Terry's Computer Tips - Newsletter
September 24, 2006

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Volume 2, Number 15 — Sunday, September 24, 2006

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

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5.  Second Hard Drive failure with Windows XP Pro SP2

I hope it's just coincidence, but I have just suffered my second hard drive failure with Window XP SP2 — in two months. Fortunately, I can avoid the cost of a hard drive recovery service, since I back up my data nightly across my network to my Linux box.

Both failures were internal hard drives. Both hard drives were installed in their respective computers.

The drives have been running XP Pro for at least 2.5 years, and Service Pack 2 since it became available.  So, they didn't fail within 2 months of starting use, but within 2 months of each other.

The worrysome thing is that these were not the same machine. Not the same brand hard drive. Not even the same size drive -- one is a desktop 3.5" drive while the other was the 2.5" drive in my notebook.

I don't know anything that could make this happen, but the problem was first visible as Windows hanging as it tried to access pretty-much anything in the Windows directory or Documents and Settings directory. Click on the Start button -- system hangs for a minute or two. Open Explorer -- system hangs for a mintue or two. Right-click the Desktop -- Windows hangs for a minute or two.

All the time, the hard drive light stays burning bright!

The first time with the desktop hard drive (a Western Digital), the troubles crept up across a month or so. When I finally realized what was happening, Spinrite 6.0 (www.grc.com) got me out of trouble for a couple months. Then, the drive cratered again a month later. Fortunately, this had given me ample opportunity to back up everything routinely.

With the notebook's IBM Travelstar 7200RPM 60GB drive, the start of troubles rapidly worsened. After 3 or 4 days, the hangs had become so frequent as to make working on the notebook a pain. Today, booting took 15 minutes, before I called Dell (while it was still rebooting).

My Dell Inspiron 8600 is still under warranty, so I got a replacement drive on the way. Then, I had the joy of another Windows XP installation and reinstallation of all my programs.

Well, actually, I still have the "joy" of reinstalling all my programs. I just discovered while working on this newsletter that I had not yet reinstalled the Apache web server and PHP on my notebook. I use them there for web site development — and previewing pages before uploading them.

I used to use Drive Image to do image backups of my computer. I've lost faith in it the recent versions and the growth of USB and SATA drives. This is probably going to finally get me to use Acronis True Image 9.0 , which has been recommended by some friends. Acronis is designed to be a complete PC backup and restore solution, allowing both image backups and restores and restoration of individual files from an image, too.

This is where an external hard drive comes in handy. I've already got one external hard drive for data backup purposes, I'll might get another one for images — or just put my C: image on it, too (my C: is only 30GB). While a big external hard drive may be convenient, mine is a 160 GB and I have my data from three computers already stored on it.

Acronis True Image makes images of drive partitions in their entirety. From there, if you lose a hard drive, you can restore the snapshot of the drive including Windows and your programs, as well as your data, without having to reinstall Windows and all your programs.

I use Karen's Replicator to back up my data files nightly. I specify which directories I want copied. While I could have it back up Windows or programs, that would not be useful. If I copied them with Replicator, I couldn't just copy them back — I'd have to reinstall them — that's the way Windows works.

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6.  My Computer Security Software Recommendations

Anti-Virus

For your anti-virus needs (and, yes, you do have anti-virus needs!) I recommend anti-virus software from Trend Micro (PC-cillin Internet Security, if you want a combination package) or ESET (NOD32, my choice).

Trend Micro PC-cillin Internet Security 2006 offers anti-virus, anti-spam, and firewall for your PC and PDA. TrendMicro provides an easy-to-use product that is from one of the big names in the anti-virus world.

• SAVE $9.95 when you purchase Trend Micro Anti-Spyware and PC-cillin Internet Security 2006.
• Save 60% when you Buy PC-cillin Internet Security 2006 - 3 User package.

I'm often asked about several large, popular anti-virus or anti-virus combination packages. Yes, I realize that they are not in my recommendation list, although I could easily use referral links for them, too.

My personal choice is the ESET's small, fast NOD32 anti-virus program, which offers a FREE 30-day evaluation license. I consider NOD32 to be the cream of the crop in anti-virus protection. Unlike some of the others, ESET offers multiple-year licenses also, including updates to the program as well as to the anti-virus signatures.

Read more about anti-virus programs on my web site.

Firewall Software

If you get the PC-cillin Internet Security package above, you are covered from a firewall point of view.

While the Windows XP firewall is much better than no firewall at all, don't count on the Windows XP firewall to provide your needs. You need a two-way firewall, which the Windows XP firewall is not!.

The Windows XP firewall does not control outbound communications originating from your computer — and you should want to have control if adware/trojans/spyware or even commercial products want to talk to the Internet.

Do you want Windows Media Player to call home every time you play something? It does! Do you use the Search function in Windows Explorer to find things on your hard drive? Did you know that every time you search, Windows Explorer talks to Microsoft — I didn't know that when I ran ZoneAlarm, but the Sunbelt Kerio Personal Firewall flags that for me, and I can stop or allow it to happen.

Many other programs call home when you run them, too.

If you don't get either of the above multi-function packages, I recommend my choice for a firewall program is Sunbelt Kerio Personal Firewall. You can try the full-featured "paid version" of Sunbelt Kerio Personal Firewall free for 30 days — after that, you can register it or, if you're using it on a home computer, you can let it revert to the free, lesser-function license. Sunbelt Kerio Personal Firewall is $19.95 for a non-expiring license for the program and includes one year of their updates subscription.

Read more about the need for firewalls in my The Internet Versus You and Do I Need a Firewall Program? articles.

Anti-Spyware / Anti-Adware Software

CounterSpy, from Sunbelt Software, has received many kudos from the computer press for its always-running and periodic full system scans. CounterSpy is my choice for anti-spyware/anti-adware. I use CounterSpy on my notebook (my main computer!), on my wife's computer and on my son's computer. I highly recommend this program.

While I have not recommended any free alternatives, many people prefer to use free products. I have found, purchased and reviewed a very good ebook called Spyware Secrets Exposed about conquering adware and spyware with free software. The ebook also includes three training videos as a bonus.

Anti-spam Software

In today's Internet world, the question is not "if" you will get spam, but when and how much.

I use and now I recommend PopFile as my first choice for handling spam. PopFile sits on your computer, between your email program and your ISP mailbox, and handles emial as it downloads.

PopFile uses a different approach to spam than some other programs — it does nothing to reduce spam. It is designed as an email classification tool — you train it to recognize spam and any other type of email that you want to classify. These classifications can help you sort your emails into appropriate folders in your email program.

Mailwasher Pro is my first choice to handle spam before it ever gets into your computer's Inbox. Mailwasher Pro uses on-line Realtime Black Lists mail servers sending spam recently, "training" by you of what you think is spam, and your own "friends" and "blacklist" lists.

Mailwasher Pro can even bounce spam messages, as if your email address was not valid, although the usefulness and appropriateness of this is questionable. There is s free version called "Mailwasher," but it omits a lot of the functions of Mailwasher Pro that I consider essential — such as previewing the emails safely before they ever get to your email inbox.

Sunbelt Software, who makes the anti-spyware program CounterSpy (which I recommend) and the firewall that I recommend (Sunbelt Kerio Personal Firewall) also has a well-regarded anti-spam program called iHateSpam for Outlook and Outlook Express. Since I don't use Outlook or Outlook Express for email, I haven't tried iHateSpam.

If you use iHateSpam, please write me and let me know what you think about it.

Cable/DSL Router

If you have a cable modem or a DSL modem, you need to have another layer of inexpensive protection between you and the Internet. A cable/DSL router isolates your computer from direct connection to the Internet. Your computer can easily request your email, web pages, etc. through the router. The responses come back to the router and are smoothly routed to your computer. But, someone on the Internet side of the router can not initiate a connection to your computer — they can only respond to your request.

Even if you only have one computer to connect to your cable or DSL modem, I recommend that you purchase and use a cable/DSL router because of the protection it can give you against attempts to attack through some flaws in Windows itself.

A router isolates your local network, whether it is only one computer or several, from the Internet by actually making it a separate network. The router gets the "public" IP address and handles all your outbound communications and the responses to them. But, it blocks computers on the Internet side from being able to initiate communications with your computer! This will prevent you from falling prey to many worms that try to attack security holes in Windows itself.

I've changed my recommended wireless router. A number of friends who have bought WRT54G wireless routers are having occasional "green death" problems — all the lights on the router say it's connected to the cable and to the computers, but they can't get to the Internet without a power-off/power-on on the router.

Why is this happening with this long-respected router? It turns out that Linksys has been keeping the same model number on the router while they changed version numbers. This has been a regular practice with Linksys and was nothing to be concerned about.

But, in this case, with version 5, they changed the router's operating system. Versions 1 through 4 used Linux for its operating system. Effectively, they created a brand new model and gave it the same model number as a frequently-recommended model.

Even more disturbing, they brought the Linux-based router back with a new model number, as if it is the new model.

So, I changed my recommendation to the "old" model — the Linux-based Linksys WRT54GL 802.11g wireless router (Amazon.com or Buy.com ). If you don't want wireless now, or at any time, the function is easily turned off in the router's menu. You may be able to find a wired (that is, non-wireless) Linksys router on sale. If you don't want wireless, I recommend the Linksys BEFSR42 wired router (Amazon.com or Buy.com). Either way, based on my experience, I recommend Linksys routers.

Read more on my Wireless Security web page.

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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Volume 2, Number 15 — Sunday, September 24, 2006

Copyright © 2006 Terry A. Stockdale.  All rights reserved.