Question: Should I be concerned about the inability to restore my system to a previous restore point because there are absolutely NO restore points available except for one and do I need to repair my XP operating system? I have a Dell Dimension 8200 desktop, 80GB hard drive, 512 RAM, Pent. 4 - 2.26GHz processor and a PhilipsD28 DVD+RW/+R CD-RW combo drive. It came with the Premium Dell Movie Studio (which I now understand to include the Dazzle Mojave Device and the VideoWave 4) and Sonic MyDVD 3.5 installed. Here's my SAD story: I have used the VW4 to capture a VHS tape and burned a DVD using the Sonic MyDVD before with no problems. When I recently captured a VHS movie, about 2 hrs, 40min. long, using VW4, I was getting a message that I was running low on memory and did I want to continue? Like an idiot, I chose ok since it was nearly complete. Once finished, "My Computer" showed I had less than 2 GB of memory free. The next day I uninstalled a few programs not needed , used disk cleanup and defragged before editing my files in VW4, then produced the final AVI files to create my project in Sonic. When creating a custom style that I wanted in Sonic, the program would give me a box: "Runtime Error!", (the exe of Sonic MyDVD) and "abnormal program termination", then a box appeared saying " The instruction at 'Ox5f4012a1' referenced memory at '0x00000004' The memory could not be 'read'. Click OK to terminate the program." and the program shut down. I believe I eliminated some more memory intensive files and defragged again at that point, only to receive the same results but without the second message. Figuring that some of the program files had been corrupted I uninstalled and reinstalled the Sonic program, but it continued to terminate when creating custom styles. The next day I used System Restore to restore my computer to the most farthest point available, since I only had the prior two days to choose from, there was nothing prior to when the problems started. This didn't seem right. I called Dell and spent 3 hrs. going thru a system memory check - which passed, uninstall - reinstall Sonic with all startup programs disabled, downloaded an update for the Philips DVD drive and was then instructed to save any important files on my computer, then sent to take a survey and was cut off with the technician. Thinking the stupid Sonic 3.5 was my problem, I went out and bought the "Roxio Creative CD/DVD Creator 6." Installed it the next day and it would not recognize my Dazzle capture device. Called Dell once again, talked to 4 different people, none of them could tell if my Dazzle device came bundled with the Movie Studio when I bought it, because I wanted to know if it was on the list of incompatible devices on Roxio's website. In the process of going round and round, we discovered that I now had only one restore point which was that very morning. Again they left me to back up my files, to call back and be walked through a reinstallation of XP. Called back that evening, but this one just wants me to check with Roxio about the compatibility issue on Monday (It's Sat.). AUUUUUGH! "Great! Screw Roxio! I'm taking it back!" Took it back for a store credit - Thanks, Comp USA! Soooooo, I'm using my computer to download and view some pictures Sunday night and the monitor is flickering, blurring in and out of focus, and making a sizzling sound on occasion. Then the screen disappeared to the center making a snapping sound that made me jump. Shut everything down and went back a little later to turn everything back on, it was fine for about 20-30 min., then went blurry. It did the same thing today, clear about 30 min and now its blurry. The monitor may be totally unrelated to the main issue, (whether I need to reinstall Windows XP?"), but I thought I'd throw it in there just the same. I can see, now, that I blindly dove into this video capturing/authoring "hobby" before I knew what I was doing. Reading this forum has helped me more than all the Dell technicians ever could. Besides you Speak "American!" Please offer any experience you may have relating to my problems. Thanks for listening!
Well I can tell you that System restore Points Take up a Lot of Disk space so it is Not surpriseing that with 2gb of Drive space left that you only have a Couple of Restore Points..You can allocate more space to Restore Points in the Windows Settings...I can also see why you would be getting a Lot of Runtime and read errors when trying to do editing with only 2gb of Space free, When editing and encodeing your PC uses up a Lot of Disk Space just to store the Cache..So your Drive Might say that it has 2gb of Space free but that Space could be taken up By The Cache which would not show up as used disk space.... I can also tell you that RoXio Software has a Bad Habbit of Interfereing with the Drivers on your System..I recently had a Big Problem with "Roxio Easy CD/DVD Creamator 6" overwriteing the Drivers for my DVD Burner so it was not recognized my Windows in which I had to reinstall Windows XP to get it to work again, I Should have Known better because I have had simular problems with most all RoXio software and Have come to realize that Roxio makes some of the Buggiest software out there, I use More profecinal Editing and Captureing and DVD authoring Software like Premier of Vegas Video or anything Non-RoXio or Pinnacle...You Might also consider getting a extra Hard drive Just for Video capture because captureing to the Drive that your OS and Programs are installed on Can Cause problems with Dropped Frames while captureing.... Your Monitor Flickering and Clicking on and Off sounds Like a Video Card problem or Possible a Incompatibility with your Video Card and Chipset, If your Motherboard uses a Via Chipset and a Nvidia Video card there could be Compatibility problem as many Via Chipsets do not like Nvidia Video cards...Well I know I probably didn"t help much Cuz I am Not familiar with your Particular system and Capture Device but these are a few time that Might solve some problems down the road.....Cheers
Thanks for your insight, Minion. Researching took me to some great info on System Restore. http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;299904 This one may have been the answer to my problem with System restore. Somehow a new drive (G was created that is FAT, not NTFS, and has 31.2MB (29.9MB of which are free). Maybe the Roxio software put it there, because I don't remmember ever seeing it listed in My Computer before. Anyway. . . the link above informed me my missing points may be the result of "A drive that is not a system drive that has System Restore enabled on it has reached less than 50 MB of free disk space." I've disable System Restore on this drive and hopefully the points will stop being deleted. Reinstalling XP is my last recourse. Thanks for your support! Getting an extra Hard drive just for Video capture is definitely on my to do list. Any brands I should avoid? Also, Sonic support did respond to my inquiry with an excellent check list of things to do to prepare my system to work with MyDVD. Wish this kind of info was more evident before I got started. Oh well. The monitor problem seems to be isolated to the monitor itself. Replaced it with another and it works fine. Dell is going to send a repacement or at least that's what they said before I switched them. Waiting to hear back from them. Thank heavens for the extended warrenty. . . it's paying off!
Well For hard drive Brands it seems one is as good as the other But I hear that "Fujitsu" Hard drives are Quite bad but they aren"t usually sold as Brand name Drives...I picked up a 160gb Maxtor ATA/133 drive a couple Months ago for $80 US on E-Bay which is allmost half of the retail price...And if you are doing Video capture you should have the drive Formated to NTFS so you can capture files bigger than 4gb....Cheers
Yo smfox, I totally agreed that Dell's support is bad and to what I know their system restore CDs are not as easy as other brands of PC. Basically, you have to re-install WinXP with the given CD and drivers on another seperate CD given. Hmmm.. system restore function is not always giving ideal results but I would prefer to backup system within some image software like PowerQuest Image or Veritas Simple Backup which allows you to create your own restore disc. Yup, additional Harddisk is definitely recommended and Maxtor (abit noisy), Digital, Seagate are quite good but stay away from IBM and Fujitsu (recently call back quite abit of problematic HDD). Well, since you have a 80GB HDD, you might want to consider partitioning it into 2 drive instead and formating them in NTFS so that you will not have restriction of video file size. Anyway, NT base software is better to run on NTFS than FAT32. Lastly, I would always prefer to re-install the whole PC again to make sure that it is running in perfect condition and backup a restore CD myself for easy reload in future. Just have to patch the RPC worm after Installing WinXP before doing the windows update from Microsoft.
