PTLE 5.3.1 Has Wrecked My Life -- Help!

[Rick Russell]

[img]images/icons/shocked.gif[/img] 6 weeks ago I unboxed a brand new Dell 8200, 1.8 GHZ P4 with 512 megs of ram, an Intel 850 chipset running XP Home. Two hard drives...one used exclusively for audio files--meets all Digi's Maximum Performance Guidelines.

It worked beautifully for a couple of weeks... UNTIL I installed PTLE 5.3.1. From that moment to this I've not had a minutes' peace with this machine. The first thing that happened was that my QuickBooks no longer functioned properly--wouldn't even open. Still doesn't work properly.

PTLE works fine--but the machine is constantly developing some sort of new, niggling little problem. The AMIII card is refusing to play sounds from anything but ProTools. I get constant "Runtime Error" messages in IE6. All the problems began when I added PTLE to the system. It's driving me nuts.

Does anyone have any ideas of how I can solve this?

Could I dual-boot XP on both hard drives and use one exclusively for both my PT System drive and file saving? (I'm a voiceover guy and I don't do any real heavy lifting as far as file size and multiple tracks are concerned.) Would this "separation of audio editing from all other programs" help? If so, where would I go for detailed instructions for the procedure?

Any thoughts could be helpful!

Rick [img]images/icons/shocked.gif[/img]

[JonB]

Originally posted by Rick Russell:
The AMIII card is refusing to play sounds from anything but ProTools

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Did you install the wave driver? It's separate from the PT 5.3.1 install.

[The Weed]

db is correct. You should install 98SE first, then XP. I know this involves wiping out your original XP install, but it's the recommended way. Once you have a dual boot set-up and have installed PTLE on your 98 partition, run msconfig and take out everything but Explorer and Systray at start-up and you should be good to go. If you want to be able to update anything on your 98 partition, you may have to install IE and run two hardware profiles - one for regular 98 and one for PTLE.

I'd also recommend the Waves Masters Bundle. I know most producers only want the flat recorded audio, but some of them - especially the video guys - do appreciate it if you can send them audio that's been processed.

Cheers,

[da BaSsTaRd!]

Originally posted by Rick Russell:
Could I dual-boot XP on both hard drives and use one exclusively for both my PT System drive and file saving?

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">absolutely! in fact, in light of my own xp problems, i recommend making 98 your audio setup and xp for everything else.

here's the basics on the best way to do this (at least - what i believe is the best way)..

1) format c: and install win98
2) install partition magic and create a partition AFTER c: on the same drive for XP. make both the 98 and XP partitions about 4GB-5GB in size.
3) install XP onto the other partition. when installing, choose new installation NOT upgrade. xp will make its own boot file and every time you boot you'll be prompted to choose which OS you want to run. you can modify this boot.ini file from My Computer properties in xp.

done!

[Alvin]

When I first put 5.3.1 on my xp ring I also had big problems. The ONLY thing that worked for me was to format and reinstall XP, install my midi drivers for my unitor and then install PT5.3.1 and the wavedriver. After this I installed all my other apps, including all my office apps, vid editing etc.. I also used the system restore feature a lot so I can go back to previous builds if needed.

The system now runs like a dream, no crashes, networked, the lot.

[Rick Russell]

Thanks for the advice, everyone. It looks like I'm faced with deciding between dual-booting 98SE and XP...or reinstalling XP. (Neither sounds like much of a picnic.) But Alvin's fix (a single-boot reinstall of XP) certainly sounds like the lesser of the two evils.

Anyone have any further advice or comments?

By the way, Alvin, do you run QuickBooks--I hope? (Since that seems to be my major incompatibility, I'd take a report of a peaceful coexistence between PTLE and QB 2001/2002 as definite confirmation that yours is the way to go!)

Rick

[flashbak]

Rick,
Have you tried running Quickbooks in XP's compatibility mode? Right click on the application icon, then properties, compatibility tab, and try 95 or 98 compatibility.

[Rick Russell]

At last, it Works! And so does everything else.

Before going through the pain of reformatting my HD and reinstalling XP, I decided to see if a clean install of both PTLE and QuickBooks would solve my problems. Here's what I did:

I Backed eveything up, then following the instructions in the WaveDriver ReadMe file, I uninstalled the WaveDriver and the Dalwdm.sys file. Then I uninstalled the PTLE 5.3.1 software as per the Download instructions.

Then I shut down the computer and pulled the Audiomedia III card out of the slot.

I fired it back up, making sure all PTLE stuff was gone. Worked on QuickBooks 2002 until I got everything going properly. (Turns out my main problem was that I was trying to run in "compatibility mode.") Once I knew everything was working properly, I caught up a couple of month's worth of bookkeeping, backed everything up and uninstalled QB.

Then, paying meticulous attention to every detail, I followed the Download Instructions and the ProTools Addendum documentation instructions (particularly the first 10 pages that deal with installation)that come with the download.

And it worked!

Then I reinstalled QuickBooks...and it worked, too!

When in doubt...read the instructions.

Thanks all!

Rick Russell

[img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]