Ask MetaFilter questions in the technology category

Help me fix a hard drive that fails at 86%

patrad — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 20:54:46 -0800

How can I recover anything off this hard drive that fails low level scans at 86%? I'm fixing a friend's computer. He has a SATA 160gb Maxtor drive. First, the XP registry went and would BSOD on boot and recovery. After chkdsk failed a couple times and I could not fix or restore the registry, I installed Win7 on a new SATA drive. Once installed, it started to recognize the other drive and I managed to copy a couple folders over.

Then Win7 stopped recognizing the drive. Rebooted, and the BIOS sees the drive but Win7 does not. I can boot into PE and run drive diagnostics.

SeaTools just stops at 86%.
MHDD scans fine until 86.3% at which point it shows about 49 UNC (Uncorrectable Errors) and 27 AMNF (address mark not found)

Clearly something is failing at that point on the platter. At this point I'm stuck. What tool is best to be able to copy the 86% of the drive over to the new one and start file recovery if possible?

Can you destroy a hundred million dollar fighter with a hand grenade?

zain — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 16:22:00 -0800

In a lot of movies, large fighter jets and other aerial battle vehicles are destroyed by using just a small explosive to their air vents. Are fighter jets in real life so vulnerable that even a hand grenade can bring them down?

Cell Phone Unlocking for Dummies

carterscott — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 12:18:24 -0800

Can Ask MeFi help me understand how cell phone unlocking works? I'm traveling to Europe and looking to use an old Motorola RAZR for making phone calls. I'm traveling to France for the month of January and have been trying to figure out the best option for using a cell phone in France. After research, research, and more research, I've found out about GSM cell phone unlocking which seems like the best fit for my needs.

I called AT&T (my wireless provider) and they happily provided me with the unlock code for my old Motorola RAZR phone. However, the process manage to confuse me. According to the customer service rep, when the phone is unlocked, it will be associated with my current wireless number (which is currently attached to my iPhone). This befuddles me... shouldn't I have a French exchange if I put a French SIM card in my phone?

Many thanks for any assistance provided!

Headset For WoW

Yasuo — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 00:10:19 -0800

Recommend me a headset for a friend who plays World of Warcraft. I dug up some old MeFi threads dated a few years back asking the same question, but I'd like recommendations to newer products please. I have no knowledge of how Ventrilo works on World of Warcraft, nonetheless what to look out for in terms of compatibility. My budget is $50, and preferably something I can buy at a local Best Buy, Target, or Wal-mart for some last minute Christmas shopping!

I want my UK TV

Hogshead — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 15:20:31 -0800

The Freeview box I've just given my mother cannot detect any digital channels. I'm in Bury St Edmunds. Can anyone save our Christmas viewing? It is possible, of course, that the Freeview box (TVonics MDR-240) is duff, but let's assume for the moment that it's working: diodes light up and screen menus appear, but the scan returns no results. Are there any other reasons why it might be unable to find anything? It is connected to a functioning TV aerial, but one that can't get Channel 5. Is Bury St Edmunds a digital no-go-zone? Google is unforthcoming.

Help me receive text messages from people on all cell networks.

needs more cowbell — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 13:39:50 -0800

After porting a number from Virgin Mobile to Page Plus, I don't receive text messages from people on the AT&T network. Page Plus is a small MVNO cell phone provider that "rents" space on the Verizon network. This is all in the US.

I ported my number to them from Virgin Mobile about two months ago. Everything seemed to have gone OK until I figured out that texts from people who have AT&T were not coming through. (I have tested this several times with several people. They get no indication that the text has not gone through, and I get no indication that a text has been sent.) Texts from Verizon and US Cellular are fine; I don't seem to know anyone on Sprint or T-Mobile, so I'm not sure about those. People on any network seem to *receive* my texts just fine.

Strange thing: after porting, I was still able to log in to my Virgin Mobile account online. And whaddya know, I could see a record of texts received from those AT&T numbers there. (Incidentally, Page Plus has no such online account management feature where you can see that someone with a particular cell number has sent you a text.)

I called Page Plus about my problem and mentioned what I'd noticed about seeing the record of the texts in my VM account online. They told me that I needed to speak to Virgin Mobile to have them fully close and delete the account, and that would solve the problem. I have since called Virgin Mobile several times. They swear to me that they have closed and deleted the account, and I can no longer log in to account management online, but the texts from people with AT&T still do not come through.

I've called Page Plus customer support again numerous times. They have "reset my account" and "reprogrammed my phone" a bunch of times, neither of which helped. Then they told me there was nothing else they could do because I use an unlocked CDMA phone/handset rather than a phone I purchased from them, and insisted that the issue must be my phone's software, which they cannot troubleshoot. That seems pretty ridiculous to me - it seems pretty apparent that it's a network issue.

ANYWAY - after pushing and threatening to contact the Better Business Bureau, I finally got tech support there to acknowledge that it might not be an issue with the phone/handset I use, and agree to troubleshoot what they can on their end, but without guarantees since "it could still be your phone." They're doing that now, but I suspect I still may need to make some suggestions for how they proceed in order to get this resolved. I'm supposed to call them back tonight.

SO - what could be causing this issue? Are there any concrete suggestions I can make to them (either Page Plus or Virgin Mobile's customer service) for how to resolve it? Do you think there is a snowball's chance in hell that this is an issue with my phone (Samsung SCH-i760)? If all else fails is there some intermediary inter-carrier text-directing entity I can speak to directly to try to get this fixed? I've googled and read and posted a bunch on HowardForums, and seen some people with similar issues, but that hasn't gotten me anywhere.

Sharing photomanagement tags and goodies in a network

lifeonholidae — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 08:27:01 -0800

I know this was previously discussed in two posts, but perhaps there are updates. I need photo management software that will allow me to view tags, updates and edits within an network. Scene: Network of about 11 computers, a shared hard drive with all of our photos. I use Picasa and love it. How do I use Picasa in all of these PCs and share the tags, face identification etc.?

I know little about networking. But I follow instructions well!

Can not, can not, can not be online (liability and privacy issues)

Blind Spot in my Excel Formula Abilities

itsonreserve — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 06:32:55 -0800

Excel Idiot Filter: Is there some simpler way to calculate the averages of the same cell along multiple worksheets? For example, say I'd like to take the total box on every previous worksheet and average it on a final worksheet. It's the same box on every single one, but I can't seem to get it to work. I've tried letting Excel write the formula for me, but after all that clicking it says the formula doesn't work. Can the worksheets be ranged? For example Say I have =AVERAGE('Sep 09 Wk 2'!H20,'Sep 09 Wk 3'!H20,'Sep 09 Wk 4'!H20). Can I write =AVERAGE('Sep 09 Wk 2':'Sep 09 Wk 4'!H20)? Also is there a limit on the number of things you can have in the formula, which could be causing Excel to not understand it, even when I try writing it using clicks?

OUtlook deleted message folder

dougiedd — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 22:21:27 -0800

My Outlook deleted file is 17,000 messages. It runs off of a windows server for our organization I understand that is not the best idea. But i find that i return to even deleted messages with great frequency. What would be the best way to archive those messages so i can easily search them while improving the performance of outlook?

iPhone battery charging questions

hokie409 — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 17:40:24 -0800

How does my iPhone battery charge? I'd like to understand how my iPhone and its battery work better. I have the 3G but it's jailbroken so I can see the battery percentage. I'm interested in some things I've noticed. I looked at some of the posts but I'm more interested in how it works than maximizing the battery life.

Queston- One does not appear to be able to simply plug in an iPhone with a dead battery. It must charge to around 5% before it'll turn on. Why is that?

Question- Can someone confirm that the iPhone charges less quickly when on vs. plugged in but off? For example, when you have a low battery and are leaving in 30 minutes does it make more sense to turn it off? Same question for leaving the iPhone on but turning off options like wifi, 3G, etc?
(Both of these questions are different from what I've noticed with laptop batteries for example. )

Question- Some phones have an option to not check email during certain hours. I don't believe there is that feature on the iPhone (exchange mail or gmail in my case). When I am not plugging in my phone overnight is there an option or app (jailbroken or not) that'll automatically stop checking mail or even turn off the phone to save battery and noise from like 1AM until 7 AM?

Thanks.

Connect Two!

davidmsc — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 16:50:05 -0800

Two computers at work: my desktop, and a DVR-capture computer in another workcenter. I can "ping" the DVR computer from my desktop using the ipconfig command with no problem. Accessing it from my browser, however, does not work. Tried both Firefox and MS IE. Using the same IP address (http://xxx.xxx.x.xxx) in both instances, but no luck connecting via browser. Our internet guy claims that there's no firewall issues. So what's the problem - why can't I connect to the DVR computer from my desktop? Much obliged for any assist, MeFites!

Knob Snob

nomad — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 12:40:59 -0800

I just bought these speakers to use with my TV and I need a creative way to control them via a standard IR remote control. Why is this even an issue? Because the speakers are designed to work with a computer so they don't have their own IR receiver. The volume is controlled with this adorably impractical little knob. I'd just use the volume controls on the TV, but it's too smart for its own good and disables the volume controls when speakers are plugged in. The two options I have come up with so far are:

1. Get some sort of amplifier/middleman device that can control the volume from the TV via IR and output the signal to the speakers.

2. Use my very limited electronics skills to design a device that turns the little knob based on IR input. (this sounds like a crapload of fun, but I don't really know where to start)

Does anyone have any ideas that will get me on the right track to implementing either of the above 2 ideas? Also, can anyone think of a simpler or more badass solution?

Letterboxing our TV

AzraelBrown — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 09:00:51 -0800

We've got no good reason to justify spending $500 (or even $100) to replace our 3:4 aspect ratio 32" CRT television. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that TV shows are being broadcast in 16:9 and the left and right edges are getting cut off. Is there any way to 'letterbox' our TV, somewhere between the cable box and the TV, so we can see the entire frame?

How to drive 12 interactives with one machine?

MrBobaFett — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 06:51:52 -0800

What do I use to drive a multi head (12 displays) interactive display wall? I want to use one machine to run 12 discrete slide shows. Each show is only 2 slides. Mac/PC? Software? The details. Looking to have 12 displays running. Currently looking at the ELO 1537L ACCUTOUCH with VGA in and USB out for the touch screen.

My boss is drawn to using a MacMini for it's very small form factor since it will be installed in the display wall as well. It looks like I can use an EVGA USB VGA Adapter to drive the video for the displays. This solution would probably also work if we switched to a Shuttle PC.

The big question I think is what software will let me run 12 discrete full screen interactive? The interactive is very simple, each display has a default image it displays constantly, until someone touches the touch screen, then it flips to a second slide with info on the graphic. After an amount of time flips back.

Is there something that will let me do that with one machine? I'm pretty sure PowerPoint would be fine if I used 12 different machines.

Verifying a Wurly Piano is in fact Where It's At

elektrotechnicus — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 00:58:13 -0800

I might be able to purchase a Wurlitzer Electric Piano (looks like a 200A, but with a speaker cabinet supporting it) today for ~$450. This strikes me as a really great deal, and therefore just a bit suspicious. I'm obviously going to try every key (for both sound and feel) and make sure the tremolo knobs are working. What else should I look out for? Are there any potential defects which might not be obvious at first glance? What degree of disrepair should I be willing to accept at this price? It seems like the biggest issue will be reeds, but based on a cursory googling they seem to be pretty easy to tune (I'm pretty handy with a soldering iron and file). Is this harder than it looks?

Bonus Question: Will I be able to remove the piano from the speaker cabinet, or were some of these made as one big inseparable console?

Win7, New(ish) HD: BSOD, NTLDR missing WTF!?!

DetonatedManiac — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 19:59:54 -0800

Have Win 7 and new hard drive installed ~1 month ago on 3 year old computer. Today, Blue Screen of Death, then NTLDR missing, got it into SafeMode... now what? Problem: My computer, with a main hard drive and Win 7 installed ~1 month ago, just had a Blue Screen of Death saying basically "BIOS problem, if this is the first time it happened please restart". I restarted. Got "NTLDR missing" twice with restarts. Turned rig totally off, waited 20 seconds, turned it back on, was able to get it into safe mode. Poked around a few minutes and decided I have no idea what I am doing. Turned it off, it hung trying to shut down for 20 minutes. Powered it off

Now I am here...(on another computer)

I'm reasonably computer savvy but I've never had any issues with computers for 3 years (see backstory). The win7 setup was done by Geek Squad (I'm lazy and more importantly I have no time). Interestingly, the rig itself is 3 years old but the reason for the new hard drive (and tangentially the upgrade to Win 7) is because the previous hard drive, when this was an XP machine, died spectacularly.

So wtf. Is this a hardware issue? is my PSU screwing up my Hard Drives? Did Geek Squad not setup Win 7 properly? Is this just bad luck?

Basically What should I do?

Back-story (excruciating detail feel free to skip):
I got a top of the line, self designed computer 3 years ago. I designed it correctly, had it built by some pros at a computer shop nearby, and never did anything stupid to it. It never had the slightest problem in 3 years. Never saw BSOD (on XP) or had to reformat, never even had a virus or spy ware problem or anything.

~4 months ago i got suspicious of PSU unit making noise. Had it looked at by Best Buy and researched online. Basically everyone says if it goes it goes, but it wont take anything with it and just replace it then. Fair enough (plus best buy tech said the PSU was upside down reducing airflow causing noise... fair enough flipped the PSU, seemed fine... then all this happened... post hoc ergo propter hoc (i know... that is a fallacy)?

~1 months ago, my Main Hard Drive, a Raptor Drive that is supposed to be overkill for personal use, died. Just Died. Took to Best Buy because I needed something quick and again, I have no time. They said the following:
- Main hard drive (raptor) was toast (good-bye tons of personal data),
- Secondary internal hard drive looked fine, but we backed it up to be safe.
- PSU was fine
- The reason of the failure was that I always left the computer on but never in sleep mode for 3 years (ok, I'm an idiot...I thought if you leave it on all the time it is good for it... oh you have to put it in sleeeeeeep... ohhhhhh)

As a result I:
- Got a new Hard Drive (the secondary hard drive was suspect since it was under the same stress as the main hard drive... also it is comparatively small given how huge and cheap Hard Drives are these days)
- Got Windows 7 (since i was getting a new Hard Drive and lost all my data anyway, made a good time to upgrade with a clean install)
- Had Geek Squad install it and tweak it etc (again, lazy and no time)

Today - Problem described above. I will note that I did notice that the new hard drive was seeming to spin up and then stop suddenly at various times, but I noticed no computer problems and chaulked it up to just a "different sound" than I was used to. Also, it seems that Win 7 has a problem keeping the computer in sleep for more than about 7 minutes. I have been meaning to mess around with that but, again, no time.

So here I am no... I am making time, I have all Christmas Break. What can I do to fix this right? Thanks in advance for any advise.

Wii worth it?

vronsky — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 17:51:36 -0800

The new Super Mario game has made me want a Wii. I've played some of the sports games with my nephews and the motion aspect gets old quick for me. So my question is, are there any games that are just button mashers that I might enjoy? Does it even make sense to get one if I really only want to play old school type games on it? (I thought Super Mario Galaxy was boring for example).

How to control 3G access on Sony Erisccon w705

metaBugs — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 16:42:13 -0800

Can we set my girlfriend's Sony Ericsson w705 to prompt before connecting to the internet over the phone connection? My girlfriend recently bought a Sony Ericsson w705 mobile phone. Using it to surf the internet over WiFi usually works fine, but occasionally it loses the WiFi signal and automatically connects over the phone network instead. In principle this is a nice design feature. However, the mobile network (Vodafone) charges her a flat fee for every day that she uses their data service. So even if she notices it within seconds, this automatic switch from WiFi to the phone network ends up costing my girlfriend money.

Is there a way to force the phone to ask for permission before switching from a bad WiFi signal to the phone network?

She doesn't want to opt out of Vodafone's data plan permanently. She just wants the phone to ask for permission before opening an expensive data connection.

Dragon voice recognition software: friend or foe?

mateuslee — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 08:53:21 -0800

Is it a good idea to buy Dragon voice-recognition software to help write articles? I'm writing my dissertation (along with a slew of other articles, emails, and so on) and, although I'm a decent typer (no idea how many wpm, but somewhere in the low-middle average I'd guess), I wonder if the Dragon software I saw yesterday at Staples would be a good choice or a big pain.

I have tons of fieldnotes which I could dictate rather than type, plus I'm back-logged on emails and fantasize about dictating responses with my feet raised on my desk, reclining back. Is this a totally naive fantasy?

Curious about your experience with the new Dragon software.
I'm running Windows7.

Thanks!

Why does my TV get clear video, but only static as sound?

jimdanger — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 21:24:35 -0800

Why does my TV get clear video, but only static as sound? My wife, despite knowing absolutely nothing about any kind of electronics, purchased a used TV from a garage sale. The TV was from a company I had never heard of, PRIMA, and looks to be in good condition. My basic setup is a standard coax cable from the wall to an adapter at the other end of the coax, the connector looks similar to that of an RCA connection...a thicker dongle basically, which goes into the back of the TV. I've tested it on two connections, one of which is for my normal TV, but both times I get a good picture with only static as sound.

The TV's menu options allow me to set the input type from UHF, VLF-H, VLF-L...do any of these matter? Also, the audio can be from M, BG, or I...not sure what any of these mean.

Someone please tell me I too know nothing about electronics, and the TV isn't a worthless piece of junk? If it matters, I'm in Singapore...thanks!

Last 5 years in Tech -- Basics Edition

hilaryjade — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 20:36:06 -0800

What are the major technological changes of the past 5 years, and the major trends that are on the horizon? I have a friend who is currently in prison, and who is very curious about things he sees on television. For example, he has asked about 3G networks, and why phones have keyboards. He wants a primer on what he's missing. Prior to his incarceration, he did not use a computer much -- a little online browsing, a purchase or two on eBay. He had a basic flip phone. His questions seem to be mainly stemming from what he sees on television or reads about in the paper, so he asked about:

Phones
Why do they have those little keyboards? Why do some have touch screens? Are the keyboards on the way out? What is a Blackberry?

Social Networking
What is Twitter? What is Facebook?

Other Devices
What is a Kindle?

I can put together answers for these, but I would like to figure out before I next visit some of the other questions he may have. If you were explaining the past 5 years in popular technology to someone who's only exposure is via media like television and newspapers, what would you include? I don't want to veer into Too GeekyLand, but I want to help him feel connected to the world he sees.

Thank you!

Best digitizing options for dual-language documents?

JoannaC — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 20:11:14 -0800

Options besides PDF for digitizing dual-language books? I have some teaching guides I use in my work which are quite bulky and I would like to digitize them. They are fairly simple-looking documents except that the text is mixed between English and French. (e.g. it has prompts in English telling you what to say in French to the kids when you are teaching, for example "say 'je suis ici' while pointing at yourself.")

I am using a Macbook, and the scanner I got was a basic model, a Canonscan 100 scanner on sale. I tried to scan a few pages, and it was a bit of a mess. I got an okay picture when I scanned it as an image, but all attempts at PCR extraction were dismal. When I set the scanner to OCR mode and the language was English, I got gibberish. When I set it to French, things improved a little and it got much of it, but the text still needed a lot of cleaning up.

I thought maybe it was just that the software which came with the scanner was not that great. So I downloaded a few utilities which claim to extract text from PDFs. They had great reviews. They totally choked on the French parts.

The PDF looks fine (I made a two-page sampler for testing purposes), but displays a bit too small for easy reading on my Sony Reader. I uploaded it as a PDF, LRF and epub in separate files onto my Reader for testing. The epub could not zoom at all (i.e. the page stayed looking the same no matter what). The LRF looked just like the PDF on lowest zoom but when I tried to zoom in, the text got garbled as it had when I tried to extract it from the PDF.

So, there are three possibilities here:

1) The scanner is not that great
2) The scanner is fine and I just need better software
3) Dual-language files are too hard and I am stuck with PDF

What do you think? Is there anything I can do here, or will I go to all this work just to wind up with itty bitty text in a PDF file? If so, it may not be worth scanning them all...

Good options for digitizing documents like these? The books weigh several pounds each, and there are 7 in the set, so it's a ton of weight to carry around with me...

NPR radio on blackberry

justlooking — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 12:37:51 -0800

What is the best option for listening to NPR on blackberry (Tour)? I have a blackberry tour which I have to use for work (office e-mail). I had a Samsung smartphone before this on which it was pretty easy to listen to NPR. I am struggling to find an option to do the same on the blackberry. There seems to a number of apps out there which will apparently allow you to listen to internet based radio on Blackberry. I would like to find out what works best for NPR.

Toronto electronics disposal?

LukeyBoy — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 06:40:08 -0800

Where can I dispose of broken tech and appliances in Toronto? I've got a bunch of old, dead computer parts, a busted laptop, a dead vacuum, and well the list goes on. I've been hoarding them since I can't just toss them in the garbage obviously. We're paying a disposal tax now on all electronics purchases and I thought that disposal centers went along with that but I can't seem to find them. Anyone know the best way to dispose of this stuff? Thanks.

Reading or converting microfilm

maud — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 17:10:28 -0800

What is the best way to read your own microfilm or have it converted (inexpensively) to a more accessible digital format? I recently discovered that the Mississippi Department of Archives and History maintains a microfilm collection of my great-great aunt's newspaper articles. Initially I requested copies but was told that the documents are too voluminous and in spotty condition, and that my only option is to purchase copies of the two rolls of microfilm.

I'm in the process of doing that now. Once I receive them, is there a place I can go (I live in New York City) to read through the materials and obtain print-outs of the articles I'm most interested in? Or is my only real option to pay for conversion to a digital format?

If conversion is the best option, does anyone know a reliable place that's not too expensive?