Curses of Technology
Just to spite today's headache I've taken to work on the other computer again. It's a game of stubbornness. I've yet to locate the source of the "hardware failures" I've gotten lately, and the machine is stripped down to bare basics – I've removed everything that isn't 100% necessary to keep the thing running, all except the mainboard (which technically is the computer), one harddisk and a CD-ROM, and a network card. I know the CD-ROM and the network card are OK, because I kept getting errors without them.
Just to make sure the harddisk wasn't part of the problem, I replaced it with another one I had lying about. Funny enough, I kept getting errors. I could install Windows, keep it running for a while, and then the disk would suddenly seem to forget that Windows was on it and refuse to start up. After a few rather amusing attempts at working around this oddity the disk simply died. Oh well, it was a leftover from an old PC, and probably defect. So I tried with yet another spare harddisk which had worked well recently. It installed well (I have to run the entire Windows installation on each new disk, which takes about an hour), and ran well, until it started to play tag with me, or maybe hide-and-seek, I'm not quite sure which. I installed Windows again, and the same thing happened. Funny thing is, when I start the computer with a Linux CD (Linux is another operating system, not at all the same as Windows, but it does give me access to the harddisks) I can see that all the proper files are in their proper places, properly propped up and seemingly ready to go. This has caused a lot of head-shaking and invention of new words that are not at all suited for polite conversation.
I have a third harddisk I can try with, seeing as the first two both apparently had defects. I'm not entirely surprised if they're defect, just puzzled that they seem to work part of the time rather than just failing miserably and be done with it. Anyway, to try the third one, I must empty it of data that I'm not in the mood to lose when I wipe it clean before installing Windows (yet again – must be the eighth time in just under two weeks). I have an external harddisk with room to spare, so in theory it should be easy. Problem is, I have to use the Linux CD to access the disks, and Linux won't access the external one. Or rather, there's a speed limit which will cause the file transfer to take weeks instead of hours.
I have a backup solution to that. My laptop has a faster connection to the external disk, so it's basically a matter of transferring all that data over a network cable and have the laptop put them on the disk. Amazingly simple idea, but it requires a bit of fiddling. The simple part was to install a so-called FTP server. The FTP server allows the other computer, now running Linux, to connect to my laptop for the purpose of transferring files. That's what FTP stands for; File Transfer Protocol. I got hold of one that's free and downloaded it from the net, installed it, and it was ready to play.
That's when the Windows XP firewall decided it was time to cry "Wolf!" and block the FTP server from getting on to the network. I specifically told the firewall that yes, I did indeed want the FTP server to be able to accept data from the other computer, and the firewall said that ok, it shall be so. It wasn't so. The firewall said that it had allowed the FTP server to communicate, but not on the port number that the FTP server wanted to use (a port number is like a phone number. If you want to talk to someone you need the right number. If you don't have the right number, or the number is blocked, you can't talk to them, at least not on the phone. And every program talking over a network is talking through a port number, and every server has a specific number assigned to it). So I wrestled the firewall to the ground and forced it to allow that specific port number or else, and it was finally so. Or not.
The Linux PC managed to connect, but repeatedly got disconnected almost immediately. This was starting to become rather irritating. I checked the network cables, reconfigured my network router, and got nowhere. Until I noticed a small security warning in the lower right corner on the laptop screen ...
When the other PC tried to connect to the FTP server, Norton Antivirus blocked the incoming request on the grounds that it looked like a virus, and blamed the FTP server program. Really? Yes, really. It IS a worm virus, it said. It's not, I said. Yes, it is most certainly a worm virus, Norton insisted. The fact that it was not, did not seem to stop Norton from thinking that it was. So I had to turn off worm protection in the Norton program. It took a while to locate, and I had to assure Norton many times that yes, I really wanted to do that. Now I could finally connect, and stay connected. Time to transfer some files!
Now, my laptop has a temperature problem. As soon as it's asked to do something, it starts running a fever. The more it is asked to do, the higher the fever runs, until the laptop passes out completely and dies. Temporarily, of course. The file transfers were causing the temperature to run dangerously near the boiling point of water, so I had to transfer just bit by bit. This was silly. At this speed, I might as well have connected the external disk to the Linux PC and done it directly without having to worry about temperature. Mind you, I was beginning to suspect ... yes, that was it. I was obviously not entirely done with Norton after all. It kept going through every single file, checking for viruses. This is usually a good thing, but when you are trying to move twenty gigabytes of stuff, about a zillion files, it can be a pain in the ... well, it can be a pain.
Switched off Norton's Auto Protect feature and watched the temperature take a nose dive of several tens of degrees, from water boiling to merely a very hot sauna.
Four hours later the data was tranferred across the network and safely stored on the external disk. The following morning I took about an hour to install Windows and the necessary drivers, and now my oldest daughter is happily playing Final Fantasy XI on it. It hasn't gone "bing" yet, but I am warily watching and waiting ...
Just to make sure the harddisk wasn't part of the problem, I replaced it with another one I had lying about. Funny enough, I kept getting errors. I could install Windows, keep it running for a while, and then the disk would suddenly seem to forget that Windows was on it and refuse to start up. After a few rather amusing attempts at working around this oddity the disk simply died. Oh well, it was a leftover from an old PC, and probably defect. So I tried with yet another spare harddisk which had worked well recently. It installed well (I have to run the entire Windows installation on each new disk, which takes about an hour), and ran well, until it started to play tag with me, or maybe hide-and-seek, I'm not quite sure which. I installed Windows again, and the same thing happened. Funny thing is, when I start the computer with a Linux CD (Linux is another operating system, not at all the same as Windows, but it does give me access to the harddisks) I can see that all the proper files are in their proper places, properly propped up and seemingly ready to go. This has caused a lot of head-shaking and invention of new words that are not at all suited for polite conversation.
I have a third harddisk I can try with, seeing as the first two both apparently had defects. I'm not entirely surprised if they're defect, just puzzled that they seem to work part of the time rather than just failing miserably and be done with it. Anyway, to try the third one, I must empty it of data that I'm not in the mood to lose when I wipe it clean before installing Windows (yet again – must be the eighth time in just under two weeks). I have an external harddisk with room to spare, so in theory it should be easy. Problem is, I have to use the Linux CD to access the disks, and Linux won't access the external one. Or rather, there's a speed limit which will cause the file transfer to take weeks instead of hours.
I have a backup solution to that. My laptop has a faster connection to the external disk, so it's basically a matter of transferring all that data over a network cable and have the laptop put them on the disk. Amazingly simple idea, but it requires a bit of fiddling. The simple part was to install a so-called FTP server. The FTP server allows the other computer, now running Linux, to connect to my laptop for the purpose of transferring files. That's what FTP stands for; File Transfer Protocol. I got hold of one that's free and downloaded it from the net, installed it, and it was ready to play.
That's when the Windows XP firewall decided it was time to cry "Wolf!" and block the FTP server from getting on to the network. I specifically told the firewall that yes, I did indeed want the FTP server to be able to accept data from the other computer, and the firewall said that ok, it shall be so. It wasn't so. The firewall said that it had allowed the FTP server to communicate, but not on the port number that the FTP server wanted to use (a port number is like a phone number. If you want to talk to someone you need the right number. If you don't have the right number, or the number is blocked, you can't talk to them, at least not on the phone. And every program talking over a network is talking through a port number, and every server has a specific number assigned to it). So I wrestled the firewall to the ground and forced it to allow that specific port number or else, and it was finally so. Or not.
The Linux PC managed to connect, but repeatedly got disconnected almost immediately. This was starting to become rather irritating. I checked the network cables, reconfigured my network router, and got nowhere. Until I noticed a small security warning in the lower right corner on the laptop screen ...
When the other PC tried to connect to the FTP server, Norton Antivirus blocked the incoming request on the grounds that it looked like a virus, and blamed the FTP server program. Really? Yes, really. It IS a worm virus, it said. It's not, I said. Yes, it is most certainly a worm virus, Norton insisted. The fact that it was not, did not seem to stop Norton from thinking that it was. So I had to turn off worm protection in the Norton program. It took a while to locate, and I had to assure Norton many times that yes, I really wanted to do that. Now I could finally connect, and stay connected. Time to transfer some files!
Now, my laptop has a temperature problem. As soon as it's asked to do something, it starts running a fever. The more it is asked to do, the higher the fever runs, until the laptop passes out completely and dies. Temporarily, of course. The file transfers were causing the temperature to run dangerously near the boiling point of water, so I had to transfer just bit by bit. This was silly. At this speed, I might as well have connected the external disk to the Linux PC and done it directly without having to worry about temperature. Mind you, I was beginning to suspect ... yes, that was it. I was obviously not entirely done with Norton after all. It kept going through every single file, checking for viruses. This is usually a good thing, but when you are trying to move twenty gigabytes of stuff, about a zillion files, it can be a pain in the ... well, it can be a pain.
Switched off Norton's Auto Protect feature and watched the temperature take a nose dive of several tens of degrees, from water boiling to merely a very hot sauna.
Four hours later the data was tranferred across the network and safely stored on the external disk. The following morning I took about an hour to install Windows and the necessary drivers, and now my oldest daughter is happily playing Final Fantasy XI on it. It hasn't gone "bing" yet, but I am warily watching and waiting ...
posted by inShadowz at 1:07 PM
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