Re: DiVa crash

Hi Alice  and All,

I posted this information a while back on the Boston High Speed email  
server but thought it a good idea to share with all.

EVERYONE should make an image of their current working hard drive on  
their BD analyzers and sorters that run FACS DIVA software.  Purchase  
an external HD ($120 or less gets you 500GB) and imaging software.  I  
used Norton Ghost which only costs about $70.  For less than $200 you  
can save yourself a lot of hours of grief.

There is a nice explanation of imaging at this link
http://tech.yahoo.com/gd/backup-and-restore-your-pc-create-a-disk- 
image-as-a-failsafe/166290

The bottom line is that instead of asking BD for their special files  
you can reinstall an exact copy of what used to be on your HD at the  
time the image was made including all the special BD files you have  
to ask for.   BD even mentions in the DIVA software manual that they  
do not provides CD's with all the files required to get DIVA to work  
again if you must reinstall XP.  This is especially true of the FACS  
Aria sorters that have special drivers to get the droplet stream and  
side stream pictures to show up in the DIVA software.

You can not recover lost data collected after you image your drive so  
you must still backup your data base often.

Good luck and all the best.

Glenn

Glenn Paradis
MIT E18-463
77 Mass. Ave.
Cambridge, MA  02139
617 253 6454
gap@mit.edu


On Feb 27, 2008, at 9:35 AM, Alice L. Givan wrote:

> Thanks to everyone who wrote me with suggestions about the crashed  
> DiVa software on my
> Canto cytometer.
>
> To remind you,	the DiVa software itself would not get past the  
> initial purple "flash"
> screen.  Other than that,  the computer worked fine and all the  
> other software worked
> fine.
>
> We reloaded the DiVa software from two different CDs -- and made  
> sure that we also
> re-installed the SQL software and the Java software.	None of that  
> helped -- no matter
> how we de-installed and re-installed things and in what order.
>
> We could not trace the problem to any automatic patch installations  
> from Microsoft
> although we still suspect that this could have been a problem.
>
> In the end,  we totally re-installed the XP Professional  operating  
> system.  And then
> spent a fair amount of time on the phone with some very helpful  
> people from BD -- because
> there were bits and pieces of the operating system and of the DiVa  
> software that needed
> to be shunted around.  Not too complicated,  but we had no way of  
> knowing what they were.
>  The final hurdle was getting the old database from DiVa back into  
> use -- seems that the
> IT person at Dartmouth had put a password onto the Admin level of  
> the computer and hadn't
> told us what it was.....
>
> Anyway,  we are back running now.  I have no idea why our system  
> crashed -- and I feel
> rather insecure about my ability to prevent it from happening  
> again. What I do know is
> that I will not try to avoid re-installing the system software next  
> time this happens.
>
> Thanks for all your help and advice.
>
> Alice
>
> Alice L. Givan
> Englert Cell Analysis Laboratory
> of the Norris Cotton Cancer Center
> Dartmouth Medical School
> Lebanon, NH 03756 USA
> tel 603-650-7661
> fax 603-650-6130
> givan@dartmouth.edu
> www.dartmouth.edu/~celllab
>