It’s Impossible To Format!
I have a 2TB external hard drive, now
it's having a problem. When I try to format it, it keeps saying unable to
complete format. I opened the cover and turned it into an internal hard disk
drive. It still can't be formatted.
External hard drive
Either the drive hardware is faulty or the low-level
format is corrupted. You can sometimes fix problems with the latter by deleting
the partition and recreating it, or by formatting for a different filing system
(say FAT32, instead of NTFS) and then reformatting it back to the filing system
you actually want. But even if this works, I'd take it as a strike against the
reliability of the drive, so be prepared for this drive to fail. Note that you
should always be prepared for your drive to fail, just as you should always be
prepared for the outbreak of the zombie apocalypse, so this shouldn't change
anything. Just back up regularly, stockpile tinned food and bottled water, and
remember to floss.
Booting From Backup
Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit OEM
Dell DVD
I have attempted this scenario on a
desktop and laptop, without success. I have loaded Windows on an external hard
drive, as a backup. This should then load once the BIOS boot sequence is
changed accordingly. The system appears to not allow this. I have attempted
this from the full version of Windows XP Pro and the OEM version of Windows 7
however both attempts have failed.
That's because Windows does not support
booting from removable drives. Not being supported isn't exactly the same as
impossible, but in this case, it's accurate to within two decimal places. There
are some hacks and third-party drivers that can trick Windows into thinking
that an external drive is not removable, but they all involve some pretty
low-level rolling up of your sleeves. Since this sort of tinkering generally
reduces the stability of the operating system and the purpose of backing up is
to improve your total uptime,
I don't recommend it. The BIOS option to
boot from a USB disk is there in case you want to install Linux, which does
support it. This doesn't really change the viability of your backup strategy.
In fact, it's the one I recommend. Continue to make a complete bootable image
of your internal hard disk on the backup drive. If you only lose a few files or
folders and Windows still boots, you can access the external drive as normal to
restore them. If your internal disk dies completely, you'll need to crack open
the case and take the external hard disk out of its housing so that you can
swap it for the faulty internal disk. It's a bit more work than just plugging in
a USB flash drive, but only a bit. It’s like changing a tyre, as I am always
telling people that I meet on the hard shoulder.
Dead Island Is Dead
Windows XP SP3 Professional March
Final/ENG
I have been trying to load Dead
Island for a while now but every time I install the game, an error message pops
up while installing DirectX9. "The software you are installing has not
passed Windows logo testing to verify its compatibility with Windows XP. The
software will not be installed." There is only an option to say 'OK' and
when I click 'OK', another message says "an internal error occurred.
Please refer to DXError.log". Running Windows XP SP3, I have many other
new games that haven't given me this error.
That error comes from the digital signing
system that is supposed to prevent you from installing important Windows files
that are corrupted or have been tampered with. The developer signs the files
with a cryptographic hash and Windows checks this hash during the install to
verify that the file hasn't changed.
Unfortunately the signing process changed
for Vista and Win7 so that the XP installer doesn't always recognise the hash.
If you get the version of the dialog that has an "ignore and install
anyway” option you can just select that. But because this is DirectX, you
don't. Instead, you'll have to right-click My Computer and select Properties
> Hardware > Drivers > Driver Signing. Select 'Ignore - install the
software anyway’ and ‘Don't ask for my approval'. Tick the 'Make this the
default' box and reinstall Dead Island.
Be careful though as this is the equivalent
of removing the battery from your smoke alarm. Something that's worth bearing
in mind the next time you install some random piece of downloaded shareware
willy nilly.
