Resolved DropMyRights doesn't work

I've installed, uninstalled and reinstalled DropMyRights at least five times and I can't get it to work with any of the programs it's supposed to: for example, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, Thunderbird, Windows Media Player or MS Word.

Background: DMR was working fine with all these programs before I had a hard drive crash and I reinstalled Windows (XP Pro SP3) and restored all my programs and files from a backup.

I can't find anything on this subject using Google. Can anyone help? Is there an alternative for DMR?

Thanks!

Frank D

 

Christer, thank you for the reply. I've used DRM for over two years using the default setup and up to the point of my hard disk crash it has always worked fine the first time, every time. It's only since my reinstallation of Windows that it hasn't worked. I've tried everything, installing it in C:\DropMyRights\ in C:\Program Files\DropMyRights and others, with quotation marks where and as appropriate, always referring to the proper program exe file and path, but unfortunately no combination of locations of DRM and the referred-to programs makes any difference. Nothing works. When I double-click on the icon absolutely nothing happens -- not even a blip. It seems that since I reinstalled Windows I've changed something on my hard drive so that formerly well-running and easy-to-set up programs are turning difficult. I must be missing something.

Is there an alternative to DropMyRights that will achieve the same effect? I just want to use my browser and other programs in a reduced-rights mode, not play around with sandboxes, etc.

Frank

 

Christer,

Yes, I've tried Open, with the same (non-)results. No, I have not set, made or changed any security settings since I reformatted my HD and reinstalled Windows. I have the same setup as I had before the crash, with the exception that I now have NTFS where before I had FAT32 as my file system. But to my knowledge that should not make any difference to running or opening programs.

Now I have one more piece of information to add to the mystery. The DMR-Windows Media Player shortcut works correctly. However, when I apply the same settings (allowing for the different program path and filename) to Firefox, IE6, and Word, they do not work.

There must be an alternative to DropMyRights out there somewhere.

Frank

 

Christer,

I appreciate your concern. Regarding the path, yes.

Background: On August 11th I had a hard drive crash. All my programs and files were totally garbled and trashed. My only path was to reformat the HD, reinstall Windows XP Pro SP3 and restore all the HD's contents from a backup I had done two weeks previously with NTBackup. I know that restoring from a backup will not restore most programs to working condition, but it was the only option available. So, since August 12th I've been reinstalling my programs and utilities one by one, trying to get them back to working condition. My present difficulty with DropMyRights is just a "drop in the bucket" of problems I will have to overcome to get my PC back in working condition.

One additional complication is that with my 80-GB HD, it "requested" being formatted as NTFS, whereas my previous installation was FAT32. So I've been restoring programs and files from a FAT32 to an NTFS environment. If I had/have to do this again, I'll try to format in FAT32, so that doesn't enter into the equation.

Frank D

 

Christer,

I knew that WinXP doesn't like FAT32 partitions larger than 32 GB, but obviously that's what I had. How did I do it? I upgraded from Win98 to XP, and the FAT32 format came along with it. I guess now is the day of reckoning.

I've tried once to restore the 43-GB contents of my FAT32 volume to a single 80-GB NTFS volume. The results, though they seemed to work, were somewhat dicey IMO. None of my restore points worked. The messages said they were "Incomplete." Hmm, they always worked before.

Alternatives: Do you have any idea how I can restore the contents of a 43-GB single partition to multiple 32-GB FAT partitions? Or could I simply format the HD as a 32-GB partition, then use a program like Paragon Drive Copy to enlarge it to 80. It has that capability. Do you know if any of this is possible, or should I Google these questions, or just try it?

If all else fails, I'll have to do the obvious and try NTFS again.

Thank you.

Frank

P.S. It's now obvious that the title of this thread no longer describes the subject matter being discussed. Do you know what I need to do to get it moved to the WinXP OS section?

 

8

I now have the answer to the second question above. I Googled the question and was directed to the free Knoppix and GParted. I duly downloaded and made a CD of the ISO file. I booted the Knoppix CD in the PC containing my newly created Windows XP Pro SP3 hard drive (in the 32-GB, FAT32 format) and, following the instructions on the Knoppix website, successfully enlarged the 32-GB FAT32 partition to the maximum (~80 GB). Hurdle No. 1 has been jumped over.

I removed the hard drive from my PC and installed it as slave in my wife's PC and at this moment I am restoring the 43-GB backup to it. I will report back soon.

Frank

P.S. When you say to put this thread on hold, I assume you mean to just stop using it. However, if I start a new thread, the background in this one won't be present, unless I copy it over. Is this what you would suggest?

 

Christer,

I'm happy to report that I'm now using my original, reformatted 80-GB hard drive, in WinXP Pro SP3, with all 80 GB (actually 74.4) available in the FAT32 format, and DropMyRights and my other programs are working again! In this environment the restore of my NTBackup worked!

My guess is that switching from FAT32 to NTFS in mid-stream prevented System Restore and many of my previously installed programs from running due to the more advanced security features of NTFS. What do you think?

If there is something to be learned from this exercise, it is that when your PC has both a system hard drive (C) and its clone (D) connected to the motherboard, don't run partition-managing software! Disconnect one of the drives first. In addition, don't skip scheduled backups, whether conventional or imaged, and before doing anything of that nature back up immediately before it.

Anything else you can think of?

Frank

 

Christer,

This whole episode with my PC was, as far as I can tell, unique. I don't think anyone in his right mind would knowingly have done what I did (mess with partitioning software with two system disks connected at one time). I did it only unthinkingly. No excuse, but it's a good reason why there don't seem to be any precedents on the Web.

It does appear that converting from FAT32 to NTFS while doing a restore from backup has an effect on permissions or something like that. Again, no precedents are to be found for guidance. In addition, the restore from my D drive was from a (possibly) messed-up disk. When it was cloned, it was a duplicate C drive, not a hard-coded D drive. Paragon Partition Manager 9 must have done that. Looking back, I'm lucky to have been able to recover at all.

I've been using Paragon Drive Copy 8 for about three years, doing drive imaging from C to D all that time, and I've never had any sort of problem using it or with its results. It was only when I tried to mess around with Paragon Partition Manager 9 that I ran into trouble. I read all the instructions with PDC 8 and there was nothing about having to remove the imaged drive from the PC after making the image. IMO, that would be a disincentive to making image backups in the first place.

When I migrate to a larger disk size (I always buy Western Digitals for continuity), I always buy them in pairs. I use WD's Data Lifeguard Tools to image the existing system disk to the new one. The WD DL tools allow you to adjust the partition size. Of course, after that I switch drives and jumpers and make the new, larger one the boot drive, and then clone the new C drive to the D drive.

From the way you describe it, it seems that Ghost 2003 and Paragon Drive Copy 8 do the same things.

I guess that's all for this topic. I'm going to mark it Resolved.

Thank you for your interest, help and advice and for staying with me through this saga.

Frank D

 

Christer,

Sorry, this may be off-topic, but this exercise has left me contemplating glaring errors in my thinking.

If an image is a file then what I've been doing with Paragon Disk Copy these past few years is not making an image, but a disk copy, or hard drive clone. OK, I'll go with that. Next, as you say, I've noted that the clone drive gets a different name. What surprises me is when you say, "the clone gets a different disk signature, rendering it not bootable." Have I been totally wrong all this time in thinking that if I replaced a defunct, original boot drive with its clone, that I could boot from the clone? If this is not possible, then why clone a hard drive if the clone is only as good as a plain old backup?

As you can see, I'm totally confused. Can you clarify? Thank you.

Frank

 

Christer,

Whew! That's a lot of information. I hope it's OK to discuss it in this thread. I'd hate to break it off at this point.

First off, I've never used Ghost, and have never created a disk image. I see that I used that term incorrectly above. But I do use Paragon Disk Copy to clone my master/boot hard drive (C) to the target, my slave/secondary hard drive (D). Both HDs are on the same channel. My two CD-RW drives are on the other channel.

You say "When the procedure has completed, you do not let Ghost 2003 restart the computer but you shut it down by the power switch." Well, for me using PDC, this is just not practical. Since a full PDC cloning operation on my 700-MHz machine takes somewhere between three and four hours, I do this as the last thing at night. When I return to the PC in the morning, it has rebooted and PDC is running in the foreground. When I close PDC, the PC continues running normally. In view of this, I must presume that PDC does not intend for the user to shut down the machine after creating the clone, and that obviously, doing so is not critical to the operation of the machine.

As I've said before, if after each cloning operation I had to either (a) remove the original HD and connect the clone as master, or (b) remove the clone and change the jumper on the boot drive to make it the only drive, then it wouldn't be worth it to me to bother creating a clone in the first place. The only scenario I would consider is never having to open the PC's case -- unless there has been a boot drive failure.

What you say next, however, that the clone, when moved and jumpered to become the boot drive, will boot just fine, is music to my ears! If I'm correct in this interpretation, I'll assume that (in the future) if my main/boot hard drive dies or crashes irreparably, that all I have to do is remove it, put the properly jumpered clone (drive D) in its place and reboot into Windows. Am I correct?

You say, "...but never run the computer with both the "original" and the "clone" connected." However, I've been doing this successfully for well over three years. In fact, I'm doing it right now. Of course, the cloned drive D has been given a different label by PDC, but its contents are identical to those of the C drive down to the last byte.

I welcome your comments.

Frank