS or MS Windows machines. If you have Unix then RTFM.

Another little gem is the undocumented use of FDISK in MS DOS - Windows machines, when one has a bad case of the Hacker Blues. Reboot the Machine with the WinderzRescue floppy in the A Drive. The machine will boot off the Floppy and give you a blank black screen with the blinking prompt top left.

Typing this loads into Memory a program to delete and replace the BOOT record of the BOOT drive, ie the one where the Operating System lives - usualy Drive C:

At the prompt type

fdisk/mbr

Then press the Enter key.

There is no report of anything being done but the screen will advance one Carriage Return. ie one line. The code is in Memory but not yet written to disk!!!

VERY IMPORTANT!

You save these changes to the Boot Sectors by TURNING OFF THEN TUNING ON THE COMPUTER! Please do allow at least 30 seconds after power down to let it properly stop and all drives to come to rest. - Parking the Hard Drive lol.

On reboot if you have Virus Protection enabled in BIOS you will see the Prompt - 'Warning the Boot Sector has been modified! Do you want to Continue?' In that case you would say yes. If you said No the Old Boot Record would be restored. (One of the few things MS got right BTW!)

If you do not have Virus Protection enabled you will not notice anything except your Hard Drive begins to run great just like when you first installed it.

:)

Subject: RE: Help: Computer problem downloading Midi files
From: Penny S.
Date: 08 May 01 - 03:10 PM

Oh not again. I'm not doing that until I've got a better Backup system. Not floppies. The current edition would work fine with a zip drive or something with enough memory for all my files.

Report back later.

Penny

Subject: RE: Help: Computer problem downloading Midi files
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 May 01 - 07:19 PM

Hi, Penny - sounds like your computer problem is too complex to remedy from afar. You need to find a tech geek to make a house call. If you want to download the music files again, Click here for the Ancient Music of Ireland site. I hope that helps. Good luck.
-Joe Offer, tech geek-

---

Ooops. Ed posted pretty much what I had to say. I got delayed by being distracted by the "Ancient Music" site, which is quite wonderful....

Subject: RE: Help: Computer problem downloading Midi files
From: GUEST
Date: 07 May 01 - 07:02 PM

It sounds like you have serious problems and the best bet may be to reformat your hard disk and start again (this isn't as scary as it sounds)

Could you provide a bit more information on your computer and it's operating system (ie are you using windows? if so what version etc..)

I believe the site you want files from is Ancient Music of Ireland (http://services.worldnet.net/~pybertra/ceol/).

If you provide an email address, I'm sure there are lots of people who would be happy to email you them. However, I think sorting out your computer so that it doesn't crash when you go to the site would be a better option.

A bit more information on your computer would be helpful.

Ed

Subject: Computer problem downloading Midi files
From: Penny S.
Date: 07 May 01 - 05:33 PM

I've just spent a very frustrating day sorting out my computer. Last night I discovered that some files of ancient Irish music I'd downloaded from the Ancient Music of Ireland site (it has something like pybertra in the address) had got lost when I had to restore the factory settings on my computer. I had run Backup, and restored, a very irritating process with the version I have, which needs all the floppies inserted in order to build a temporary unsaveable catalogue, and then all of them again to restore the files. Unknown to me, it hadn't restored all the files. I've had to repeat this several times for other things. RSI strikes.

I went back to the source site, only to find that the computer crashed every time I tried to leave the home page. So I've spent ages doing a disk tidy - Defrag also crashing every time I left the machine, until I used a McAfee Disk Tune program. I haven't dared go back to the site though. When I tried to get the files from the backup set, the catalogue showed them, but refused to restore them - or rather, it didn't refuse, it just ignored them.

My older computer version of Backup used to tell me just which disk I needed straight away, and was much easier to use. I can't imagine why a less useful version was used as a replacement for the older one.

Any suggestions as to how I can get the files? I was after some of the oldest music available.

Penny