Re: OT: some questions for our Apple + Parallels Users

[Harry Binswanger hb@xxxxxxxx]

I see. Never one to give up, what about just disabling the USB ports in
the BIOS setup. Can she accomplish what she's used to doing via USB some
other way? Or maybe just disabling one of them would allow the other to
work.


BTW, sfc /scannow is not just a test: the scannow switch makes it replace
damaged system files with uncorrupted original ones.


That the problem would return after a while (after you reassigned drive
letters) is a clue. What happens only "after a while"? Does it
happen if you re-assign the drive letters then leave the computer idling
for an equivalent "while"?


Seems to me that XP can't "age"--it can only have some files
get corrupted. Those files can be replaced by their uncorrupted versions.
Hardware can get hot while running, and that can cause a plethora of
errors. Have you tried sitting the thing on a cold surface when the error
appears? Sometimes I put my laptop in the freezer for 2 minutes, then
boot up again. Can work wonders.


Regards,

Harry




Thanks, Harry.  I had no
recollection of that particular test, but no harm in trying it, so I'll
add that to the 'To Do' list. 


In case I had not gone into those details, some of the symptoms on the
failing XP box included TWO drive letters getting assigned to the same
USB port (simultaneously -- which ought to be impossible); if anything
was plugged into one of the ports the whole system slowed down
considerably, and clicking on any of several basic items on the desktop
such as 'My Computer' would hang the system for 10 minutes, before
bringing up an obscure System Error message.  (I googled that error,
and the range of suggested possible causes -- basically everything but
the kitchen sink, including HDD failure -- rendered the info close to
useless.)  If I dismissed all of the USB drive letter assignments in
"Computer Management", cold rebooted, then began to add them
back one by one, I might get to use a USB connection for a few minutes,
before that situation and error returned.  As I had mentioned, the
Win PE test pretty much proves that those ports worked as they should, in
a *different* Win bootup environment. 



Without going into more detail than people want to read here, we had a
personal referral to a guy who owns a highly respected computer repair
shop.  (And those may be in the minority ?) I took a detailed
written description of the problem and the steps I had taken to
him.  He has several techs working for him, and is himself highly
credentialed as well.  His verdict was that this had the earmarks of
an aging, troublesome Win XP that was deteriorating -- perhaps in
conjunction with aging hardware -- and which should be retired as soon as
possible.  As to its being repairable, he thought this was highly
doubtful.  Various computer shops would be glad to bill us many
hundreds of dollars attempting to chase this down, but it would in his
opinion be a waste of money.  He said I had taken the right steps on
my own so far, which were pretty much what _they_ would have done. 
Being a computer hobbyist going back to the original IBM XT, I think I
have a good sense of when tech people really know their stuff, and that
is the feeling I got from him.  Although we offered payment for the
half hour of his time that he gave us (standard rate would have been
$100./hr. with an hour minimum, according to the posted sign), he
declined to accept payment, and along with that advice this basically
ices it for me. 


For my next efforts with this, I'm going to see if I can adapt that
near-twin, spare desktop rig.  I can experiment with that most
recent Acronis image.  If I can get things back to a sort of
*working* status quo ante, I can then try to integrate the critical
program data that was generated over the last 3.5 years.  (It has
since occurred to me that I should be able to use one of those Win-PE
disc boots to lift that stored material off of the hobbled system, as
it's a way to regain temporary use of the USB ports, while having
continued access to the system hard drives.  Failing that, I could
always mount the system's data drive in a disk-duplicator station.) 
If those procedures work, it would at least buy some time, during which
we can try to narrow down the prospects for moving all of this into a
contemporary Apple desktop environment -- which I think is what she
wants, if she can't keep the old XP regimen going indefinitely. 
Thanks to the repair shop owner I referenced above, we have a potential
referral to another shop that he said can do more complicated or
personalized Apple work than we're likely to obtain from the regular
Apple Store.  They should be able to handle the transfer / VM
scenario that the Apple Store said they could not do.  But for now,
one step at a time. 




   Jordan




From: Harry Binswanger


To: xywrite@xxxxxxxx

Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2017 6:54 AM

Subject: Re: OT: some questions for our Apple + Parallels
Users



Certainly OS X vs. Win is endlessly debatable. I agree with Carl that,


unless she's already acclimated to the Apple environment, there's less of
a

learning curve in going from XP to Win 7 (probably even to Win 10) than
in

going to OS X.


But here's a new thought: why not fix her XP software? If all the ports


have failed (yet work as hardware, proven by your test) there must be
some

one point of failure. Some Googling would probably turn up the
problem.


In fact, have you tried running:


sfc /scannow


-- that alone could completely solve the port problem (ever the optimist,
I

am).


Regards,

Harry











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