Computer Questions Not Worth Their Own Thread II

[SeekTruthFromFacts]

Can a Blu-ray disc have a file structure that looks like a DVD? That is, the disc has two directories, AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS.

Wiki thinks not.

I'm trying to troubleshoot a problem with a film (movie) that doesn't play properly. The disc was purchased in mainland China, and I strongly suspect that it's a pirated DVD, not Blu-ray. But I've never seen an actual Blu-ray disc to compare.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Can a Blu-ray disc have a file structure that looks like a DVD? That is, the disc has two directories, AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS.

Wiki thinks not.

I'm trying to troubleshoot a problem with a film (movie) that doesn't play properly. The disc was purchased in mainland China, and I strongly suspect that it's a pirated DVD, not Blu-ray. But I've never seen an actual Blu-ray disc to compare.

If it's a legit disc, it could be region-locked making you unable to play it.

 

[Narnia]

Planetside 2 just launched and I want to download it but the minute it got released their site crashed.
Is there a way to have my computer (I'm using Google Chrome) keep trying to access the website until it loads?
Thanks
Edit: Site's back up

 

[Michkov]

What would be a good replacement for Photoshop7? Preferably freeware

 

[Narnia]

What would be a good replacement for Photoshop7? Preferably freeware

For freeware, Gimp is the best out there.
For payware, Photoshop CS6 is much better than Gimp or Photoshop 7 (but might be extremely excessive, I don't know what kind of photomanipulation you're doing)

 

[Mr.WorldWide]

What would be a good replacement for Photoshop7? Preferably freeware

Gimp is very good, I use it all the time as my main graphics program.

Lots of useful free plug-ins for it too, some are restricted to non-profit use though without donation or something similar.

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

When I first got my Galaxy SII a year ago, one of the apps that came with it was a sort of task manager, but I don't know what the name was. Right now, I'm borrowing an older Android from a family member, but it didn't have the app I'm looking for. Only thing I remember of it is that it took up two icon spaces (horizontally) on the home screen, and allowed me to forcibly stop multiple running apps at once, and had a select all button. The homescreen icon may have displayed battery levels.

If it helps to know, the model was a AT&T Mobility SGH-I777.

 

[Antilogic]

Okay, this problem is starting to get aggravating and I can't find answers on Google (that are useful, at least).

My old XP desktop crashed hard a week ago, but I had to bail for a few days over Thanksgiving. The original error message was that I could not boot Windows because the file \Windows\System32\Config\System is missing or corrupt. I've finally got the appropriate installation CD and I'm trying to use the Recovery Console to repair the installation of Windows.

Chkdsk /p and /r do not reveal explicitly bad sectors of the hard drive (only messages I see between typing the command and the report are "CHKDSK is checking the volume..." and "CHKDSK is performing additional checking or recovery..." printed over and over), but for some reason they only see 70 GB instead of the full 500 GB. When I try to run commands like fixboot and fixmbr, I'm told the file system is FAT32 (which it isn't, it's NTFS) and the operation fails because I'm denied access. Even attempting to access files on the hard drive fails--I'm told access is denied. Same with my external hard drive that was plugged into the machine at the time--I try to plug that into a laptop running Vista, and I'm denied access.

This sucks because I cannot use the repair console to copy and replace the registry values, which is what most of the Google results describe. At least, not until I can figure out the interim problem and get access to my drives again.

What I'm really confused with is that when I try to boot to safe mode, I can load a handful of files out of the registry before stalling on the system configuration file (around 6, I think). So that tells me that some of the data on these drives still exist.

Just went into the re-install Windows menu, and my former external hard drive has apparently changed its drive letter and has a partition with an unknown file system that is completely empty, but at least the size is close to right. I cannot even see my secondary/slave internal hard drive (which was the original hard drive for this computer before I bought a new one, that was another whole ordeal).

I can't figure out what would cause both of these drives to crash so hard simultaneously, and whether recovery is even possible. I know the system is something like 8 years old, but the primary internal hard drive is only 2 or so.

 

[tokala]

Already tried a Linux boot CD/thumbdrive? In any case, if you manage to recover the data, it would be a good idea to replace that 8 year old system.
Might be the controller is dying and/or the drive electronics.

 

[Mr.WorldWide]

Try Hirens Boot CD, it has a mini Windows XP you can boot into and a whole bunch oh handy utilities. I fixed a similar problem to yours with it.

http://www.hirensbootcd.org/download/

 

[Antilogic]

I just downloaded a bootable Ubuntu system, I'll take a look at the other link here and then try it when I have the time (might be the weekend).

I'm most concerned because I can't plug the external hard drive to another computer, even to run a CHKDSK or anything like that. Don't know what took it out, but it's looking like it's toast.

 

[Antilogic]

Okay, partial success for anyone out there with a similar problem. I plugged the external hard drive into my laptop, and I still couldn't access anything--access was always denied. I went into Disk Management, changed its drive letter, and then I could start a CHKDSK from my laptop as well as see the appropriate hard drive size and data filled (well, the numbers looked right, anyway). And it recognized it as an NTFS partition! I'll check things out in the morning, I need to sleep.

So, I might have recovered 1 out of 3 drives at the moment. The other two are internal on the broken-as-all-hell system and I'll need to fool around with the Ubuntu thing this weekend to see if I can fix it.

But I'm relieved that it looks like I can recover at least my external drive. Sure, I can understand a computer crashing hard after 9 years, but taking three hard drives with it? That's a dick move, old buddy.

 

[Souron]

Unless the drives are damaged by a power spike or something, it should be strait forward to view the files in ubuntu. You might also be able to resize partitions on the disks to create room for a new boot partition if you need to. Or once you confirm everything is intact, and you have a windows installation CD and license number, you may be able to reinstall Windows 7 or later on the drives without wiping them. If you don't have a Windows license, you can install ubuntu, or another linux distro on a new partition on the disk, and keep your old files.

For purely repair purposes, I would suggest Knoppix instead of Ubuntu, because it has more diagnostic software installed on the disk, and is designed to be a repair disk, whereas Ubuntu has more features that day to day desktop use needs. OTOH, ubuntu is more popular, so there may be more detailed tutorials for it.

Also, one thing to pay attention to: If accessing your boot harddrive makes any strange noises, gives intermittent net failures in accessing files, or has any other issues besides Windows not booting, then you should get the data off as soon as you can, before the drive dies completely. There's no reason to think that your other internal drive is dead though.

 

[Antilogic]

All right, had some time to address this problem tonight, figured I'd post a quick update that is worthy of a .

I can see everything and access everything on my external drive... in safe mode. IN SAFE MODE. But not in regular ordinary mode. My access is denied. At least I got a new symptom to google, so that's progress.

Now, time to learn a new operating system to see what the damage is on the internals. Fortunately, since I have two internal drives (and I took everything off the old one I wanted anyway, I can probably wipe that one clean, install a new operating system on it, and make my big one a slave. Then I could salvage the data more easily (?).


EDIT: Okay, finally got the external drive to work on my laptop. Had a message about a corrupt recycling bin, but I think I've fixed everything there and it's good to go. 1 drive down, 2 to go.

 

[civ_king]

I need to find and replace in a large number of files in a given directory on Windows, what is the easiest way to do this?

 

[Mr.WorldWide]

A file batch processor is my guess. I don't know exactly what you are doing here so it's hard to suggest anything.

 

[Zelig]

I need to find and replace in a large number of files in a given directory on Windows, what is the easiest way to do this?

Notepad++

 

[Antilogic]

Still plugging away at my broken machine, but all the hard disks seem to be fine (checked them with Knoppix). Does anyone know how to change the file system listed for the drive from FAT32 to NTFS in Knoppix or any other bootable OS without reformatting the drive? It was originally formatted as NTFS, all the data is still there when accessed as a hard disk in a bootable OS, but on a regular boot it thinks it's a FAT32 and fails to load Windows. I can't write a new boot sector because it thinks it's FAT32 when it isn't, and ordinary chkdsk hasn't fixed the problem.

 

[Synobun]

This has been happening in every application that displays text, though it displaces images as well (like headers of this forum). I need to scroll off the page and scroll back up for it to be fixed. Nothing else seems to be impacting it, and I'm not sure why this is suddenly happening, as I haven't changed anything.

Any pointers? I'm using a laptop, with Intel on-board graphics.



Picture in question is from Skype. I'll see if I can remember to take a picture if it happens the next time I'm on CFC.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

May be worth reinstalling your drivers if you havent tried it already.