Tell Me: Griffo Info

Review of Acronis Migrate Easy

Link: Acronis

OK, we have been battling for several months now with a 4 year old PC (Windows XP) that my Wife uses. The 60GIG hard drive was close to capacity. It was so close that we could not even perform a Defrag!

I had attached 250GIG pocket USB drive and had directed most internet downloads to go to the external USB drive.

She is heavily involved in her love of movies and so does voluntary work for FilmSpotting and their podcast productions. (plus her Blog stuff at MagneticNorth )
This involves downloading large video and sound clips of films. Hence the large accumulation of data on her hard drive.

I knew that the hard drive would need replacing. I dreaded managing getting all her programs and MS-Win-XP onto a new bigger hard drive. Then the crunch came when downloads and FireFox and many other programs began to complain about the HD free space.

Then I learned about Acronis Migrate Easy. I read on-line what was promised. I read several user comments. I believed none of them because of my long term relationship with MS-Windows and programming. But Hey! It is only a PC where I am not doing real development work. Something needs to be done, and it needs doing now. So why not take a small chance and try it out.

The Process:

Downloaded the 15 day trial software, installed it (only just, given the space limitations on the existing HD). Went out and bought a new 500Gig WD hard drive and set it to “Slave”, Installed it, and then ran the Acronis program. I opted for the ‘Automatic’ process (I think the second on the menu) and reboot, watch, walk-away, come back in 50 minutes, and it reported success and was done.

Then I removed the origingal HD, re-configured the new 500Gig HD as IDE Primary (using the jumper block on the back of the HD unit).

Feeling 100% confident, I put all the panels back on the PC case, plugged all the cables back in, and turned it on.

VOILA! All worked perfectly and now we have a PC with enough spare space for several more years! I had been ready with the original Win XP Install CD and activation key, but neither were needed.

Summary:

If you need or want to substitute a newer larger HD to a PC, then go with Acronis. I give it 10/10 for meeting expectations.

John

OK! So you spend all day developing. tweaking a software solution for a customer. Then you find out the actual Windows environment that they are running under… This happened to me recently..

Client wanted/needed a change… In fact, they were having problems with .TPS file on a normally reliable network. They are based about 3000 miles away!

Read more…

The subject error message shows up sometimes when working with Clarion and SQL based data.

When working on a recent conversion project I received the message when testing. I had moved a database from .TPS files to a MS-SQL Server database.

I had seen this message many time before, when getting started with SQL and dealing with DateTime data fields. So, I knew exactly where to look this time. Looking through the table in question, I noticed that I had no DateTime fields in the table. So something else was causing the warning “Record Was Changed By Another Station”. But, as there were no other “Stations” active, I was now in search of the source of the message.

First thing I checked was the order of the fields in my Dictionary, and the order of the fields in the database. This should not cause the error, but who knows… This all checked out OK.

Next I checked the data types were aligned and this too was all OK.

That is when I noticed that I had a STRING field in my dictionary as STRING(12) and in the database it was declared as CHAR(16). Yep, I had deliberately made it wider when I designed the new table but I had forgotten to adjust my Dictionary. Once I adjusted my dictionary to match the database, and re-compiled. all worked as it should.

But why would it report the “Record Changed By Another Station” warning, and not some more relevant message? Probably because the Clarion SQL file driver was doing its job correctly, and comparing my initially saved file buffer (with the 12 bytes I hade in my string in my dictionary). Then, just as I go to save my changed to the database, the SQL File Driver re-reads the data from the database, this time not using my data declarations, but the data as defined in the SQL table. It then does a byte-by-byte compare with the saved buffer. They do no match, so the warning message is displayed.

Bottom line: Make sure your Clarion dictionary declarations match the database fields.

John.

Yesterday I received a support call to say that my program was not working. Great, I thought… that tells me a lot!

Finally the user told me which screen he was on and what the message was displayed. It was “Cannot Connect to Database”. This is a program with a MS-SQL 2000 database. Other programs connecting to different databases were working fine, so the Server was running and they could connect OK.

I managed to get hold of the on-site office manager by phone. I managed to get him to re-locate to the server room, and start the Enterprise Manager. He had no SQL skills and had never used any SQL tools before yesterday. After coaching him for what seemed like an eternity, I was able to have him work in the left-hand pane, and navigate the tree structure there in a half useful manner.

At first attempt, we found a SQL Server Group, and under that there were two SQL Server instances running. He reported the first had no databases, and apart from the master model temp etc.. the second had a few that he half recognised. Things were not looking good, I thought.

It looked like I would need to drop by in person.

I got some stuff ready and phoned him again before I dropped by. I had him go back to the server and get me a few more details. In the meantime, I think he had practiced navigating a windows directory tree.. Now he was able to find all my other databases showing under the 1st listed server. Why he could not see these an hour earlier was a mystery.

Now the problem was evident.. The database in question was flagged “Suspect” within MS-SQL Enterprise Manager. So I did a few on-line searches and found several suggested “fixes”. The one that I had on-site manager try was the one involving sp_resetstatus dbnamehere

That did not work!

Then I read that a critical step was to review the SQL log to see what reason shows up there for the “Suspect” database.

On-site this morning, and I hunted down the appropriate log and quickly found the problem.

The data .MDF file was not where MS-SQL expected to find it. Some moron had moved it!

The Fix:

I got permission to STOP the SQL Server, moved the file to the correct folder, and re-started the SQL Server.

Voila… All working again

John Griffiths

I have posted several hints for working with MS-SQL2005 and get many requests for more.

If you are working with SQL-2005 Express or Standard, and have a hint you would like published, then please let me know and I will add it to the site.

The site I post to is www.sqlkey.com/

John Griffiths

I have seen references to RSS feeds on several sites I visit but had never grasped the concept.

I had even read all about them on Wikipedia, and had been no better informed of the functionality as it relates to me and what I do!

Tonight, my Wife, an non-programmer and who often calls for my help in matters “computer”, started a blog and suggested I add her “RSS” feed from her blog to my Firefox browser.

My response was, OK, I know that there is such a thing as RSS Feeds, as I am constantly offered to avail myself of them, but, hey, I have got by for over 60 years without one!

So, next step, with her standing at my desk, was to go to her new blog site, navigate as per her instructions, and voila, now I have an RSS Feed from her site to by browser.

What has happened here, is a practical demonstration of “how” something works, that I had never been able to grab from reading descriptions. Maybe I had never grabbed the concept as it was something I was locking out! Perhaps so!

But now I do have a live RSS feed from “Magnetic North”

Live and Learn.

John

I have an old Sager notebook and the CMOS battery has been dead for about 12 months. The unit had been sitting idle for some time. I decided yesterday to mess with it again.

I had tried a few weeks ago to dismantle it looking for the CMOS battery, but could not find it. So yesterday I called the Sager technical help line and got some great help on how to find and get to the battery.

I released the keyboard, removed a heat-sink, replaced the battery and re-assembled the unit.

Booted it up, ran the BIOS Config process to set the date etc.. and it booted just fine.

Problem was, that it would not produce any sound output, which is one reason for me messing with it again.

So, figuring the loss of BIOS was the cause, I rebooted and reset a few BIOS settings that might have had an impact on the no-sound situation.

But, still no sound. Next step was to emove all the sound drivers, download new drivers, and re-install said drivers. But still now sound. I could record and save a small .wav file using the inbuilt speaker which I could play on another system OK. On the laptop it would show the wave-form as it played, but no sound. I tried using the in-built speakers and a plug in headset, all with no success.

I could set volume levels OK with the sound controls. I looked around the case for any mute-switch, but found none.

After about 4 hours I was ready to give up. I thought that perhaps there was some trash in the earphones jack so grabbed a flashlight and shone it into the hole. That was when I noticed the small and well hidden volume control, just near the jack! Rolled it around and had great sound.

Oh well.

John Griffiths

There are about a million [ OK, slight exaggeration ] settings that must be just right for your Clarion For Windows compiled program to successfully connect to a running MS-SQL 2005 database.

I have posted some things to check that should help you get configured and connected at…

SQL_CW_Setup

As I get more time, I will add to the page. Getting all the settings and configurations correct can be a task.

Enjoy.