<< Working on the networking problem. Please specify how you're connecting to the Internet, and separately, how are you dealing with a local network?
In other words, are you using Dial-Up Networking to connect to the Internet, and using a local Lan for talking to other computers? What other computers? >>
I have my home wired with Cat5 cable. Each room has an RJ-45 jack that leads to a central location. At the central location I have a cable modem which is connected to a D-Link 4port Router/switch with built in Firewall. From the Router I feed an HP 500 3port print server a wireless link, one of the rooms in the house and a D-link 8 port intelligent Switch. The switch then connects to the other computers in the family... 5 current PC's, 2 Mac's, and the new PC. The Router has one IP address (not static) assigned from my Cable ISP and then it assigns out random ip addresses to all of the computers connected to it. When I set up a new computer I tell the wizard to connect through a LAN and to auto detect the proxy server. Each of the computers in the house is named and given the same workgroup name. In the TCP/IP properties you disable DNS, use DHCP for Wins resolution, and assign the address of the Router as the gateway. All of the computers in the past have then immediately had access to the web and showed up in the network neighborhood.
<< I would take a look at your Internet Options tab in Control Panel. Click on "Connections". Make sure there is a default action for connecting to the Internet. (as in Always Dial My Default Connection, etc.)
Make sure you see Tcp/IP bound to both your Network card and your Dial Up Adapter. If all still looks correct (and yes, I know this is tedious), I'd go ahead and clear out your Networking section entirely...remove Client for Microsoft Networks, remove Dial Up Networking, and start over.
I don't know what the deal is with the screen saver. I have XP (although I'm on 98 now in a dual-boot) and I don't have any screen saver named "fish.scr". When I try to run them in 98, of course, there's problems because they're linked to certain files, etc. I'll have to try and find that screen saver when I boot into XP. I have a Geforce 2 right now. >>
The Fish.scr is part of the XP plus package....
<< Now, as for the Raid, you have the nomenclature incorrect. Here's a little primer on the different Raid levels: (from the Promise site)
RAID 0 (known as "striping") links each drive in the array as one huge drive. Storage capacity is determined by the smallest drive in the array. That capacity is then applied to format all other drives in the array. If using a 40 GB, 60 GB, and 45 GB drive in a RAID 0 array, your system will see one huge drive of 120 GB (40 GB x 3) versus 145 GB. RAID 0 offers double or more performance under sustained data transfers when one drive per ATA port is used. In such a configuration, unlike SCSI, ATA drives are always available to the system. SCSI requires more management of the SCSI bus. >>
Precisley..... I have two 40gig ibm gxp60 HD's that will be striped (raid 0). The total capacity of the drive after formatting is 78Gig's (I have done this earlier when I first started setting up this machine.... however, due to the memory and misplaced blue/white power supply wire I was getting tons of problems, so I removed the raid card and formatted one of the drives to do a clean install on. I have a 100Gig WD drive that I used to clone my original HD to before moving it into the new machine.) The WD drive will not be part of the final raid installation, but rather will be used for backup and storage chores.
<< RAID 5 uses a mathematical expression that compares data from two drives and calculates a third piece of data called "parity". Should one of the drives fail, parity data can be used to rebuild the failed data. Under RAID 5, parity data is stored across all drives in the array. This maximizes the amount of storage capacity available from all drives in the array while still providing data redundant. (end of snippet) >>
Yes, however raid 5 is not available with the FastTrack card you have to buy a more advanced card for that (I don't have the exact name in front of me, but it is something like SX-6000)..... something for the future
<< So, it depends on what you want. If you want the fastest performance but NO redundancy, you do a Raid 0. If you want some redundancy, you choose the Mirror option. Sounds like you're talking about Raid-1. I don't think you have to Ghost the current drive, however. I believe when you select the Raid option, the Promise card should take care of creating the mirrored drive for you. Don't quote me on that, though. >>
No I was doing the Raid 0, Striping.
Yes when you first boot the computer after installing the promise card... right after the computer POST's it offers you the option to set up the raid. At that time you may set up the raid manually or do an automatic setup (recommended) where you simply tell it you want a raid for Preformance (Striped), security (Mirrored), or with the TX100/4 card you also have the option of raid 0+1 sometimes mistakenly called Raid 10, which stripes the first two drives and then mirrors drives 3 and 4 to the striped drives 1 and 2. I have the Tx4 card, but for now am only hooking up the two drives in a striped array. If I was setting up a mirrored array I would create everything onto a single drive and then the promise card would automaticaly create the backup mirrored drive. However, with Striping (raid 0) the Raid must be created, fdisked, formatted and then partitioned. The WD drive will be connected to the motherboard IDE0 connector. The CD and CDRW are connected to the IDE1 connector on the MB.
<< If this is a Fast Track 66, here's the manaul online:
[F=Fasttrack 66 pdf manual]ftp://ftp.promise.com/Controllers/IDE/FastTrak66/Manual/FT66US.pdf[/F >>
It is not, it is the FastTrack 100 TX4 card.
<< I don't think it's a good idea to mix Fat32 with NTFS. XP will see your 98 files/partition fine, but 98 will NOT see XP at all if it's NTFS. Yes, there is a utility from a company that lets you read/write to NTFS from Win98, but that defeats the whole purpose of NTFS...security. I'd keep it all Fat32. Once your company switches/upgrades software, you can ditch Win98 and convert easily to NTFS. Additionally, I'd do all my partitioning BEFORE doing the raid setup. You want one hard drive setup exactly like you need it before doing the Raid in terms of partitioning. >>
That would work for Mirroring (raid 1), but not for raid 0 (striping). When you create a striped array you destroy all of the data on both drives during the initial setup phase. In the case of raid 0 you have to setup the raid before you partition. The main idea behind setting up a single partition for the computer to use as a SWAP file was I had heard (Tech TV I think) that this would 1) help protect data in the case of a Virus, 2) Increase the speed of the SWAP activity as it is confined to a small (1.5Gig) section of the HD, and finally 3) reduce the need to optimize your drive as windows will not be throwing trash all over the drive being used for your applications and system files.
<< Also, since you're using a Raid setup with 2 hard drives, creating a separate partition for a swap file will do you no good, since it will be on the same physical drive. The read/write head of a drive can only be in one place at a time, so a different partition won't help unless that partition is actually on a different drive. With Raid, by the way, you will only see ONE drive letter. >>
With raid 0 (striping) I think the SWAP partition would be distributed accross both drives, just like any other partition. Yes the raid would have a single drive letter until after the partitioning.
As far as Win98 seeing the XP partition, I do not know if it would need to........ The files I would be using under XP or 2K would not be needed under Win98. I would continue to store the My Documents folder on the Fat32 partition where they would be accessable to both OS's
<< Going out for the new year to some friend's place...so will pick this up tomorrow. Happy! >>
Enjoy yourself and watch out for the crazies! It has been very helpful having this dialogue.
Happy New Year............ may it bring Peace and Prosperity to all the people of the world and may all be granted the righteous desires of their hearts!
Steve