[Ham-Computers] Hard drive crash

[Jay Eimer]

Basically, no.  Programs commonly use "shared" library files, known as DLLs
(they have .dll extensions, but not always).

DLLs live somewhere in the Windows directory tree (usually the Systems
sub-dir).  But they are "registered" when they install (links to them, with
version info, in the registry).  Install programs may also make other
changes to the registry.

What happens is two fold - first, you install a program and it installs v3.0
of some DLL.  Later you install another program that needs v2.5 or better.
The install is smart (and the DLL is backward compatible) so v2.5 does not
over-write 3.0.

And when you install Windows, it "comes with" v2.0 (if anything at all),
which a reinstall doesn't mess with the v3.0 that's out there.

But when you copy the whole disk, you may or may not mess up the registry
(assuming it was good in the first place).  And on the first reboot, much of
it has to be rebuilt due to hardware differences.  Then you reinstall
Windows, with (effectively) no registry, so no record of the versions of the
shared DLLs.  Now, the Win reinstall installs all the old versions, over the
top of the new ones, and no program that needs the newer version works
anymore.

The second thing is that some programs install DLLs that might be shared,
but really aren't.  They're still in Windows/System, and registered, but
they aren't on the Win CD, and they aren't used by a second program (so no
version conflicts).  But they are still in the registry so that the app can
find them.  If you copied the Windows tree, these files are still there,
they just can't be "found" because the registry doesn't know they're there.

First fix - re-run the setup programs - it won't take much time, because the
files are there, so they get "skipped", but the registry gets updated.

Second fix - find the error messages and track down the missing files and
register them manually (regsrv32.exe if I recall correctly).

Third possibility - there are utilities that handle this kind of stuff that
can be purchased for around $50.  An "uninstall" utility has the ability to
find orphaned DLLs.  The normal option is to remove ones that aren't used,
but it can also identify ones that "should" be used by program "x" (the one
that doesn't work) and can auto-register it to get the program working
again.

Jay
AD5PE


-----Original Message-----
From: ham-computers-bounces at mailman.qth.net
[mailto:ham-computers-bounces at mailman.qth.net]On Behalf Of EUGENE
Sent: Saturday, August 14, 2004 18:58
To: ham-computers at mailman.qth.net
Subject: [Ham-Computers] Hard drive crash


Perhaps someone on the list can help me with this problem:
One of my PC's has a HDD (Maxtor) that was starting to fail. I installed a
second HDD (Also Maxtor) and used their copy program to clone the original,
but the pgm kept telling me that there were problems with the disk.
So, I did an XOOPY and copied everyting from the original disk to the new
one. Then I re-installed WINME. (I know that when you clone a disk you can
clone all of the problems, but these problems were with the disk and not the
programs). Most of the desktop is as original, but over half of the
shortcuts do not work and when I go to the actual folder, the program also
does not work.
I KNOW that I should have backed everything up BEFORE this happened, but
alas, I did not. (Since this happened, I bought a 250 GB WDD networkable
backup system...)
So, the bottom line questions are:
 "Is there a way to 'transfer' programs from one HDD to another?"
(BTW, with the original HDD, it would work OK some of the time and about
every second or third time of boot up, it would say Boot failure, insert a
system disk.)
If there is anyone out there that can help me with this, it would be GREATLY
APPRECIATED!
Thanks in advance,
Gene, WØQFC
Spring Hill, FL
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