Win98SE stopped recognizing ADVC and firewire HD

[skorch]

Hi all.

I finally got into the wonderful and frustrating world of digital video.

I've been using Screenblast 3.0b with the ADVC and saving to an 80gig firewire HD and all was fine until last night.
Suddenly windows 98se stopped 'seeing' my external devices.
I checked all connections and tried starting the software and components in different order and nothing. Device manager shows the 1394 bus is functioning properly so I went to Microsoft's support site.
The fix I neede couldn't be obtained until I installed two previous fixes, one by downloading the other thru a $35.00 tech support phone call.
I went thru the hassle and runaround of tech support and have the first two updates installed but have to wait for tech support to call me and confirm that they didn't fix the problem.
My fear is when I get the final updtae from them I'll still be in the same boat.
Anyone else had this hassle before and can offer help? It would be a real heartbreaker to have to sell this great gear and give up because upgrading the PC is not an option for me now.

Thanks in advance.

[sacajaweeda]

Win98 is enough to drive you batty all by itself. I can imagine trying to do video related stuff using that OS.

My condolences.

[skorch]

Well my worst fear has been realized today, the third of Microsoft's so-called 'hotfixes' didn't fix anything.

Anyone know if it's possible to get a decent P4 pc with winXP and a couple of firewire ports for $400.00 or less? It would be nice to have a dedicated pc for this hobby and not have to break the bank.

[budz]

Anyone know if it's possible to get a decent P4 pc with winXP and a couple of firewire ports for $400.00 or less? It would be nice to have a dedicated pc for this hobby and not have to break the bank

Build your own new pentium 4 pc and use the other components you have now for the new one. A good motherboard combo probably cost you about $400.00 including memory.

[thecoalman]

At the very least I would do a reinstall before giving up. What does it show in device manager, does the drive show up at all as an unknown device or just nothing.

[skorch]

Well thanks for the replies everyone, I figure it's time to upgrade (even though I wanted to wait until tax return time).
I've been doing some research and since my audio editing app only supports Pentium I'll be building a system for audio/video only with a P4 processor.
Over at videoguys.com they recommend a hyper-threading system and I wanted to know what people here feel about that configuration? I understand all programs you use have to support HT to get the full effect so I would have to upgrade my audio app as well, right?

I've never built my own system before and wanted to get some advice from those who have.
So far I'm looking at:
$179.00 Pentium 4/ 2.8E GHz 800MHz FSB (supports HT)
$104.00 Intel "D865PERLL" i865PE Chipset Motherboard for Intel Socket 478 CPU
$154.00 2 Kingston 184 Pin 512MB DDR PC-3200
$46.00 system drive: Maxtor 40GB 7200RPM IDE
$46.00 SAPPHIRE ATI RADEON 9200SE Video Card, 128MB DDR, 64-bit, TV-Out, 8X AGP
So far the total is $529.
Plus I'll be carrying over my 80 gig firewire HD for video as well as the ADVC-100.
I haven't picked a case so any suggestions would be great.

[thecoalman]

I would get a different motherboard with onboard firewire, change the system drive to SATA and an additional 80 to 120 gig SATA drive. Or a larger system drive.

As far as the case goes make sure it has a fan in the front and back, a decnt power supply(420w) and firwire/usb ports on the front.

As long as your apps run under winxp you won't have to upgrade they don't neccesarily have to be HT compliant.

There's quite a few threads over in the Computer forum and lengthy one in the newbie section on this subject.

[skorch]

Thanks for the quick reply coalman, I'll check out the thread you suggested.
The motherboard I selected has firewire ports, why should I select another?
Maybe I should just sell the firewire HD I have and go with an 80gig sys SATA and 120gig SATA or more for storage?

[skorch]

Also I'd like to know if buying a case with a power supply is the way to go or should I get that seperate?

[The_Pioneer]

I'll echo what "thecoalman" said and recommend you reinstall.

How about a very small investment in some more ram + install WinXP on your p3 600. I don't see that it'll be painfully slow or anything like that, I have installed XP on a P1 75Mhz so a p3 600 should be able to handle it ok.

Just a thought - checkout ebay for cheap ram, there are people here who'll identify what type you'll need (from a picture) if you have any problems.

[skorch]

Pioneer, thanks for your input.
By reinstall, are you referring to the OS? A year ago while trying to install a 120gig HD on this system, instead of using the included controller card I tried to slave it to my system drive. I accidently reformatted the system drive and had to reinstall everything, I couldn't get the modem installed which made it hard to get all the drivers etc. I needed.
The term reinstall makes me fearful.

[thecoalman]

The motherboard I selected has firewire ports, why should I select another?

So it does I misread the specs.

Maybe I should just sell the firewire HD I have and go with an 80gig sys SATA and 120gig SATA or more for storage?

I'm probably not the one to ask you'd have a $2k machine by the time I was done. Check out this site they have some pretty good machines cheap w/warranty. www.abspc.com. Techs could be a little more knowledgeable but they'll get it fixed if somethings wrong. Look over at www.newegg.com if your going to build it yourself. If you hit the right deals you can save a lot of money.

[thecoalman]

Pioneer, thanks for your input.
By reinstall, are you referring to the OS? A year ago while trying to install a 120gig HD on this system, instead of using the included controller card I tried to slave it to my system drive. I accidently reformatted the system drive and had to reinstall everything, I couldn't get the modem installed which made it hard to get all the drivers etc. I needed.
The term reinstall makes me fearful.

I'd still give it a go, can't hurt... Save the modem driver to floppy/cd before reinstalling. Too bad your firewire drive doesn't work you could just do that.