As a (former?) Mac user, it truly is amazing to me how hard some things are to do in Windows. For example, let’s say you have a 20 gig drive and you want to upgrade to a 120 gig drive - this is the exact situation I find myself at my parents place in NY right now.

On a Mac, this would be ultra easy. Remember that on a Mac, you can boot up from practically any device, and you can image any drive to any drive, and that you can tell the hardware which drive to boot off of.

So on a Mac, you would do this:
1. Buy and install new hard drive. Format.
2. Download Carbon Copy Cloner which is free/$5 donationware (or you could use the apps that are bundled with the Mac - CCC is just a 1 click wrapper around them.)
3. Run CCC to clone drive with about 4 clicks. (no need to install)
4. In control panels, tell the startup control panel to use the new drive.
5. Shutdown to remove old drive.
6. Reboot.

On my parents PC, this is what I’ve done so far:
1. Buy and install new hard drive. Format.

2. Download DriveImage XML (which a few folks at MS recommended because its free)

3. Install DriveImage XML

4. Run DriveImage XML and tell it to clone the C: to the D:. Go past some strange errors. This will take 5 hours.

5. Shutdown to remove old drive.

6. Reboot.

7. Oh… the PC says that there are no bootable volumes. [You might want to just hit page down now...]

8. Go through the drill of trying the permutations of jumper settings and cable positions. Makes no difference. Damn.

9. Wonders if it was so smart to clone a drive while booted from it. Reads up on BartPE.

10. Reinstall old hard drive.

11. Download Bart PE (which is fantastic tool for making self booting CDs)

12. Install Bart PE

13. Run Bart PE to create a bootable CD with Drive Image XML

14. Reboot using new CD and use Drive Image XML to clone drive. This time, it only takes 1 hour.

15. Remove old hard drive.

16. Reboot. Oh… the PC still says there are no bootable volumes.

17. Go read up on MBRs and get frustrated. Looks for a WinXP install CD to try and use the recovery console.

18. Oh wait… this is WinXP Pro and the CDs that came with this machine were restore only. (not that I could find them anyway.)

19. Find a WinXP Home CD and use that to launch the recovery console.

20. Try running fixboot.

21. Try running fixmbr.

22. Reboot and eject CD. Oh… the PC still says there are no bootable volumes.

23. Hm… maybe this mysterious MBR thing is still hosed. I know, I’ll start installing WinXP home up to the point that the hard drive can be booted and then reimage it with the old drive.

24. Start install WinXP home

25. When it reboots and boots from the hard drive, interrupt and repeat step 14.

26. Reboot. Oh the PC boots up from the new drive!!! Oh… wait… now it hangs at the welcome screen.

27. Connect the old drive and try rebooting.

28. The PC boots up all the way, though the old hard disk is getting quite the work out.

29. Hm… Drive Management says that the new drive is using the old drive as a Page file store

30. I know how to fix that- I’ll just tell Windows not to use a Page file.

31. Reboot… and now the PC hangs at the welcome screen no matter if the old drive is connected or not. ARGH.

32. Wait… how do I get the PC to boot from the old drive now to erase the new drive?? (panic!)

33. Oh I know, I’ll use the recovery console again. Put CD in the drive and reboot.

34. The PC reads the CD, and then decides that reading the hard drive is better. Boots into the hard drive where it hangs.

35. Remove new drive. PC boots fine into the old drive.

36. Now I’m screwed. I guess they’re stuck with their old drive.

I thought I was stupid, until I started searching around the internets for solutions to this problem - a lot of people run into this same problem where they clone/ghost a Windows drive, and it never boots up again!

Windows XP: XP refuses to boot after ghosting

I recently ghosted a machine and now it doesn’t want to boot.

Originally the OS was on a 3gb partition which quickly ran out of space. So I ghosted the partition, deleted the old partition, made a larger partition, and put the ghost back in. Now it won’t get past the screen that says “windows xp” in the middle, just before the login screen. I can move the mouse around all I want, and ctrl alt del does nothing. It does the same thing when I boot into safe mode. I used Ghost 8.0, so it’s not a compatability issue.

Why is microsoft torturing me? I’m stumped.

Hey that sounds like the problem I have! The answer? It requires a $9.99 monthly subscription to find out. Seriously.

Do you have the answer?

Tripso.com, The last honest travel site

When navigating around Hong Kong, you need to watch your step. Not only does the country not require ramps for accessibility, Buddhists consider them bad luck. They believe bad spirits cannot climb steps but they can come up a ramp, so every building will have some small step at the entrances (go ahead, check — I dare you to find one that doesn’t).

Oh I wondered about that. I nearly fell flat on my face on one tiring day when I tripped while entering a department store on Hong Kong island.

AjaxWhois.com - Ajax-based domain lookup and Whois for most TLDs

Oh neato… an ajax fashion WHOIS solution!

I’m heading to NY for about a week Thursday night.

I’ll probably end up doing repairs on my parents’ computers. Again. I guess my SLA includes an annual maintenance clause.

Is there a Fry’s or a Central Computing like store in New York? I suspect I’ll need hard drive mounting screws…

Ray Ozzie: V3

As in the past, it’s not my intent to be pitching our products here. We’ve got plenty of mechanisms - old school and new - that work well for that sort of thing. But to the extent that I’m excited about something, or I think there might be a different angle that you might be interested in, I’ll chime in.

Mostly, though, it’s my intent to use this as a channel through which to reply and converse with you in a manner that scales. Not on all topics; it’s clear that the nature of my role at this large, public company dictates that I should and will stay silent on certain matters. At times there will be controversies I just can’t or won’t engage in. Many years ago at Groove we developed an early blogging policy. Things may have evolved quite a bit since then, but this policy continues to give reasonable guidance that I’ll continue to apply to my own comments here.

Ray is blogging again. And apparently, he doesn’t like the Yankees.

Microsoft and CableLabs Announce Agreement to Enable High-Definition Digital Cable Programming on Windows-Based PCs: Future versions of Media Center PCs to receive digital cable programming without the need for a cable set-top box.

Microsoft Corp. and Cable Television Laboratories Inc. (CableLabs?) today announced they have reached an agreement that will allow Microsoft and PC manufacturers to bring to market digital-cable-ready Windows? Media Center-based PCs in the holiday 2006 time frame.
These Media Center PCs, capable of supporting a CableCARD™ module, will allow consumers to enjoy one-way cable programming, including premium high-definition cable content, on their personal computer and throughout the home on compliant network-connected devices, such as Xbox 360™, while protecting cable operators’ investments in high-value content in a digital environment. Microsoft is working closely with CableLabs to document final approval of Windows Media? Digital Rights Management (DRM) as a content protection technology for OpenCable™ products that receive one-way cable content under the terms of this agreement.

Holy cow. This is big big news. Finally! The ability to decode cable signals in something other than a underpowered set-top box!

My team and I have just shipped a new version of MSN Search Toolbar and Windows Desktop Search. By colleague Brandon Paddock has done such a good write up that I’m going to copy it outright!

New version of Windows Desktop Search!

Well, sort of
Tonight we’ve officially launched the Enterprise editions of Windows Desktop Search and the MSN Search Toolbar. Unlike the current consumer release, there are 2 seperate installs (one for WDS, one for MSN Toolbar). Unfortunately, the consumer version won’t be updated right away. But we’re working hard to deliver a new version for consumers that will upgrade the current “MSN Search Toolbar with WDS” package. That way everyone can enjoy the latest and greatest we have to offer

So what’s new in the Enterprise release of WDS?

1) First and foremost, this new version has been enabled for management via Group Policy and deployment via SMS.
2) A lot of work was done to make sure that WDS meets the needs of IT administrators at even the largest of companies.
3) WDS now features light-weight integration with Intranet search services (like SharePoint, or a Google appliance).
4) This version of WDS can replace the “Search Companion” functionality on Windows XP, and provides UI for advanced search queries.
5) Lots of bug fixes and improvements all around.

What’s new in the Enterprise release of the MSN Search Toolbar?

1) The Toolbar is now group-policy enabled just like WDS.
2) It also features light-weight Intranet search integration.
3) An enhanced Outlook bar provides optional integration of search results into the Outlook 2003 window if WDS is installed.
4) Numerous enhancements to tabbed browsing and other functionality.

Both the WDS and MSN Toolbar teams have worked very hard to bring out this release.

Hard work indeed! It’s been a wild ride since I joined back in May! Wheeeeee!

Jim Kunstler : True Blue

Now Hruska has been reincarnated in Senator Charles (”Chuck”) Grassley of Iowa, who said the following a few days ago:

“You know what? What makes our economy grow is energy. And Americans are used to going to the gas tank (sic), and when they put that hose in their, uh, tank, and when I do it, I wanna get gas out of it. And when I turn the light switch on, I want the lights to go on, and I don’t want somebody to tell me I gotta change my way of living to satisfy them. Because this is America, and this is something we’ve worked our way into, and the American people are entitled to it, and if we’re going improve (sic) our standard of living, you have to consume more energy.”

That certainly doesn’t sound like a very solutions-oriented way at looking at our global energy use issue. If anything, it sounds like a kid saying “gimme gimme gimme”. The part of this quote that gets me the most is this: Because this is America, and this is something we’ve worked our way into, and the American people are entitled to it

It sounds like there is recognition that we have a problem… but then the problem is simply ignored or wished away. Fortunately, this helps explain why this doesn’t make sense to me:

But the psychology of previous investment is a curious thing. It compounds itself insidiously, and now we not only suffer from our misinvestments in an infrastructure for daily life that has no future, but we also suffer from the political investment in continuing to pretend that everything is okay.

Ah, that would explain it indeed.

But then again this Senator has been in office for over 24 years. I guess this must make sense to someone.

Update 1: This book comes to mind - Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond.

Amazon.com
Jared Diamond’s Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed is the glass-half-empty follow-up to his Pulitzer Prize-winning Guns, Germs, and Steel. While Guns, Germs, and Steel explained the geographic and environmental reasons why some human populations have flourished, Collapse uses the same factors to examine why ancient societies, including the Anasazi of the American Southwest and the Viking colonies of Greenland, as well as modern ones such as Rwanda, have fallen apart. Not every collapse has an environmental origin, but an eco-meltdown is often the main catalyst, he argues, particularly when combined with society’s response to (or disregard for) the coming disaster. Still, right from the outset of Collapse, the author makes clear that this is not a mere environmentalist’s diatribe. He begins by setting the book’s main question in the small communities of present-day Montana as they face a decline in living standards and a depletion of natural resources. Once-vital mines now leak toxins into the soil, while prion diseases infect some deer and elk and older hydroelectric dams have become decrepit. On all these issues, and particularly with the hot-button topic of logging and wildfires, Diamond writes with equanimity.
Because he’s addressing such significant issues within a vast span of time, Diamond can occasionally speak too briefly and assume too much, and at times his shorthand remarks may cause careful readers to raise an eyebrow. But in general, Diamond provides fine and well-reasoned historical examples, making the case that many times, economic and environmental concerns are one and the same. With Collapse, Diamond hopes to jog our collective memory to keep us from falling for false analogies or forgetting prior experiences, and thereby save us from potential devastations to come. While it might seem a stretch to use medieval Greenland and the Maya to convince a skeptic about the seriousness of global warming, it’s exactly this type of cross-referencing that makes Collapse so compelling. –Jennifer Buckendorff

Are we choosing to fail or succeed?