Exotica

[Beta]

Sorry to hear that Strudo. Does not sound good. I would hate to see you not continue in these games. Maybe we should wait to see if any of the tech types can offer any help. And btw - that would not be me.

Thanks for keeping us posted, even if it is not good news.

[Nugog]

Originally posted by Beta
Sorry to hear that Strudo. Does not sound good. I would hate to see you not continue in these games. Maybe we should wait to see if any of the tech types can offer any help. And btw - that would not be me.

Thanks for keeping us posted, even if it is not good news.

Yes - not good Strudo.

I too am happy to wait for a bit - would rather play with you in the game than with you not.

Good Luck!

Try asking Zoid for advice - he is quite a techie kind of guy.

[Nugog]

Let me know when you want the save......

[Wittlich]

I am no expert in computer science either...but to me it looks like your graphics card has taken a ****.

To find out for sure, go to this link:

http://www.srtest.com/referrer/srtest

Then sellect "Civilization IV: Warlords -PC" from the drop-down menu. If your graphics card is having a problem, this test should be an indicator.

Oh, and on a side note: "Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword - PC" is already listed in the test bank as a choice!

[Nugog]

Originally posted by Wittlich
I am no expert in computer science either...but to me it looks like your graphics card has taken a ****.

To find out for sure, go to this link:

http://www.srtest.com/referrer/srtest

Then sellect "Civilization IV: Warlords -PC" from the drop-down menu. If your graphics card is having a problem, this test should be an indicator.

Oh, and on a side note: "Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword - PC" is already listed in the test bank as a choice!

Nice!

[Zoid]

Strudo, it seems more like a Windows/HD problem than a graphics problem. Do you use Nvidia or ATI btw?

Did you format the system partition before re-installing? Old settings and viruses have a tendency to hide in the registry even if you slap on a new install on top of the old. Formatting solves this problem. And neither the power supply or the graphics card can cause the problems you describe with missing partitions and whatnot. Maybe you have a harddisk problem and this is causing both Windows and warlords to malfunction... If the MBR (Master Boot Record) is damaged somehow this could cause the trouble, since this contains the info on number of partitions and boot order. If you have access to another HD you could try to install that and use that as a system disk and your SATA disk as slave/storage.

You could also try to run the Partition Magic Boot Disc if you have it, this will tell you if there's any troble with the partitions.

If you want to check the integrity of the disc itself you can run chdsk from the command prompt. Start>Run>chkdsk c: /f This takes some time however, especially if it's a large disk or it has a lot of files on it.

[Strudo]

Thanks for the advice Zoid. I had been formating the installation partition each time, only quick format but that should be enough. I have got it running again now, but I'm not sure why???

Years ago a accidently deleted a partition that had some essential data on it (not porn ). After looking around the net I eventually bought a program called Active Partition Recovery, which saved me that time. I found the disk for it and tried to boot from that, but it wouldn't boot from any floppy. I removed the floppy drive and installed one from an old PC I have here and the disk booted fine and restored the partitions. I booted into Windows and everything is working fine now...

I suspected the power supply for the Warlords problem mostly because when I get this gfx card, the old power supply didn't have enough grunt and I'd get PC resets after a few minutes of playing. That's pretty much what I was getting, but not even a few minutes.

Your right that the partition problem wuldn't be gfx card related. I could see it being related to power supply if the drive wasn't getting the right power to spin up or continue spinning properly, but it's unlikely though. I thought maybe the original floppy drive could have been causing problems with the power supply, like a short or something, but I put that drive back in and it still running fine. I also wondered if the original release of XP didn't handle the SATA drives correctly and only detected the first partition.

I had have approval from the ministry of finance and warfare (the g/f ) to look at new PC. I was thinking of building a new one end of the year ish anyway. But her PC is only a P3 866MHz and she was always going to get my old one when I built a new one. I think she's getting tired of waiting for her PC to get stuff done. So I could be doing this all over again in a couple of days. And a new PC will probably be stuck with Vista, not an attractive option at this early stage. Anyone running games on Vista got any reports?

So in short everything is now running fine and nothing has changed??? Beta, you can fire the save over at will

EDIT: Oh also Zoid, after finding everything running fine now, I ran the window disk error checking on both partitions (main partition in offline mode on reboot). Is that the same thing as the command line you suggested?

EDIT2: Opps, Nugog, can you fire the save to me. I said Beta, but that's who I send the save to.

EDIT2: Opps2, I don't send the save to Beta, I send it to Fed, but that's not really important right now

[Nugog]

Originally posted by Strudo
EDIT2: Opps, Nugog, can you fire the save to me. I said Beta, but that's who I send the save to.

EDIT2: Opps2, I don't send the save to Beta, I send it to Fed, but that's not really important right now

You shall have it when I get home..........

[Zoid]

Originally posted by Strudo
Thanks for the advice Zoid. I had been formating the installation partition each time, only quick format but that should be enough. I have got it running again now, but I'm not sure why???

Me neither. Windows works in mysterious ways...

Your right that the partition problem wuldn't be gfx card related. I could see it being related to power supply if the drive wasn't getting the right power to spin up or continue spinning properly, but it's unlikely though. I thought maybe the original floppy drive could have been causing problems with the power supply, like a short or something, but I put that drive back in and it still running fine. I also wondered if the original release of XP didn't handle the SATA drives correctly and only detected the first partition.

That could be the case. Native SATA support wasn't added until SP1. But it shouldn't affect the partition table AFAIK. It sounds more like a BIOS problem (but this is also unlikely since you don't get a mobo with SATA connectors and a BIOS that doesn't handle it... )

I had have approval from the ministry of finance and warfare (the g/f ) to look at new PC. I was thinking of building a new one end of the year ish anyway. But her PC is only a P3 866MHz and she was always going to get my old one when I built a new one. I think she's getting tired of waiting for her PC to get stuff done. So I could be doing this all over again in a couple of days. And a new PC will probably be stuck with Vista, not an attractive option at this early stage. Anyone running games on Vista got any reports?

Good for you! And I'd stay the hell away from Vista until it's 100% finished. XP still has about 5 years of life in it (SP3 is in the offing ) and by that time the various Linux distributors hopefully have got their **** together and can emulate Windows games flawlessly

EDIT: Oh also Zoid, after finding everything running fine now, I ran the window disk error checking on both partitions (main partition in offline mode on reboot). Is that the same thing as the command line you suggested?

Yes, just different ways of executing the command. I assume it didn't find anything suspicious?

[Nugog]

Thanks Zoid!

You have the save Strudo.

[Strudo]

Everything was a o k with the scan Zoid thanks. My work is providing me with a new laptop with Vista probably this week since I'll have to start supporting it there as new PC's come in. Have to give it a run and see how it handles things. Not really looking forward to the venture, but I could be surprised.

To Fed

[fed1943]

37th turn over.
To Beta

[Beta]

Good to have you back Strudo!

Thanks fed. Sorry for the delay folks. Away for the weekend.

Save to Witt.

[Wittlich]

2520BC to Conquistador.

[Nugog]

Onto Strudo.