*HP HDX DRAGON Owners Lounge, Part 1*

HC,
You most likely got rid of some hard dust that a regular cleaner couldn't get. Without sounding too harsh to KH - tapping on your lasers is great way to put them permanently out of alignment - did you go to DeVry or get your knowledge at basic garage school? You got lucky Hover, nothing more. That's the kind of BS BDT "fixes" you'll usually see me rant about. The laser never touches anything - what makes you think it can get out of position in the first place Maybe if you dropped the HDX or tapped it with your finger to begin with. Lasers are set in place to exact tolerances and there's a reason every tech manual on the planet tells you NOT to touch them.

USE COMMON SENSE PEOPLE!!!

C'mon Hover - you're way smarter than that. Maybe not driving LCAC's anymore and being around turkeys has dulled that eagle brain of yours and made you more susceptible. I run into that occasionally, and we can't be blamed for it.

The other problems noted on the link referenced aren't due to any drive problem, they're the old problems from not having QuickPlay 3.7+ installed. http://tinyurl.com/6h8soq

BTW, for those of you looking for a good way to find dust, a good LED light will work, but a Black Light works wonders. If you've never done so, take an LED or Black Light and shine it on your HDX - you'll probably gag at the amount of dust that shows, not to mention the amount of crap that gets under keys that needs to be cleaned out on a regular basis. I just did my keyboard the other night and couldn't believe how much stuff can get in over a 3 month period (I usually clean my systems quarterly unless I have a reason to open or work on them sooner). Make sure you use only a Microfiber cloth on it after you blow the majority of it off. NEVER use a vacuum on a computer not ESD rated either.

 

What's underlined is probably the most important. Namely because the components of the subsystems have variations in tolerance and part number.

This bore out on a few occasions. The PLL chip among the HDX 9000 models varies as also the sound chip does. As for the GPU, likely the revision varies also. I noted that the 8800M GTS of the earlier HDX's released around JAN ' 08 were different than the HDX's released after MAY. The difference was in the code used to indentify the GPU to the BIOS.

The other thing is the thermal grease is not always applied in a conscientious manner. Of the 2 HDX's I have, one of them was done too thick and spread out past the heatspreader. funny enough, it was the Unit that ran hotter than the other one. I re-did the HP slop-job with Arctic Silver 5 and have had zero issues with the GPU.

I've been able to use all GPU drivers with some being better than others. The latest one from Nvidia's site has been the most stable and best performer all around. My HDXs came with HP's driver 167.xx. I had a 3D mark06 score of around 7500-7600. With the 178.29, w/physx enabled, I get 8100+.

Where as with a sound driver other than the HP original, problems with bass and sound in some games.

If you know what you're doing and you know how to recover, I say be brave and try things out. Just know that it doesn't always work out for the better.

 

Yes, it's ok to do a quick format.

Yes, no matter what you will have to use nlite to "slipstream" the Sata driver onto it. There's no other way to get XP installed without the Sata driver in place at install time. .

 

LOL @ Devry.

To his credit, he did say gently which is cool since the heads are designed to "float" to account for disc warp and such.

 

The 8GB Memory started at $150, then went to $199 at Newegg. I didn't do much research but I found a place via an alert that lowered the price to $177 here http://www.memoryc.com/computermemory/ddr2sodimm/4gbgskillpc25300sqseriessingle.html Make sure they're legit before you buy. Again I didn't do research hence why I qualify it.

Try removing the battery and holding down the power button for 30 seconds. NM I misread what you said. Cybervisions suggestion makes sense.

 

If you know what you're doing and you know how to recover

That's it in a nutshell my friend. The problem is that the majority of people don't know what they're doing, and even worse, listen to others that have just enough knowledge to really hose things over for some unsuspecting sap willing to listen because they don't know any better.

 

Yeah, but it's still a classic case of someone building a BS "fix" procedure using incorrect deductions from results of a trial and error "troubleshoot".

That's like a person having a car that won't start, and the problem is a flooded carburetor. The person gets out of the car, opens the hood, plays with a few cables and hoses for 5 minutes, then gets back in and starts the car right up. The person deduces that messing with the cables and hoses is what fixed the problem. The procedure from that would be to get out of the car, open the hood, and play with cables and hoses for approximately 5 minutes when your engine won't start.

The punch line is that the person puts a resume' in as a Master Mechanic and Dodge hires him for Customer Support.

Now you know where HP and others are getting their "talent" these days....

 

Thanks. Can I use Magic Iso Maker to make the iso as well?

 

Shade tree mechanics or not, it worked. DeVry was hilarious, though. If it's on a spring ("floating"), which he described, then what's the harm? I was ready to get a new drive anyway, as nothing else had worked.

Yeah here is exactly what he said to do: "The solution is simple: open drive tray, locate the two lenses and with a lint-free cloth gently tap on them (they are like on a spring with some vertical movement and can attract dust and/or change position; by tapping them gently with the cloth you help reposition them/free them and clean them, as needed)."

Which is exactly what I did...not like I banged on it with a 5 pound sledge (although I was getting to that point of frustration)

So therefore, I don't see your analogy as a very good one. He didn't read that my keyboard was hosed and then recommend to reseat by DVD drive. As for what's on his resume? Meh..."I helped a dude fix his HP HDX, by luck or genius, and he was a happy camper".

 

Sure, after nlite makes the ISO file with the slipstreamed SATA driver, you can use Magic to burn it to disk.

 

Hallo Community,

i just want to upgrade my HDX 9320EG. But the question for me is, how big can my memory be? Is it possible to use more than 4 GB RAM? Is it possible to use faster RAM than 667 Mhz clocked memory ? I buyed Windows Server 2008 Standard 64Bit so the Operating System is okay and it runs very good, but i need more "power" for cutting HD Video with the HDX.

Another question is it possible to change the build in Geforce gfx card to another, i want to use a quadro card (because of the really better 2d speed with video programs). There are many cards on ebay but i dont know if the connection internal is the same.

And a last question which internal 2,5" harddisc to you prefer for videocutting. A 5400 rpm hdd with a large cache, or better a 7200 rpm harddisc with a better seeking time, do you know a specific model?

Thanks for your help, and sorry for my worse english, im from germany and use my school english

Greets back and thanks for your help,

djtonjah

 

You can go to 8GB RAM. You cannot utilize RAM faster than 667mhz though.

No, can't upgrade the GPU. Even though it's MXM, there's more to MXM than just dropping a new card in. Especially with an HP computer.

Go SSD if you really want to speed things up. Otherwise a large 320GB and up 7200 RPM HDD will be plenty fast.

Your English is all good. No worries. And welcome to the forum.

BTW, what is you CPU speed? If it's less than 2.5GHZ, you might want to consider upgrading to the X9000.

 

Sweet thanks.

 

They just came out with Seagates 500GB 7200.4rpm Hard Drives, I found them for 134 online each. The 320GB 7200 drives are $89 so for only around 30-40 bucks more you can get the higher capacity ones if you want. I got them here in case anyone was interested: http://www.onsale.com/shop/detail~d...-500GB+7200RPM+16MB+BUFFER++SERIAL+ATA+I.aspx. Its an associated site with Macmall, they were nice enough to do a search for me within their different companies for the cheapest price and that was what came up. I thought that was mighty cool of them.

 

Thanks. The remote issue only happens with the latest versions of QuickPlay (3.7.x). The older releases (and Windows Media Center) work fine with the remote so I suspect a problem with QuickPlay. I was guessing that newer versions weren't well tested against the Dragon since it's now out of production.

 

I posted the below in the main HP forum, but since we have some smart folks here, I thought I would give it a go for some Dragon-ites as well:

Display driver nvlddmkm stopped responding- Her laptop is a DV9640US

Does anyone have any insight to this? My wife's laptop gets this error running a variety of programs, form Yahoo Spades, to simple websurfing, to Windows based programs and games. It has the 8600 GS GPU, and I have installed multiple drivers, the latest being the 179.32 from HP.

I have read many threads on the net about this happening to any number/combo of systems and vid cards. It appears that it is not even nVidia alone, as ATI users get the message as well, but obviously not as nvlddmkm. Seems to happen in XP and Vista. Fingers pointing at MS and the card makers.

I will say that it seemed to have happened after I did complete restore to new condition. Or maybe she had this before hand, but pinged on other things that made me restore.

Anyway, here are her main specs:
8600M GS -256
Vista 32 Premium
1.5ghz core duo
2 meg ram

Again, I have exhaustively searched...only posting here in hopes that someone may have found a solution I overlooked. Thanks

 

This issue was brought up on Nvidia's forums with a range of supposed fixes. Some work for a while, others just reduce the occurance.

http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=25381

Also see if that notebook model is listed on HP's site as those that can have the motherboard replaced because of Nvidia's GPU problem.

 

Yeah, I have read most of that thread and others. This link has the most concise, consolidated set of fixes that have worked for a variety of users:
http://www.nvlddmkm.com/

I have tried every fix on that page and no luck.

I'm about to open her DVD tray and tap on the lense...

Anyway, I wasn't aware about the HP moboard thing. Will check on that next, whether is a fix or not, will be good to know if it hers is affected. Thanks much.

 

Thank you for your great informations, but imust see that one single 4gb 667 mhz clocked memory module cost about 300 EUR - thats much money, 600 EUR for 8 GB RAM....

Yes the tipp with the cpu upgrade is really interesting, i have the 2,4GHz Version, and i want to get a P-socket cpu with more than 3mb cache... its really slow on rendering the videos... which cpu`s can i use?

The SSD Flash Disc is a good choise i think, are they all compatible or only OSZ like written in the last threads.

Thanks so far and by the way.... I LOVE MY HDX!!!

 

After installing my new G.Skill SSD's and re-reading some of the "Tweak" information available on the OCZ forum, I have to take exception to a few of their user recommendations:

Here are a few examples:

One recommendation is a change in "SecondLevelDataCache". This setting is only useful for computers with direct-mapped L2 caches. I understand newer computers (Pentium II and later) don't have direct-mapped L2 caches.

Also, the recommendation to enable "clearPageFileAtShutdown" doesn't seem correct (especially since another recommendation is to remove a pagefile if you have at least 4GB of RAM). Enabling this can actually degrade performance and was only designed as a security feature.

Attempting to enable advanced write caching performance on an SSD doesn't seem appropriate either (and it may not even stay enabled across subsequent boots since the disk controller doesn't have a battery-backed up write cache), although laptops containing a charged battery may prove an exception.

On the other hand, disabling the default defragmenter does seem appropriate as its use could defeat the wear-leveling file positioning intentionally done by the SSD firmware.

Other "tweaks" such as disabling Prefetch, Superfetch and Indexing may or may not noticebly improve performance, depending on the software load you present to the OS.

NCQ in Solid-State Drives
----------------------------
The OCZ SSD installation notes recommend not using an AHCI SATA driver with their SSD. However there may be benefits from one of the AHCI features "Native Command Queuing" (NCQ). NCQ is used in newer solid-state drives where the drive encounters latency on the host, rather than the other way around. For example, Intel's X25-E Extreme solid-state drive uses NCQ to ensure that the drive has commands to process while the host system is busy processing CPU tasks.

So given all this information, my recommendation is to take some of these "tweaks" with a grain of salt. Try them (one at a time) and restore their default settings if you can't see any difference in performance. The key here is to make only one change at a time (and keep a log of what you did and when).

 

Many people here and around the Internet have long wondered, contemplated, thought about, pondered, meditated, and generally have pulled their hair out over a single question of cosmic proportions and consequences. Men have journeyed high and low, far and wide, searched and braved extreme dangers at the farthest reaches of Planet Earth for the answer to that single, solitary question that men have asked, and that it seems was posed by the Sphinx itself and has eluded an answer until now:

“WHY in the name of SATAN’S BUTTHOLE does the Customer Support at HP and other companies SUCK like a Black Hole??

While many theories abound and humans everywhere ponder this very dilemma, only 2 of them really explain the real story and reason behind the demise of vaunted towers of technological knowledge and customer service like HP. In a remote, distant and almost forgotten era of humanity’s past (about 15-20 years ago) there were ACTUAL TECHS AND ENGINEERS that answered the phones and SOLVED PROBLEMS, instead of making more. They even spoke an Ancient and now all but forgotten Dialect known as "English" when communicating these wisdoms of the ages.

Like the passing of the the Persian, Roman and Ottoman Empires, so too have these great dynasties fallen into disrepair and ruin, literally overnight in our time. How can this be?

1. The ‘90's - This decade saw many changes, most notable the downsizing of our military and hence technological knowledgebase. Senior Engineers, the water source supplying the Fountain of Knowledge for young Engineers coming out of college, were either laid off or forced to retire. In an industry where past mistakes are avoided and knowledge passed on around water coolers and coffee pots, young Engineers found themselves staring at a new corporate attitude - “Fix it or your gone”. With no solid foundation to build on, rather than build a new knowledgebase, they were left to wither and rot in the vacuum of stupidity, and were ultimately assigned to help the helpless. Those who retained some knowledge from the past were assigned to tackle new designs and support long-term business warranties and extended consumer contracts, helping to preserve the Support Profit Margin, however slim.

2. The Exponential Growth of the “Average Computer User” has led to a corresponding rise in the number of “Average Questions” when the User runs into a problem with his or her technological marvel. Following are some classic examples of why those vaunted bastions of Technology and Engineering offer up “less than average”employees to staff Customer Service Call Centers and online Support lines, while supplying those with knowledge genes to the paid "Extended Customer Warranty" and "Business Support Contract" programs to maximize those previously mentioned company Profit Margins.

To those who have always wondered but were kept clueless and in the dark: Prepare to be Enlightened. For those who refuse to believe that humans of this "caliber" really exist on our planet or in the human species: Visit DarwinAwards.com - you may even get lucky and find that some of your relatives have been honored there with the prestigious Darwin Award, or have earned a place in history as a runner up. Either way, if you believe that humans are incapable of such stupidity, you should consider going all out to gain fame and prestige by earning a Darwin yourself if you are in that group of potential geniuses. Add to your legend....

And finally - for those like me who have actually dealt with such people either click through or get a stiff drink, joint, S&W of choice or something similar to help you as you stroll down “Memory Lane” (no pun intended) .

Computer Tech Support
Stretching the Boundaries of Human Intellect....?
=================================

Tech support: What kind of computer do you have?
Female customer: A white one...
( Had to be a Blonde....)

===============

Customer: Hi, this is Celine . I can't get my diskette out.
Tech support: Have you tried pushing the Button?
Customer: Yes, sure, it's really stuck.
Tech support: That doesn't sound good; I'll make a note.
Customer: No , wait a minute.. I hadn't inserted it yet... it's still on my desk... sorry....

===============

Tech support: Click on the 'my computer' icon on to the left of the screen.
Customer: Your left or my left?

===============

Tech support: Good day. How may I help you?
Male customer: Hello... I can't print.
Tech support: Would you click on 'start' for me and....
Customer: Listen pal; don't start getting technical on me! I'm not Bill Gates.

===============

Customer: Hi, good afternoon, this is Martha, I can't print. Every time I try, it says 'Can't find printer'.
I've even lifted the printer and placed it in front of the monitor,
but the computer still says he can't find it...

===============

Customer: I have problems printing in red..
Tech support: Do you have a color printer?
Customer: Aaaah....................thank you.

===============
Tech support: What's on your monitor now, ma'am?
Customer: A teddy bear my boyfriend bought for me at the 7-11.

===============

Customer: My keyboard is not working anymore.
Tech support: Are you sure it's plugged into the computer?
Customer: No. I can't get behind the computer.
Tech support: Pick up your keyboard and walk 10 paces back.
Customer: Uh... Okay...
Tech support: Did the keyboard come with you?
Customer: Yes
Tech support: That means the keyboard is not plugged in.. Is there another keyboard?
Customer: Yes, there's another one here. Ah..that one does work...

===============

Tech support: Your password is the small letter 'a' as in apple, a capital letter V as in Victor, the number 7.
Customer: Is that 7 in capital letters ?

===============

Customer: I can't get on the Internet.
Tech support: Are you sure you used the right password?
Customer: Yes, I'm sure. I saw my colleague do it.
Tech support: Can you tell me what the password was?
Customer: Five stars.

===============

Tech support: What anti-virus program do you use?
Customer: Netscape.
Tech support: That's not an anti-virus program.
Customer: Oh, sorry...Internet Explorer.

===============

Customer: I have a huge problem. A friend of mine has placed a screen saver on my computer,
but every time I move the mouse, it disappears.

===============

Tech support: How may I help you?
Customer: I'm writing my first e-mail.
Tech support: OK, and what seems to be the problem?
Customer: Well, I have the letter 'a' in the address, but how do I get the circle around it?

===============

A woman customer called the Canon help desk with a problem with her printer
Tech support: Are you running it under windows?
Customer: 'No, my desk is next to the door, but that is a good point.
The man sitting in the cubicle next to me is under a window, and his printer is working fine.'

===============

And last but not least...

Tech support: 'Okay Bob, please press the Control and Escape keys at the same time.
That brings up a task list in the middle of the screen. After the task list is up,
type the letter 'P' to bring up the Program Manager.'
Customer: I don't have a “P”.
Tech support: On your keyboard, Bob.
Customer: What do you mean?
Tech support: 'P'.....on your keyboard, Bob.
Customer: I'M NOT GOING TO DO THAT!
==========================================================================================

If any of you have your own examples or remember a particularly good incident from your past, PM me with it and I'll add it to these.
Cyber

 

Here are a few pictures with the glow in the dark stickers

The black on the touch pad is paint rubbed off from a spec of a pebble or something that was lodged into one of the dimples and swept across it. I'm going to try to find touch up paint for it but just ignore it if you can. Also on the rubber cover I put Velcro for the buttons I tend to mis when I'm typing..like the small shift key on the right..couldn't think of anything else hat would have let me distinguish the keys by touch, it works, so if you can please do ignore that as well. It took me about 2-3 hours to get them to look as good as I could get them. I can still move them around if I like. I'm tryng to decide if I'm going to put black sharpie over the stupid owl pic and their website but I haven't decided yet:

 

ROTFLMAO - ow, it hurts! Too freakin funny! I will be sharing this one with many friends.

Btw, it's just getting worse every day. A company I know outsourced their UNIX tech support. I was talking to one of their new UNIX support techs and said, well, "cd to your HOME directory and run ls -l and tell me what you see" (or something similar) and he said 'how do you do that?" One of my colleagues working with the same group said change to your HOME directory and her guy said "how do you do that?" -- so that became our catch phase for awhile and never failed to crack us up. After two years of training, they were doing fairly well, so of course, the company decided to switch vendors and it started all over again. Rinse and repeat. No sh*t, two years later they did it again. I am crawling towards retirement like a lost soul in the desert...this world is clearly leaving me (us?) behind.

Fortunately, I see the "soul of an engineer" spark in the eyes of many young techie geeks -- I'm sure they'll figure something out.

 

Hi Guys!

I just installed a second hard drive in my Dragon, when I powered it up a message came up saying that the Hitachi hardware was installed successfully. When I click to computer from the start menu, it only shows the first one - is there something else that I need to do? Also, I noticed when I was transferring files from my old computer to the dragon, most of them went into a "program files (x86)" instead of the programs one; just curious what the difference is? Thanks!!!

 

Hard drive: Goto control panel, then administrative tools, then computer management (takes a while to come up), then storage, then disk management.

Right click on disk 1. Partition it, then quick format it. If it doesn't show up in explorer, come back to here and assign it a drive letter.

As for Program files (x86) it installs them there because they are 32 bit apps and you have a 64bit OS. Program files is reserved for 64 bit apps only.

To check on your OS as being 64 or 32 bit, you can go to control panel, then click system. Alternatively for a more detailed breakdown, you can go to start menu, accessories, system tools, then click system information.

 

Thanks for posting. Looks like you did a pretty good job. The velcro solution is pretty inventive.

 

Haha that cracked me up as well. Thanks man

 

Hey thanks man. I can't believe I actually type better with both the plastic cover and the velcro than without any of it. What's kinda cool is the stickers are raised a spec so it helps to allow the cover stick to the keys and allows you to sense more of a distinction between the keys. It looks strange I think but it works well. I rarely look at my keyboard, but if I need to I can see the letters and they're big too. The tricky thing is cutting the FN keys and smaller squashed letters so they fit just right. PageDn was the worst to have to cut down (it came as Page Down so I cut out the 'ow') but it looks fine I think.

 

I'm sure this has been asked a million and five times, but I'm in the market for an external hard drive -- should I go for firewire or eSATA? (I'm not going to use USB -- all my USB ports are already taken, plus USB is just too slow).

Speed is what I'm wanting here.

EDIT -- Since firewire can support up to 40w (maybe 60w??) of power, do external drives/enclosures utilize this power for the drive itself? Or am I stuck with a wall-wart as well? I'm only looking at 3.5" drives.

 

Is that "SOUL" or "SOLE"?

The drawdown in the '90's and the loss of top engineers at all levels have hurt the industry to the core, and I honestly believe that it may never recover to the point it once was. "Solutions" that are routinely given by some techs even at reputable companies would've gotten a boot from my a$$ if they had worked for me. I wasn't kidding about the water-cooler / coffee pot analogies either. HP's Engineers routinely solved complex tech issues during coffee breaks. One manager who was hired from outside HP saw Engineers talking a lot and taking longer breaks than the thought was necessary, so he had the break coffee machine removed from his area. About a week later, the situation had reached Bill Hewlett's ears, and the manager was called into his office to explain himself. After his "Engineers talking and taking long breaks" speech, Hewlett explained to him that that's how HP Engineers solved problems - one division that had a problem would BS with Engineers from another and they came up with a solution. That manager was told to have the coffee machine back in place by the end of the day or have his office packed up.

As with large tech companies like HP, I also saw the same thing at NASA and large Aerospace companies like Lockheed, Martin Marietta (before they merged), Fairchild (now Orbital), Grumman, and others. NASA typically likes what they call "heritage" on most of their programs - i.e., they prefer the same proven people working on key programs over the years because they don't keep making the same mistakes or reinventing the wheel. If a contractor lost a NASA contract, the new contractor had to hire on all of the people working on the contract at the contractor who lost. All equipment associated with it also was transferred - files, office equipment, computers, everything. The only thing that changed was upper management.

When companies started laying off people, some of the first to go were senior engineers because their salaries were the highest. It also meant the company knowledgebase went out the door - you can't replace 30 or more years of experience overnight, and I've seen too many mistakes at contractors I was in charge of for the Feds by young engineers (because I had to correct them) that wouldn't have been made before the drawdown.

One of the biggest problems I see today is troubleshooting technique - there isn't any. I consider myself fortunate to have formal training in both analog and digital electronics repair, and both types of troubleshooting techniques aren't used anymore for the most part. What you see today is a "try this and see if it works" approach, and if that doesn't do it "try this and this". And before you do that, reformat everything and rebuild it so it's the way it was when you bought it. Forget things like making sure your system is clean, the power is on, your AC is plugged in tight, the fuse isn't blown, etc. In the past, seasoned pro's mentored young engineers into outstanding techs and engineers in their own right. Today, we have VoTech grads being hired to fill Customer Service positions at key repair facilities like Best Buy, while othesr spout complete and utter BS solutions on the Internet to people too stupid and unsuspecting to know the difference. Even better, companies indifferent to customer service problems (they know everyone needs a computer to survive today) farm out their phone and online support to foreign countries.

Over time, rather than become an anomaly, the problem becomes the norm. Knowledge that was once the Soul of talented Engineers and Techs waiting to be passed on to younger ones has now become the kind of information found on the Sole of an Engineer's or Tech's shoes after walking through a huge pile of dog$hit, a la Forrest Gump.

 

As I said, you got lucky, nothing more. The problem with "solutions" like these is that good people who don't know any better might now take this as a valid way to fix a problem.

Why aren't you supposed to touch the laser lens or mess with the mechanism? Aside from the fact that the tolerances involved are in the Nanometers, the biggest danger is scratching the lens, which isn't that hard to do, lint-free cloth or not. In this case though, that's not the problem - if you're looking for what's causing any possible misalignment, then blow the dust out of the track the laser carriage moves on, which is what gets dirtiest the quickest. The lasers are held in place hard and tight enough it would take G-forces strong enough to damage the unit to shift them out of alignment. The only reason they're on springs is in case the drive gets a warped disk.

Enough dirt/dust in the tracks can prevent the carriage from sliding into the key spot for reading the index track of the disk when it's inserted. Yet as I said, just because something worked for you doesn't mean that was the problem or that the solution was a valid one. If someone told you that the procedure for fixing an LCAC skirt was a few strips of EB Green or something as silly, would you believe it or even try it even if it apparently worked for a short period?

 

eSATA will be as fast as your internal harddrives since they both use SATA II(300) interface. And so far there is no harddrive in the world fast enough to take full advantage of the interface's max throughput. Fastest SSD's only come up to about 1/3 the speed.

Since all of your USb ports are occupied and you don't have a USB hub, make sure you get an eSATA enclosure that comes with a power supply. Unlike Firewire and USB, eSATA is not powered. It's just a data port.

 

That's a great story about Bill Hewlett. One of the major problems I see is MBA's running companies nowdays who think they know it all.

Yea, I hear you and I don't disagree. I'm just hoping the phoenix will rise from the ashes. There are still some good people out there. But, yes, most companies could care less. So those good people will have to be true entrepreneurs and strike out on their own for the most part.

You may well be right about one thing, though. We may not recover from the loss anytime soon. It's a terrible shame the human capital that has been wasted. A price will be paid for that.

 

Perhaps you missed this part of my post:

"then what's the harm? I was ready to get a new drive anyway, as nothing else had worked."

And you would be surprised at the things I have done to meet my mission, or keep my craft and crew from being beat around in 12-15 foot seas, because something was broke.

To use your example, my crew and I have actually sewed up a 15 foot rip in the skirt, punching holes with a marlin spike and threading some 3/8 inch retrieving line. Held up fine for 6 more runs, carrying 70 ton tanks back to the ship, so our craft didn't have to drop from the rotation.

There is a time and a place for following the tried and true rules...then there is the time that 'when all else fails' is acceptable.

 

I don't want to get in the middle of anything or start a "Pis***g" contest, but as a retired USAF member who worked alot with AF Special Ops and spent alot of time deployed all over the world, I understand where Hover is coming from. Sometimes you just have to think out of the box, or try something that is foreign or unorthodox to get through a situation. Hope no one gets their hackles up over my two cents worth.

 

OMG, I haven't laughed that hard in quite some time.....

Thanks.

 

Thank you once again, 2.0 - I appreciate your help BIG time! I plan to use this drive for storage, but would I be able to install a copy of XP on this new drive? Some programs that I used on my old system (ZD7030us) which I like very much just don't run properly with Vista, even under XP compatability. Thank you again for helping me get the most out of my HDX9494nr Dragon!!!

 

If you didn't want to get in the middle or start a pi$$ing contest you wouldn't have posted anything to begin with. Since you HAVE injected yourself into our conversation, it probably would've been beneficial for you to check on both of our backgrounds to find out exactly how close we're connected. If you had, you probably would've decided it best to keep your trap shut, but my experience has taught me that AF types rarely can keep silent about anything. Those who brag about "working" with operators do so because they have nothing of their own life worth talking about. The difference between what you used to do and what Hover and I used to do is that we are the very definition of "Out of the Box"; the Air Force has always been good at ferrying Operators' luggage and bragging about "working with" them. Wow, I'm impressed. I'll bet Hover is equally as impressed as well. Hover, are you impressed?

Those who have done things in their life worthy of mention don't say much about it (if anything), because they don't feel the need - they have nothing to prove. Those who embellish their military career do so because their own particular job was on par with whale crap and use any association with those who have cool jobs to embellish their own.

"What did you do during the War Dad?" "Well Son, I was a flight attendant or a pilot on an AF transport/cargo plane that carried real soldiers/pallets of $hitpaper to battle" doesn't really leave much to the imagination. But, with a little change around like "I used to work with SpecOps personnel" the whole story changes.

Hover and I are in the group that don't need to say anything because our careers and military specialties speak for themselves. The entire conversation between Hover and myself is a Sailor's discussion between sailors who have done things AF types only dream about doing.

I think that Hover and I both have a pretty good understanding of what "doing things out of the box" and being unorthodox means, thank you.

Cyber


Hover

 

I'm glad at least a few got some stress relief from that post...

 

No because the HDX AFAIK, will not boot off eSATA.

But if you're talking about installing XP on the 2nd internal drive, then yes, it can be done. It's not as straight forward as simply installing XP onto the 2nd drive. If you do that, you'll corrupt Vista's bootloader on the primary drive since Vista is already installed on your system.

There are 2, perhaps 3 ways to do it but each is somewhat complicated but not impossible.

METHOD 1:
On page 100, you'll see a link to a method I came up with that employs the use of a USB flash drive that has a segregated bootloader. I have mine configured such that whenever I want to boot the OS that's on the 2nd drive, I just stick the USB flash drive in and reboot. The info on the flash drive tells the system to boot off the 2nd HDD.

METHOD 2:
The other way to do it is to install XP onto the 2nd HDD. Then manually repair Vista's bootloader. But you will need a Vista Disc (Retail or OEM, not the HP copies you burned) to do it. If you don't have one, then no dice. Go with method 1.

This method will give you a boot selection screen to decide what OS you wish to load - note, though, that it will do this every time you boot up. That's why I came up with the solution with the USB Flash drive. No selection screen and boots up other drive as soon as you turn on or restart PC.

In any event, on the disk is a repair utility. To access it, simply boot the system up with the disc in the DVD drive and make sure your BIOS is set to boot off DVD drive 1st.

1. At the splash screen, the option of "repair your computer will come up." Click that.

2. It'll search for your Vista installation. Select it from the list of results.

3. Then on next screen, choose "open command prompt."

4. Type the following lines hitting enter after each.

Bootrec.exe /fixMBR
Bootrec.exe /fixBoot

5. Close the command prompt box and reboot.

Now you will need to create a bootloader selection screen.You'll need to edit the boot.ini file. Here's how it's done:

1. open a command prompt with administrative privileges (right-click and choose "run as administrator")

*Note the following 2 answers from bcdedit for each item are acceptable:
"The Operation Completed Successfully"
"The Specified Entry Already Exists"

2. Now be certain to type each line carefully hitting enter after each one:

bcdedit –set {ntldr} device partition=C:
bcdedit –set {ntldr} path \ntldr
bcdedit –displayorder {ntldr} –addlast
bcdedit -set {ntldr} description "Microsoft Windows XP"


EDIT: Alternatively, you can use the following program to edit the boot loader: http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1

Good luck with either method you choose. And on page 100, there should be a link to the XP drivers for the HDX also.

Oh yeah, as for the third method... nevermind. I forget exactly how it's done. I think it has to do with installing XP first on a partition on the first HDD, then Vista on the other partition of the first HDD. You'll have to lose your current Vista installation.

You can also use VMware's player. It's free. You just need someone who has VMware to make a virtual appliance for you to install XP onto. You can boot XP up "virtually" from within Vista. And you won't need any drivers other than what comes with VMware tools.

 

Jeez, CV, that was pretty harsh.

My dad was Navy, my Uncle AF, my Grandpa Marines, and a bunch of cousins Army and CG. I wasn't sh*t, but I salute anyone, anywhere, wearing any uniform and serving our country. God bless you each and every one!

(And, btw, I'll bet soldiers appreciate the guys hauling sh*tpaper to battle quite a bit. LOL.

 

Yeah, it was a good, fun, read and the intro is something I can say I'm old enough to have witnessed.

 

CV,

Calm down man, take some Geritol or something. We all aim for the same turbans, ya know. We have the silent hunters, amphibs and air-support all covered...just need some ground-pounders now. Nice pic of the double-nickel BTW. Super Dave will appreciate it if he ever sees it, (and he knows who I'm talking about). Any pics of 69 boat or the 8 boat are likely to have me at the helm. There was once a neat video of 69 doing a fly-by of the USS Ashland, but the author( a shipmate too, dammit) pulled it because he copy-righted it. And wanted to charge me 6 bucks for the cd...what about my royalties bro????

Bokiyo- thanks for the air-cover
Cyber- thanks for keepin those missiles pointed in the right direction

Let's all have a beer and get over it. Cheers!

 

JELOUS

I cant find this memory anywhere.

can he get me some

 

Hi

Just wondering if anyone has an opinion as to which video driver upgrade is better for my 9494nr: 175.97 or the 179.28? Thanks in advance!

 

My best all around performance to date is with the 179.28 from Nvidia. I also have Physx enabled with no degradation in performance. What's more, 179.28 has the most options for making all sorts of advanced adjustments.

 

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT:

DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES ATTEMPT TO UPDATE THE HDX BIOS TO F.40.

A number of people have now bricked their HDX's. In one month, 5 people have posted on the web including this site that they have bricked their HDX after installing this BIOS update.

 

I did the update too, but what I had was random blue-screens. So I went back to F.39
I did the update before you all said that I shouldn't, so if I knew, I wouldn't have done it hehe.

 

Is it possible to get the HDX upgraded to the HP-Gobi 3G broadband feature? It seems misleading the HDX manual mentions this but offers scant information about it.

 

A friend of mine set me this article because I was complaing to him that I can't get my favorite programs to run smoothly on my Dragon. It says that most of the Nvidia cards are defective. I thought it was a problem going from XP to Vista, but I don't know now; could there be any truth to this? Here's the article: http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2008/08/i...00_and_9800_graphics_card_is_defective-2.html