Hello again everyone!
Great points by all especially; kjv1611's suggestion that I repost the quesiton: (And listening to Ed Fair's advice: "Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solution.") here goes:
So if I do it as I really would have liked to do (without losing everyone's interest) here it is in full (abbreviated albeit)----if you want details just point out the numbered paragraph and I'll go into greater detail and provide as much data (redacted) as I can for your help and assistance.
1. I began with a computer c. 2000 designed for my needs by a "gamer" who worked for a major computer company that built it with a Gigabyte MB (model # if you need that but we are far beyond that problem at this point). I was more "well off" then so the whole thing cost me circa $3,000 back then even with reusing parts and old drives wiped from my other computers (we're talking old here 486's and Pentium I's)
2. The computer was hard wired with the first of the RAID programs (RAID 0) and between that and Norton Ghost I copied and made sure everything was backed up! I had everything set to "automatic" (last time I'll ever do that!) by the "gamer" to make things simple i.e. 10% change in data in any one of my 15 Drives and/or Partitions caused the restriping if I remember correctly of that data. Otherwise, weekly backups were automatically set to go in the background.
3. That computer had the acquired programs (totalling 150 when the final disaster of 2006 described below, set in) mostly all upgraded to XP from their original Win 95 or Win 98 versions so it was all working just fine.
4. Occassionally, due to the nature of what I do, sometimes I"m forced to pull the plug and go offline (off the internet) despite having encryption and Norton Anti-Virus etc programs to guarantee safety of information I simply do not ever use the internet for any other reason (leaving Email to another computer (dumb terminal) at work back then. (trying to be short in describing this, but not successful).
5. On or about September 2005 I turned off the Internet and turned it back on February 2006.
Immediately Microsoft had some critical updates (I always set to notify not download or install without my checking) and I checked them out first, and approved them for installation. Along with it came a small program "Windows Genuine Advantage" to check if I had a genuine Windows product. No problem, go and check as I knew I had the genuine product, as I said in my first posting, as I always preferred having my own owned Microsoft product versus OEM for all of the problems I've always known of having a OEM causes in transferring to other drives in those days before the programs (like BBB mentioned in his reply) which are easily available to help us today.
6. Now this gets interesting. I had 3 XP OS's on one drive with all the programs, the other drives being set aside for data storage on USB daisy chained off the computer. One by one, the Microsoft W.G.A. product determined that they were "not genuine" and refused my product codes and eventually started to lock down the drives. Before this occurred, it took three days to complete this lockdown process (and recording over a long video during that time, this occurred in the background unbekown to myself) I found myself with locked drives. Due to the Automated RAID Process, the W.G.A. program had spread like a virus into all the data drives & their backups too leaving nothing untouched. Unlike a regular virus, Microsoft warned that WGA is "not removable" by any method.
7. I contacted Microsoft, and after two years (yes you read it right, two years) of communication with them in Redmond WA in their research division, they established that my motherboard (not just mine I assume but all those gamers who built from that Gigabyte version) were a motherboard that was not accounted for in the creation of the WGA. Therefore, due to my hardwired RAID tending to "reset" the Product keys to different ones --every--single--hour of use---(back then it was "ok" but not totally acceptable, but as soon as WGA was created that was the death knell for the computer as I had to be by the computer to "phone in" the new product key to reset WGA every hour to stop it, and the 3 hours video recording led to drive lockdown).
8. BY this time in 2006, I had not the resources I once had that created the expensive computer, so while I limped along for the next 5 years researching any way out of this predicament, Microsoft said they were willing to unlock the three locked drives, and helped me to create a new "parallel" installation of Windows XP Home Edition, with a new Product Key, provided that they researched and got the Hardwired RAID 0 system turned off. Thus I was left relying just upon Norton Ghost for copying & backing up my information after that. The new Parallel XP Home Edition OS Partition was "empty" and only those programs that I had without product keys or those I managed to get newly installed from new versions are on this smallest of the four operating systems. Important to note for what later occurred that for whatever reason: In no way (I tried, Microsoft tried) are the programs in the "locked" drive accessible by WIn XP from this new installation. They say that its because this was the original type of punishment of locking up of the drives that Microsoft later modified to have less problems, but too late for me as I was locked down by the earlier version that prohibits access
9. Their final and only solution was that they could not restore my system without moving it to a new motherboard i.e. computer. I could not afford that type of transfer until 2010 when I finally got what I needed. A Dell (name branded computer for the first time) Optiplex 320 3.6 Ghz computer with four bays and two ATA ports and two SATA ports available.
10. With this new Dell computer it was such a simple matter to slowly (when I could afford to do so), move my ATA drives to the new computer and copy them off into the SATA Drives, cleaning up the registery and other minor errors as I went through them.
11. .......I had purchased the Dell 2007 computer from a professional re-seller for Dell locally who in March of last year, successfully followed the data transfer methodology, (I would assume he did) and transferred the ATA Drive ( and my daisy chain of seperate data drives I had too) all to the new motherboard of the Optiplex 320 and left me with a working system (Remember now that clearly I had only one of the four XP OS was working when I gave him (the Dell re-seller) the drives to transfer and that is what he returned to me the one XP Home system with dozens of programs still working). Again to be very clear, the one XP that was working successuflly on the Dell 2007 was the fourth "parallel" XP OS that Microsoft helped me to install successfully on the one ATA Drive.
12. So I was using my new Dell Optiplex successfully, no real problems to report, (keeping backups via Norton Ghost again) for a few months before I started on the planned "upgrade" to SATA drvies as this was to be my "inbetween computer" to slowly raise all the my drives (I must have over 15 with all the backups from Norton Ghost and etc) But every single drive until I got the new SATA drive were and still are ATA Drives.
13. The new 2007 computer has both ATA and SATA drive ports and will support four drives with power supply clips and bays galore! Just what I needed.
14. Yet this was not to be true.....
15. (Longer story here which I give just to prove that the 2007 Computer is able to function with the SATA drive--- Meanwhile I got another small 300GB SATA drive (purchased also from Dell Direct) and installed a brand new clean XP Professional on it as I always wanted one with that, but since it was entirely empty of programs, its purpose was to have been used only for "new" programs that I've purchased but never installed or used over the years. I then took that 300 GB WD Raptor drive I used for the new Windows XP Professional and removed it from the internal bays of the computer and set itaside, so I knew that SATA Drives, by themselves, DO work on the computer ---again I purchased that new SATA Drive from DELL to insure it would operate).
16. Then I got the newer 600 GB Drive as I have always had at least two or more separate drives for Data and Programs and wanted to have one new drive for all my programs together rather than swapping out drives as my older (Gamer-designed) computer had hot swappable bays...
17. I guess you should/could ignore all this extra information above (paragraphs 15& 16), but I wrote it anyway in case you wondered "does SATA drives work on the 2007 Computer ?" and the answer is YES, I've done it and it worked.
18. Someone I asked early on in person, suggested that I use my old ATA Drive for the programs and just leave the 600 GB for all the data and elimiate the need for the daisy chained drives, or other copies.
19. Yes! One would normally assume that is possible!
20. One other thing........I always purchased my own operating system from Microsoft (remember the upgrades I mentioned in my earlier post), so the problems of the OEM changing motherboards does not apply and I've moved these programs and operating systems from one system to another over the years successfully until this ATA SATA problem, nothing really bad that I could not fix occurred.
21. I put a Brief summary here: I've only been talking about 2 problems so far:
1. The WGA original one with my Gamer Computer that caused me to seek out a new computer MB to get further help with that problem.
2. The ATA/SATA not seeing each other problem with the Dell 2007 Computer that caused me to have to copy over everything from ATA to SATA using some other method!
Now comes problem #3. I will now go over what occurred to create the copy of the ATA to SATA drive and the resulting Windows 98SE Splash screen with the "ok" button I cannot press to go on.
22. Dell (the company itself) was the source of the assistance in copying everything from the ATA Drive to my new SATA drive (especially since I purchased the new drive from them as I wanted to be 100% positive it was approved and certified to work in my older ( but new to me only had it 2 years now) 2007 Computer.
23. That was due to fact that in this particular model of Motherboard by Dell, neither myself, nor the re-seller, nor Dell, when it sold me the new SATA 600 drive for use in copying over the material from the ATA Drive to the SATA Drive realized....that you can't have ATA and SATA drives in the computer at the same time (yes you physically can, but not operating!).
24. The two drives refused to see each other, so copying was not possible!
25. Running programs from one or the other at the same time was impossible as well. The BIOS "reports" both drives and their sizes, but communication is not possible.
26. Dell and their technicians worked with me on the phone on the problem for months and finally after pulling the plugs in and out so often and attempting to use different BIOS settings on the motherboard, that we got BSOD for the one running XP operating system. So that stopped me from playing around on the phone with Dell technicans anymore.
27. As I had purchased the new drive (Second SATA in this story) from Dell itself, the new SATA WD Raptor 600 GB Drive I"m trying to copy to and use, the Dell Escalation Team made me a one time offer, to copy everything from my ATA Drive to their SATA Drive as Dell company did not realize until my case, that the Optiplex 320 User guide and all documentation does state that the motherboard supported four drives, and saying it has 2 ATA and 2 SATA ports, but never indicated that you can't have one or another of one or the other type running at the same time. (I mean you "can" but they can't "see" each other!).
28. And you know and I researched the cost of data transfer, so it was a win-win situation for both of us, and I just sent off the Drives (old ATA and new SATA to Dell and they copied it and sent it back) The settings for the motherboard (I trust they did it, I sent them Letter/Email with the package reminding them to do so and just didn't want to over emphasize what it was, but they said they would use the exact same model Optiplex 320, to do the transfer (using another computer for my ATA of course) something I did not have here to do this and so the new SATA would be configured properly to the same exact computer/motherboard that I had. Really convenient and easy.
29. But when I got it back and turned it on for the first time I got Windows 98. I installed the newly copied SATA Drive while I had a Dell technician on the phone as I wanted to be 100% certain that BIOS and everything else was set properly for it. He and me tried to figure out why I got the Windows 98 screen as the settings are all the same as they used (reset to factory standard anyway).....so since its Windows 98 they signed off on helping me.
30. Since its Windows 98, Microsoft will not help me either..
31. Leaving me with a drive with four operating systems on it and I can't tell which one or any of the four is doing this as the splash screen from Microsoft indicating there are four systems is missing as well after the copying was accomplished. I assume its something on the MBR, but I was assurred that everything was copied from one HDD to the other HDD.
32. Currently, today, I have a SATA drive 600 GB WD Raptor brand new with my old ATA drive ( filled up 250 older GB drive with many partitions to letter V), transferred to it (it has a BSOD error for another reason when the transfer was done to save the data).
33. Upon reinstalling back in the computer and turning on instead of my usual four system Microsoft menu (four XP systems on the drive so solution can't be to erase a partition and do a parallel installation by the way as I have fully four OS on the drive) I saw something from my long long ago past, the Windows 98 SE logo saying that there was "no keyboard and no mouse" attached.
34. I worked hard to get a workaround and finally got a USB keyboard attached (older wired style to USB) which managed to trick the program into proceeding to the next screen. It now says "click" ok to proceed. And guess what? There is no keyboard control, no mouse control because it may appear that the only thing to work on the computer is the old style PS/2 type of round connectors! The new computer with both ATA and SATA connections on the MB, has only USB (2.0), while my older computer had only PS/2 with ATA controller card. Windows 98SE does not recognize USB until it is loaded and I can't get to the loaded page without clicking "ok" and I can't get the arrow to move.
35. Note: that I even tried my old PS/2 keyboard and mouse with modern-day multi-adaptors (belkin and staples) to convert to USB and the drivers of these modern ones of course do not load until the program loads and Windows 98 does not have the basic requirements to operate anything until then!
36. And the purpose of all my efforts is of course is to get the Windows 98SE to operate for a few minutes, long enough for me to re-upgrade back to my XP Home Edition (no disrespect to my old 98, but I upgraded all my 98's to XP's long ago.)
37. Which brings me to why this is occurring....I'm at a total loss but again I'm trying to restore my four XP systems with over 150 programs (most of which can't be reloaded as they have propritory information/data storage or product keys that the websites have gone done in the years since, so reinstalling is impossible!)
38. One more curious bit of information you should know, and no one warned me back in the 1990s' or 1980s not to do this, I only have one "full" microsoft edition, Windows 3.0! Everything else (3.1, 3.1.1, WIn 95A, B, C, 98 and 98SE and of course XP Home Edition are all the upgrade versions, so this is complicating things. I did not install or make any partitions without assistance of others or Partition Commander 10 etc. so they all were functioning when this original problem occured. The question that no one at Dell (the maker of the current circa 2007 computer) is able to fathom why, is why it would drop back down to Windows 98SE?
39. Let me know if I left out anything. I checked out a number of items on this forum and found interesting items. Long ago, Microsoft alerted me to the "memory" problem of older OS's so while I had 4GB SDRAM fully loaded on the 2007 Optiplex 320 Dell computer, I reduced it to one of my older 1 GB chips while trying to fix the BSOD problem caused by inaccurate Dell manual information.
40. So now you know where I am (other than "up a creek without a paddle") I do have help that has been promised to me. From Dell, should I get it back to the XP operating system again, THEN they will assist me as I still am warrantied for the software under Dell, and Microsoft has the same promise to me as the owner of the XP Home Edition, that once it boots up to XP again, THEN they can still help me (but only till 2014 I hear now).
Thanks again for reading all of this.... Hope it helps!
HelpMePleaseTek
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P.S.: New responses : To specifially direct some replies to various very good, clear quesitons you have all raised:
The reason as you can see from the longer story above, why I seek to raise the ATA to SATA and create I hope (I did not mention it but I need the space to create dynamic disks so that I can go beyond Drive Z!) to help me restore the drive back with its 150 programs is that Microsoft has a case number (I keep checking to make sure its still active from so many years ago, as my excuse for not having a new computer is documented), that they would and still promised to provide the assistance in "unlocking" those three locked drives so I can once again access the 150 programs and their data "just as I left it" and not have to reenter or buy new programs to do the same thing.
What could be so important? Well take for example (I do make errors, but at the time they are not errors!), that I purchased an early version of Family Tree Maker. I entered 1600 names of family into it laborasily over many years at the time my computer (described above) was the biggest one of anyone else in family so it fell to me to do that daunting task. Unfortunately the WGA problem occurred and I did not buy the "in-between version" of the Family Tree Maker. So that the newer version needs the older version to be "activated" one more time so I can use it to rewrite and "export" properly the data before the newer program can read it. I do not have the in-between Family Tree Maker that could have read the data without exporting it in another format, and just by resaving it (or so the FTM phone help told me circa 2006) that was the only option I had since my version was so old. The only other option left for me is to physically retype into all the fields every single bit of information on 1600 relatives and dates of birth/death/ etc all again from my written notes (hoping that I did not make corrections that I did not write down first and get fact checked!) Just a personal note of the magnitude of the loss that the original WGA created. My profesional losses are even greater and occur with the other programs I mentioned in my addendum to the prior letter and include ABBYY Fine Reader, and , Adobe Page Maker, ABBYY Fine reader OCR, carbon copy cloner (used when Norton Ghost at one point could not handle the newer size HDD files! Quick Cad and Auto Cad programs that stored architectural drawings and plans in undecipherable formats, and various video Codexes (SONY, Hitachi, etc) for my video editors.
For another example, I've used ABBYY Fine Reader to scan and OCR many articles (c. 10,000 ) I've collected over the years to transform huge piles into the computer digitized format merely for space saving reasons. I never had time to bother labeling each file, so trusting the ABBYY to display either thumbnail or information from the file which would serve as my searching under broad topics I saved them i.e. "Architecture" or under "Architects" "Frank Lloyd Wright" etc etc you get the idea, Again, never realizing that despite my very good backup processes I would lose the ability to access them by losing the ABBYY program itself along with its code unlocking feature of how it compressed and saved the files! Thus, I cannot "point" to any particular files to save and spend time and money for those versus the others as without labels and without the programs "viewer" (If I remember it was called that its been a long time since I used it!), I cannot locate which files to save without the program.
Also, I have several other video and audio programs which use compression features that only they use, so once again I need the operating programs (even for just a few minutes or hours) once again to upgrade to higher level ones, even if I could afford to do so. Much easier for everything all around if only I got back the original XP OS the way it was and just limp along with those files and hopefully one day get funds to jump up to better, more open filing systems!
Reply to latest suggestion by Ed Fall about Adonis (vs my Norton Ghost version _____) I always read reviews first and to be clear, I appreciated your suggestion that Acronis True Image is to be looked at, but reading the review and all the comments that follow it leaves me in the dust as I'm a "user" not an IT person, (there is one in charge where I work, but only those computers with the "label" purchased by the company can be helped by the IT guy, after they clamped down on that rule, I got no help from him for my home computer, though he had done lots of this stuff for me which is why I sound like I really did a lot, it was his "instructions" that I followed!). Therefore I really leave those things for people who know these systems inside and out. When I told others of the amount of collected data I had to transfer (saying I only wanted the programs transferred was bad enough) they quoted me very high prices and long time spent doing unknown computer clean up work (more about that in another post if anyone wants to know). Please look at this series of reviews and comments and tell me what you think.
(especially first four comments by users)
If you still think Acronis True Image is better over Ghost I can always give that a whirl, but again I have no external SATA enclosure yet (and I know how difficult it is as I just took someone else's laptop in to have that done (at "Staples" no less) with it as it had no backup and I"m just not confident of myself doing it alone using the newer SATA systems and Windows 7 on that laptop yet to set up the system, and we can say that is ditto for my own, newer to me, 2007 Dell computer. I just don't yet feel confident enough to set up such a copying/disk imaging a whole drive externally by myself. I'm not even sure which direction the copying should be done in, as should it be from ATA external (I have IEEE ATA FIrewire enclosures or Mad Dog ATA slower USB ones, or should the new 600 GB be in the enclosure (I would need a new type of SATA one!) By the way, this reminds me that due to production line problems at Dell I could only get the 3G/s version which I had to Jumper down to 1.5G/s for my older-type 2007 MB, and don't know if that would work successfully across the external Drive should I set it up that way. Thus, as you can see, while I know the terms I'm really not confident enough doing these things (as mostly I do them once in my life, not every day), to ensure that I don't mess up the original ATA drive, which is whole reason why I entrusted DELL to do the copying and not myself. (Just so you know I can "experiment" I had Dell copy it over to an unused ATA Drive just in case, so there is an extra copy, but I'd rather not touch that one at all unless there was no other way to do this!---so I'm not testing or experimenting with that one to see if it too has a Windows 98 on the start up screen!) I just do the process once its been set up by "someone else" if you get the meaning. I still am waiting to get "back to work" on all these programs and catch up someday from these problems!
I also worry, that since I never tried that, the point of paragraphs # 18, 19 etc above shows that the MB does not see the two drives, so its unkown by me at this point if they would have read both types of drives (as the BIOS has to report seeing the drives on the external enclosure as well in order to do the copying successfully). And I would wonder, if that was simply all I had to do, why didn't Dell recommend I get an enclosure (they knew I had others and was familiar with using them), and do the copying with the SATA either in the computer or the enclosure connected via USB or Firewire? They had to resort to the expense and time consuming process of actually seting up two complete computers at their HQ to do the copying "peer to peer".
I used Partition Commander 10 for everything (earlier versions of course). If Partition Magic is better let me know, but I remember reading somewhere about using two different types of Partition programs that they use different methods, and it confuses the drive MBR?? if I switch back and forth (as I would be likely to do as I'm more familiar with the Partition Commander control screen, et al.)
Nice thought, to get a 100% ATA computer, but as I have limited resources now, and what does this all mean? That I cannot carry my older computer system files and programs up to a brand new SATA type computer someday down the road, that I'm permanently stuck in ATA style? Let me know my options should this be the unfortunate case!
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