Stupid Camera Trick
December 22, 2006 | 1 Comment
I’m not sure what poltergeist lives in my computer but I am constantly having crazy problems. For example, tonight I rebooted for the heck of it, when I looked at the computer, it says “No boot device found.” The following is my internal dialogue:
Ok, is there a CD in? No. Huh. Ctrl-Alt-Delete.
“No boot device found.”
Son of a … Power off, power on. Great it’s booting into windows.
[Blue screen of death flashes by...]
“No boot device found.”
Now, I’ve played this game before. I get out the video camera, set it to record, point it at the monitor and try again.
[Blue screen of death flashes by...]
“No boot device found.”
[Spend 5 minutes trying to pause the tape at just the right frame]
There had to be a better way. I did the math.
The image stays on the camera about 2 frames. Ok, at 30fps, that’s 1/15th of a second. But then I have to time the opening just right.
[Lightbulb goes off in my head.]
I set the camera to manual, bulb, smallest aperture possible. Point it at the monitor, and when I know it’s about to BSOD, I hold the shutter open. Perfect! Well, except for the broken computer. Click the thumbnail and you’ll see that even at f/29, the message was up long enough to leave a ghost image that is easily readable.
On an unrelated note, the last time I had this problem it was bad memory (it took me a long time to figure that one out, and only after it ate the registry). This time seemed like a similar problem. Something ate the SECURITY registry and it couldn’t load the hive. It booted in safe mode so system restore worked, but every time something like this happens a little part of gets closer to running Mac OS X.
Like I was telling Vlad, I can’t think of a single thing short of filesystem corruption that could happen to a Unix box that would prevent me from being able to boot it. In Windows one magic file gets corrupted and I’m up the creek. I don’t know much about Vista, but I would be surprised if they’ve solved these sorts of fragility issues. And the memory tested fine this time.
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Do the hardware check AND Memtest. First start without any ISA/PCI devices and only one strip of memory. Boot up, if there isn’t a problem, replace strip of memory with the next, etc… still no problem… Add soundcard and put in all memory strips, then if problem isn’t there.. next ISA/PCI card.
Of course, never count on MoBo internal stuff like integrated sound/video/LAN/gameport, etc.
Then also get a PCI USB hub inside your system instead of using the MoBo ones. ;)
Anyways, if the problem occurs then it’s the device that you put in last that caused the problem.
Solutions: Firmware updates for your hardware OR install a *nix OS and dump Windows. Don’t bother with Mac too much, unless you’re planning on running it on an Intel proc, as that now runs Mac osX faster than on a Mac itself.
Comment by 3R — December 28, 2006 #