Mouse Freeze After Fresh Install

I'm not having much luck am I. After I created a fresh install on an empty snapshot, I was in the process of re-installing some drivers when my mouse froze,and refused to unfreeze, even after several reboots it just would not move. So guess who ended up having to reformat to make it work again? Yep Me! So here I go again another lengthy installation, I'll have to get that back-up drive this week, I cant hold off any longer

 

dude, this sucks- it seems no matter how well you build up towards never doing a format-it hits you when you least expect it-like at 1am when youre wanting to talk to a girl, or check a thread on a forum, for instance. formats, we realize, are an unfortunate fact of life-the aim is to make them as few and far between as possible-ive been through it. the best advice i can give you, is to learn to backup your application data folders to a 2nd partition, in some odd way, this may give you a sense of security until youve figured out the ends and outs of your paticular trouble.


a couple of good folder/file mirroring utilities are :folder clone, second copy



youll figure it out

 

Unfortunately No! I hadnt got to the stage of re-installing FDISR, I only installed Gigabyte LAN drivers and they only installed half way,when the system rebooted to finish installing further drivers, thats where it froze. I couldnt click on the next stage, the mouse was frozen solid right there.

 

Ok Peter, I'll explain this the best I can:
Yes of course I had FDISR installed prior to doing a clean install firstly I followed these instructions to the letter step by step:

How do I install a "fresh install" OS system?
If you wish to install a "fresh install" of the Windows OS without disrupting your current snapshot use this procedure. It is very important to follow the steps outlined below in the order given:

From within the program, set up your data anchoring if you wish to have your current data files available to this new snapshot (recommended).
From the ‘Tools' pull-down menu, select 'Create Empty Snapshot'. Follow the instructions given in the Wizard (name your new snapshot Original XP Load, or OEM Build, etc.).
At the completion of creating your new (blank) snapshot, right click on the newly created snapshot and select ‘Boot to Snapshot'.
During the re-boot, you will see a message on your screen as follows: "NT Loader Missing." This is normal because there are no operating system files in this newly created snapshot.
Locate your Windows CD and place it in the CD drive. Reboot your system again.
If you see the message, "NT Loader Missing" again, you will need to enter your BIOS program to set the Boot Sequence to boot from your CD drive first.

Windows will ask you if you want to format the NTFS partition. Answer NO.
WARNING: DO NOT FORMAT THE NTFS PARTITION. Doing so will erase all data from your disk.


Proceed with the "fresh install" of Windows.(I did this,and it installed a clean OS with no programs or drivers installed)
Reinstall FirstDefense-ISR to access the user interface and its functions.(I tried to install Gigabyte LAN drivers again to connect to the Internet to re-download FDISR. I dont have it on CD I purchased a downloadable version)
At this point, the system is available to download Windows updates, install user This would be true If I could connect to the Internet)

You see this was the problem, not having a FDISR CD,and not being able to re-intall it without an Internet Connection, but the Mouse Pointer froze on the screen when Gigabyte LAN drivers were trying to complete their installation. Wahtever went wrong,went wrong with a vengeance, I couldnt boot back to a Snapshot,because the new OS didnt have a snapshot installed, so how was I to boot to one if they wernt there anymore, where did they go? and why?, and your right! a back-up drive is on my pre-christmas list.

 

DVD+R, it seems to me that you followed the procedure correctly.
After you installed Windows and reboot to finalize the installation (setup drivers and updates) there is actually nothing of FD-ISR installed or running.
There are only some additional data folders in the system partition.
What I try to say is that the mouse problem must have another cause, maybe a loose connection or dead battery if you have a wireless mouse. I have no doubts that you installed Windows before without problems, so this issue must be something simple that is easily overlooked.

edit:
After reading again I understand now that the system didn't finish it's boot after you installed your network drivers. Something went wrong with these drivers that caused Windows to freeze. You were probably too frustrated to think of rebooting into safe mode and uninstall the corrupted driver.

 

Peter: No I created a seperate "Empty" Snapshot, so in FDISR I had "Primary" my Original created by first installation of FDISR "Secondary" the snapshot that FDISR sugests you make as a Copy of your Primary, and "Empty" the one I booted to, to install a clean OS.

Wilbert: I tried Safe Mode, and the Mouse Pointer was Still frozen solid!

 

When you install Windows into an empty snapshot, the MBR is rewritten with the standard Microsoft code.
You have plain vanilla Windows, nothing more, although all the FD-ISR data retains on the disk.
FD-ISR needs to be installed first before you are able to switch to another snapshot.

In DVD+R's case, something went wrong after his attempt to install his hardware drivers.

 

OK something deffinately went wrong then, when I had completed the clean install, it was not the Vanilla desktop, it was the standard Windows Bliss desktop, with bliss wallpaper,and blue/green taskbar. at the installation of windows stage, I presume I did the right thing by choosing not! to format with NTFS, but to leave the files intact and no changes made option. That being said I dont understand why I didnt have the Vanilla desktop? I'm hesitant to attempt this all again,as its a long process, at the moment, I dont have the immidiate funds for a back-up drive.I think maybe my best option right now, is too, install my software again to my desired preferences, then create the secondary snapshot, copy of my primary, at this point my drive is uncluttered, and then immediately create a copy of my secondary snapshot If I'm able to do that? and consider that as my clean install snapshot,and just work with the primary, and secondary if needed, and have the third snapshot as a second back-up?

 

Eehhmmm...
With vanilla Windows I meant to say Standard Windows. And that's whay you got.
You didn't do anything wrong.

I suggest that you do try to repeat the procedure in order to understand it. There is no reason why it shouldn't work.
But in addition to the guidelines I strongly suggest that you create a backup of the MBR AFTER you activated the preboot in FD-ISR.
Create that backup with at least two different applications, for example FD-ISR and MBRtool.
In case you end up in the same erroneous situation, you would be able to restore the MBR with Preboot enabled and then Peter's suggestion to switch to a different snapshot would work.

Do test the MBR backups first by disabling Preboot and see if you can enable it with the restore floppy.
That way you know what to do when you need it.

 

OK, I'll try it once more, Gosh, I feel as nervous as a longtail cat in a room full of rocking chairs Local time is now 12:00 pm Wednesday 22 November 2006 Western Australia Time : "Houston we have final countdown" I'll be back in however long it takes, with a report on.... or

 

I'll kill this bitch of a machine one day
step 1: from tools drop down in FDISR create empty snapshot (did that)
step 2: setup data anchoring ( may have screwed up here, I added folders seperately from my Documents folder, instead of just adding My Documents)
step 3: boot to empty snapshot: (did that)
step 4: Install windows: (I did that, just clicked on leave file system intact,and clicked install)
step 5: windows installed to a clean desktop, however, I noticed in My Documents folder there was nothing that I had anchored in there, so I looked in Local Disk (C Documents and Settings, and instead of just 2 folders All Users and George (which is me by the way ) I found these folders:
All Users
George
George~HOMESYSTEM
George~ HOM`SYS1

The bloody thing has reinstalled windows again ontop of my original installation,and had moved My Original My Documents folders to the My Documents\Documents and Settings\All Users\George~HOMESYSTEM folder, ALL my stuff that I tried to anchor did not anchor but was left intact on the new install. "SCREW THIS FOR A PERFORMANCE" I installed FDISR again rebooted back to the primary snapshot,and deleted the Empty snapshot I had named windows clean install, it took just 2 minutes to delete it,and the logs said it was only 1.9GB anyway. My primary snapshot works fine, but presently it says size unavailable, so I'm now asking it to calculate the size, give me a sec while it finishes calculating.......................OK it says C:[Local Disk] 149GB capacity, Sanpshot uses 27.13BG (18%) which corresponds with what my Local Disk (C is reading out at now Free Space 121GB Total Size 149GB so it looks like I deleted the second install succesfully I'm not going to attempt this again, it takes too damn long,and for nothing in the end, I'll just make a copy of my Primary Snapshot, and just keep those 2 Oh by the way, it took 4 damn hours to dick around trying to make it work too

 

This would for me the exact reason to do an installation from scratch and figure out how to get it working with all the drivers.
No matter how long it takes to understand it completely. I just don't let this kind of black box, that Peter is talking about, be a black box for me.

I don't know how to change the oil of my car. but I know how a computer works.

 

Okay, here you did something that I have seen before. When you anchor c:\documents and settings, Windows will create a user profile with that system name in it, because it finds the default user profile already existing.
When you reboot into the primary snapshot, you could delete the extra user profiles.
I suggest that you keep anchored data in c:\anchor\ or a similar folder structure and outside of c:\documents and settings.

I understand that you feel frustrated, but my experience is that I have learned most valuable things by understanding my mistakes.
You know what? Something went right here, you were able to install Windows in the empty snapshot without major problems, right?
Congrats on that!

 

Wilbert: When I open FDISR, and click tools/data anchoring the box opens up with the folders that are able to be anchored, reading down from the top they list as:

Local Disk [C:]

+ Documents and Settings
+ All Users
+ George
+ Desktop
+ Favorites
+ My Documents
+ Start Menu
+ Program Files
+ WINDOWS

As you know the + next to each of these folders opens a tree of sub category folders, inside that particular folder. Now the only 1 I wish to Anchor is My Documents because inside that folder is this:

+ My Documents
My Albuns
My Music
My Pictures
My PSP Files
My Recieved Files
My Videos
My Sharing Folders

And I want to Anchor ALL the folders that are conatained in the Folder My Documents. So correct me If I'm wrong, but would I be right in thinking that in the Data Anchoring Window, I would click on the + next to Documents and Settings, Click on the + Next to the Folder named George,and then Click on the folder named My Documents, and Click Add in the Anchoring window to Add all the Folders Included in My Documents. So then in the Bottom of FDISR it reads like this : Anchored: C:\Documents and Settings\George\My Documents

Other than that, I can see no other option of Adding folders. If I Anchor this data somewhere else outside Documents and Settings where would I place this folder? and another thing, If I anchored my music folder elsewhere other than the default My Documents, then when I come to play some Music, My Windows Media Player is going to think "Hello~ Where the Hell Has That Music Gone? it was in My Documents\My Music before but now its vanished" and it wont be able to find and play it