Weird Windows XP Problem

[Almighty1]

ipdave, it was a bug in the version 2.31 of the HighPoint RAID drivers which were fixed in 2.32 and later. I have never gotten the System Restore to work on any computer. And it depends on which ABIT Motherboard you're talking about since the motherboard I have is atleast a year plus old. The problem is that system restore won't work after the drivers are loaded so it won't make or restore at all. I use FAT32 for a reason since there are times when I need to boot up with a dos floppy and until NTFS has something that I can boot up with and use my own tools instead of recovery console, it won't be much use for me. Also, I'm trying to figure out what the problem with snmp.exe is. I don't want the easy way out since it sounds easy to reformat but with the amount of time I took to get the system the way it is today, it's hard and also system restores even if it existed unless if it was from 3+ months ago won't help at all.

 

[ipdave]

Hmmm. For NTFS tools, I use ERD Commander to boot up entirely from CD to disable drivers or copy files or change any user passwords. Works when you can't boot into command prompt console mode. If you run \i386\winnt32 /cmdcons from 2k/xp, you can install the recovery console to the hd. Then you can pick it from a boot menu and do chkdsk, fixboot, fixmbr, etc. That seems to replace about 90% of any DOS-based utilities I used to use.

You can also boot from a DOS diskette, run NTFSDOS(Pro), which is a TSR system driver for reading/writing NTFS volumes via DOS. I have made a boot CD with ERD, FileCommander, NTFSDOSPro, and DOS (98) utilities like PM, DI, SM, SI, NAV, fdisk, format, etc. Now I can boot from my CD and do all mainenance on my NTFS volumes with no problem. Plus, if you run ftp servers or such, the NTFS gives you some security control over your files. FAT does not at all.

 

[ipdave]

As for the System recovery and m/b types, here is what my experience has been:

Abit KT7A, KT7A-RAID, KT7E, AT7 (with HPT374 RAID) - boards from 2 years ago till 2002 - all have worked with System Restore.

As long as your drive structure is intact, and you have enough room for the restore data (> 200mB), it works every time. In XP, it seems to work better than it did in 98SE/Me. Right now I am running XP for my WinOS, and NTFS. The RAID for both the 372 and 374 controllers works with the restore as well.

What M/B are you using exactly?

SNMP.exe is only for providing response data to a system querying yours, so you may need to block 161, 162 ports with your firewall or cable router. This has been a common exploit in the past 6 months or so. My snmp is running currently at about 0% usage on XP with all the hotfixes (esp the snmp fix). You can simply go to the Add/Remove and uninstall the snmp service if you don't need it. Don't just delete it, though...

This update resolves the "Unchecked Buffer in SNMP Service Could Enable Arbitrary Code to be Run" security vulnerability in Windows XP, and is discussed in Microsoft Security Bulletin MS02-006. Download now to prevent a malicious user from running code of his or her choice or launching a denial of service (DoS) attack on your computer.

The vulnerability exists because a component of the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) agent service that interprets incoming commands contains an unchecked buffer (a temporary data storage area that has a limited capacity). By sending a specially malformed request, it is possible to carry out a buffer overrun attack against an affected system.

 

[Almighty1]

I have command console on the HD already. Yeah, I heard about NTFSDOS Pro but the problem is no one has the registered 4.03 version so I can't create the bootdisk. I run all my servers on a dedicated Unix machine since Windows is pretty insecure as it is

I'm using the ABIT BE6II v2.0 which uses the 370 HPT and Intel 440BX chipset. I haven't tried the WinXP System Restore but I know the WinME system restore never restored and always failed in the restore process. In WinXP, HPT Drivers 2.31 broke the System Restore function unless you deleted the hptpro.sys file. HPT 2.32, 2.33 and versions before 2.32 didn't have the problem.
From HighPoint's website, in drivers 2.32 h**p://www.highpoint-tech.com/driver_v232_370_372.zip - the readme.txt mentions the following so you probably never used version 2.32 drivers.

3. Revision History
====================

v2.32 07/01/2002
* Fix 48bit LBA formatting issue
* Fix hptpro.sys problem on Windows XP system restore and sparse files
* use PMM to allocate BIOS memory
* Disable BIOS EBDA reallocation by default

v2.31 01/09/2002
* Performance improved
* Fix BIOS compatibility issue with Adaptec SCSI
* Fix Seagate Barracuda III and IV mode to ATA100
* Show capacity by 1G=1,000,000,000 Bytes
* Fix BIOS bug "drive capacity incorrect after deleting a broken array"

v2.3 12/20/2001
* Add support for stripe size 128K-2M
* Support multi controller
* Modify driver for HPT370/370A compatibility
* Fix reading ATA/133 disk error when PCI clock is lower than 33MHz
* Fix compatibility problem with Intel IAA driver under Windows ME
* Fix BIOS compatibility issue with MSI845 mainboard

v2.2 12/08/2001

* Performance improved
* Fix GUI re-open bug when rebuilding an array

v2.1 11/15/2001

* Add 48bit LBA (Big Drive) support
* Fix BIOS display problem on S3 display adapter
* Fix BIOS BBS support
* Fix Windows ME hibernating problem


I actually already have the fix you mentioned
for snmp and the problem is still there. It's not someone probing the machine since even if I block the ports, the same thing still happens... the HDD would have high activity after my account is logged on and being idle for 10 hours or so and then unless i kill and restart snmp.exe, I will run out of system resources in WinXP and have to restart. That's why I'm thinking it might be because snmp logs to another file somewhere that the file is getting too large.

 

[Almighty1]

ipdave,

Do you have a link on where I can get the snmp fix again so I can reinstall it and see if it makes a difference?

 

[ipdave]

SNMP fix for XP:

h#p://www.download.windowsupdate.com/msdownload/update/v3/static/RTF/en/5267.htm

NTFSDOSPro Attached...

 

[Almighty1]

Thanks ipdave for the link and for NTFSDOSPro. What exactly do I do with the NTFSDOSPro files to get it working? I think my motherboard came out before yours as I had it for almost 2 years already. The KT7 series is actually a few months newer than my motherboard. My chipset is atleast 4 years old and it's the best chipset Intel ever made.

 

[ipdave]

To use NTFSDOS, make a boot floppy and then run it from the DOS prompt. What I did was make a boot floppy with CDROM drivers and a DOS 6 / 98 style config.sys menu. I used this floppy in Nero to create a bootable CD with all my utilities like PartMagic and DriveImg (incl NTFSDOS). Now I boot from CD and run NTFSDOS from a menu option along with all the other utils.

 

[ipdave]

My Abit Boards are all AMD (Athlon) with the VIA chipsets - North and Southbridge - with the HighPoint RAID chipsets. Have not worked with the Pentium boards, even though they should use the same HPT RAID chipsets.

The KT7A-RAID boards have been rock-solid! The new AT7 (IT7 for Intel) board with DDR 333 and ATAPI133 support really rocks. Have only had it for about 3 weeks, but my Pioneer DVR104 and Artec 32x12x48 burners work on the same channel now. Plus has built in Firewire, USB 2.0 and 1.1, Dolby 5.1, 10/100NIC, etc.

 

[Almighty1]

To use NTFSDOS, make a boot floppy and then run it from the DOS prompt. What I did was make a boot floppy with CDROM drivers and a DOS 6 / 98 style config.sys menu. I used this floppy in Nero to create a bootable CD with all my utilities like PartMagic and DriveImg (incl NTFSDOS). Now I boot from CD and run NTFSDOS from a menu option along with all the other utils.

So basically, for NTFSDOS, do you actually load the .SYS file in config.sys or do you run the executable?

 

[Almighty1]

My Abit Boards are all AMD (Athlon) with the VIA chipsets - North and Southbridge - with the HighPoint RAID chipsets. Have not worked with the Pentium boards, even though they should use the same HPT RAID chipsets.

The KT7A-RAID boards have been rock-solid! The new AT7 (IT7 for Intel) board with DDR 333 and ATAPI133 support really rocks. Have only had it for about 3 weeks, but my Pioneer DVR104 and Artec 32x12x48 burners work on the same channel now. Plus has built in Firewire, USB 2.0 and 1.1, Dolby 5.1, 10/100NIC, etc.

Yeah, you have the same board my friend bought the same time I got my board... My friend has the KT7 which doesn't have the RAID. The Raid is the same. The HPT366 though in the older ABIT boards though were really buggy. I have a KR7A-RAID still in the box, I'm wondering if I should use it or sell it and get a KX7A-RAID instead? Any suggestions? I pretty much have everything you mentioned anyways except for the USB 2.0