Monday, February 3, 2003 - Mon, 3 Feb 2003

Called Executive Software at their toll-free number. I immediately got through and talked to the fellow I was corresponding with by e-mail. He said the latest build 422 of Diskeeper, not yet available on their website, might fix my problems. He e-mailed it to me and I installed it. Although not perfect, it was much much better. Windows 98 just isn’t as good a multi-tasker as Windows NT or XP. Whatever the case, that was excellent customer service from Executive Software!

Now, after a weekend of trouble-free running off my old hard drive, its time to see if I can properly set up my new drive. This time I am starting with the Bios settings correctly set to AUTO and the new drive properly configured as the Master and the old as the Slave. Second time through should be easier than the first.

Started up from my DOS disk. Then put in the Western Digital Data Lifeguard disk. Tried to run the install and the system froze showing colorful little squares over the screen. Called Western Digital’s 1-800 number. At 1:12 p.m. I was put in the waiting queue. This time they didn’t tell me how long I’d have to wait or how many were in the queue. I waited 40 minutes and nothing, had to go and hung up. I tried again at 4:40 p.m. This time I got through in 3 minutes! The support person said my Data Lifeguard Disk must have been bad. That’s simple. I downloaded the Disk creation program from their website, created a new disk, and I was off and running. Boot DOS. Insert Disk. Run Autoexec.bat. Install the Drive. Wait 90 minutes while the data from my old drive copies over to the new one. Remove the Floppy. Reboot. It works off the new drive! No errors at startup. Mouse available. Purrrrfect! Give it a few days, just to make sure.