I agree that it is weird that the Bush administration has gotten more of what it wanted since the Democrats took over in Congress last year. The most likely explanation is that when Democrats were in the minority, their strategy was to win support by simply opposing the Republican agenda, whatever it happened to be. Now that they are in power, their strategy is to curry favor with the White House in the hopes of not being blamed for anything that could go wrong. This suggests that whether in power or out, the Democrats have no principles and will do anything to maintain their privileged status within the establishment.

moveon should just ignore the whole carnival, just bring the heat. *Moveon* started this. No sense in crying about it now. By hindsight, I think they missed with the headline. Everyone is talking about that, rather than the message below the headline. The headline became the shiny object. But I'm not a moveon member, so what I think means absolutely nothing.

They seem to be the only ones bringing real heat right now, so more power to them. I agree the headline was a bit much, and I shared that with them. But if they happen to stub a toe while putting a boot up the backside of the administration, then so be it. Would have been better if they'd had a sub-header that read "as noted on conservative blogs across the 'intertubes'!" or some such, indicating the true origin of the name. That would've been a twofer, but that's just more hindsight. ;-)

Just pathetic. The dems should have added an amendment to that 'sense' bill celebrating the constitution and free political speech, *then* made the GOP vote on that. But, because the dems are simply the most pathetic bunch of whipped losers I've ever seen, they got right in line and cast their stupid, vapid, tool-like votes against their own ferkin base. Pathetic! Laugh-out-loud hilarious! Feel-good joke of the year!

that said, moveon should just ignore the whole carnival, just bring the heat. *Moveon* started this. No sense in crying about it now. By hindsight, I think they missed with the headline. Everyone is talking about that, rather than the message below the headline. The headline became the shiny object. But I'm not a moveon member, so what I think means absolutely nothing.

I did not fly North with the wild goose. If I'm not dodging falling acorns in the woods, I'm lost in the potato patch with bugs and bunnies.

Fir the first time in 30- years, breaking news about a crumbling economy and a corrupt Bank Reak Estate Industry. O, poor fanny may. My-0-mammy. Oh day-o-me.

O, Pedinska! I'll send a e-mail to damn barnicle smelling bambage. Okay. I was gonna send the farm CSA mail address, but the NSA already charges Maryland residents in the Fake Global Geopolitical Oil-Fiasco ERA-72% higer utility rates for snooping on people like _____`.`~.~?

Ya' never know for certain anything, for sure. Tell one person, Pedenska,

Tell the world.

I'll get to bambage this eve?

The cloning software says it can't clone the source drive if it is connected via SATA, and the manual advises getting a SATA-IDE converter to get around this. I confirmed this with their tech support, but I have no IDE connector plug on the motherboard, and therefore no IDE tape to connect an IDE drive to, and the final destination of the clone, if it is successful enough to boot, would have to be a SATA drive. Currently, I have a drive big enough to accept the clone on the system through a USB. I would have to clean it off first, but that won't be a problem. But it can't be the final internal drive, because it isn't SATA, and internally only a SATA drive can be plugged in.

Ok, so to start with you have never been able to use the cloning software due to it not supporting a source drive connected via a SATA interface? And I'm assuming by "tape" you mean a ribbon cable?

And the destination is another SATA drive connected through a USB interface, meaning that even though it is a SATA drive the ultimate interface is really USB, with the conversion handled internally to the unit itself. And of course, internally to the computer there aren't USB connections, being as USB is pretty much strictly for external devices only.

Cool. We're finally on the same page hardware wise ...

The cloning program is actually a recovery suite, so one of the options is to look at what's on the drive (a different one from the cloner), this one gives only errors, which the manual says is because of accessing via SATA. What this option does, if it can, is access the boot records on the drive and bring up the file system enough to see it (the program knows about NTFS).

Ok, the viewing of the drive is actually handled by a separate program altogether and doesn't handle SATA drives. Again, cool.

Based on the software understanding NTFS and the fact you mentioned freeDOS previously then the disk must be setup with DOS level NTFS drivers but not drivers for accessing SATA devices. If true this leads me to believe that it isn't necessarily a newer recovery suite but rather something they might have been using prior to SATA really taking off. The dates on the files and the programs themselves would clarify that point, although minor it is.

To start with I'd take a look at the two CDs I mentioned earlier - HiRens & The Ultimate Boot CD. Since you obviously have internet access hit google.com and goto their respective homepages and download the ISO images and burn it to a blank CD. I forget exactly which one has the best set of tools for data/disk recovery/testing and unfortunately I'm a little short on time at the moment. I can check and report back but it won't be until roughly 10:00pm EST.

Basically you need a tool or suite of tools that loads USB drivers for accessing your KB and mouse but does it in a "standard" manner - ie doesn't assume that all USB devices are storage-only and therefore pre-allocates control of the ports for its own use. It needs to leave the ports alone so the operating system itself can access the KB and mouse via the USB ports.

Then the next step in this scenario is that the boot CD must also support SATA connections so you can actually see and access your internal drive - hopefully. Or at least enough access so as to pull a image or clone if you will off the drive.

I really appreciate your taking this time, I do hope you are on antibiotics for the sinus infection. Make sure the doctor keeps you on them until it's completely gone (usually double the time for other illnesses), otherwise it can do permanent damage (cause asthma, allergies).

No problem. I enjoy these kinds of challenges as well as helping people. Unfortunately, when my wife up and left town 7-months ago she took with her my health insurance and due to financial restraints seeing a doctor is out of the question right now. So I'm riding it out hoping it clears up. Bad move I know, but my options are extremely limited.

Lastly, since this is so OT for this blog if you want to take it to email I can be contacted at: chekmarx@gmail.com