[jr2]

Yes, sometimes it does work.  However, I don't usually see that.  Although that's probably because by the time someone is willing to pay money to have their computer fixed by me they have already had their cousin who's pretty well versed in such basics as System Restore look at it.

[Fury]

Stealth, funny that you claim so much expertise on the field but yet you seem to have little idea about low-level formatting (LLF). Yes, that might have been necessary to do until around 1990's. But since then low-level format should never be done by end-user. Tools provided by HDD manufacturers might still be called "low-level format" tools, but they do not do low-level format. Instead they perform some form of error checking and zero-fill that Nuke already described earlier in the topic. Yeah, you can avoid bricking your HDD if you really know what you're doing, but there's no ****ing point in doing it in the first place! So please, stop talking about low-level format.

And as I happen to work in the IT industry as well (Woo, big surprise here! Not.) I know very well that instructing people to do system-restore saves you a lot of time to serve other customers. I would do the same. Why the hell I would spend hours instructing someone to do what I suggested here if I can get away with 10 minutes on system restore. I don't care about customers on personal level, the sooner I get rid of them, the better. If 1 in five customers get back that system restore didn't help, the time we saved in those 4 out of 5 is still well worth it.

Now, what would I do if I was in the same situation? I sure as hell wouldn't settle with system restore because I would forever be left paranoid about what crap might still be left in my computer. This wouldn't be the case with your average customer who's happy with whatever you tell them. Bottom line is, customers are idiots. Granted, most of the time I think people here are idiots too but I still give them the same advice I would give to my real friends.

If you would follow your own advice in the same situation, good for you. Just don't come crying if you've had a trojan in your PC for last two months keylogging everything just because you were satisfied with system restore. I prefer solution where I can be relatively sure no crap is left in my PC, the amount of time and effort spent on cleaning the PC is well worth it.

Not to mention it teaches you a valuable lesson. Don't get infected in the first place.

[Nuke]

im somewhat suspicious of instant fix solutions. system restore is something i dont trust 100%. not to say i dont use it. i make sure if i do a reinstall for someone i set a restore point when i finish the job. and there have been a couple situations where this has saved me a lot of time. that said i dont know what system restore restores and i dont know where it restores this data from and i dont know if that data store is as equally corruptible as the system itself. i know what deleting partitions does, i know what zero write does and i know formatting does. so i tend to prefer to fix things using ways that im familiar with. from my days as a system builder the obvious solution was to always restore the machine to factory default (data recovery was extra). needless to say if my system got buggered tomorrow morning, id probably have it back to working as it does now by lunch.

[jr2]

System Restore uses Volume Shadow Copy in Vista and 7.  XP doesn't, it just monitors if an exe or dll is overwritten and if so, copies the file before it is overwritten.  Which is probably why XP System Restore sucks compared to Vista or 7 -- Volume Shadow Copy is a system service.

What you should know about Volume Shadow Copy/System Restore in Windows 7 & Vista (FAQ)
Posted on November 23, 2009 by Tomasz| 22 Comments
WHAT IS VOLUME SHADOW COPY?
Volume Shadow Copy is a service that creates and maintains snapshots (“shadow copies”) of disk volumes in Windows 7 and Vista. It is the back-end of the System Restore feature, which enables you to restore your system files to a previous state in case of a system failure (e.g. after a failed driver or software installation).

DOES VOLUME SHADOW COPY PROTECT ONLY MY SYSTEM FILES?
No. Volume Shadow Copy maintains snapshots of entire volumes. By default, it is turned on for your system volume (C:) and protects all the data on that volume, including all the system files, program files, user settings, documents, etc.

HOW IS THIS DIFFERENT FROM WHAT’S IN WINDOWS XP?
In Windows XP, System Restore does not use the Volume Shadow Copy service. Instead, it uses a much simpler mechanism: the moment a program attempts to overwrite a system file, Windows XP makes a copy of it and saves it in a separate folder. In Windows XP, System Restore does not affect your documents – it only protects files with certain extensions (such as DLL or EXE), the registry, and a few other things (details). It specifically excludes all files in the user profile and the My Documents folder (regardless of file extension).

WHEN ARE THE SHADOW COPIES CREATED?
Volume shadow copies (restore points) are created before the installation of device drivers, system components (e.g. DirectX), Windows updates, and some applications.

In addition, Windows automatically creates restore points at hard-to-predict intervals. The first thing to understand here is that the System Restore task on Vista and 7 will only execute if your computer is idle for at least 10 minutes and is running on AC power. Since the definition of “idle” is “0% CPU usage and 0% disk input for 90% of the last 15 minutes, plus no keyboard/mouse activity” (source), it could take days for your machine to be idle, especially if you have a lot of programs running in the background.

As you see, the frequency with which automatic restore points are created is hard to estimate, but if you use your machine every day on AC power and nothing prevents it from entering an idle state, you can expect automatic restore points to be created every 1-2 days on Windows Vista and every 7-8 days on Windows 7. Of course, the actual frequency will be higher if you count in the restore points created manually by you and those created before software installations.

Here’s a more precise description: By default, the System Restore task is scheduled to run every time you start your computer and every day at midnight, as long as your computer is idle and on AC power. The task will wait for the right conditions for up to 23 hours. These rules are specified in Scheduled Tasks and can be changed by the user. If the task is executed successfully, Windows will create a restore point, but only if enough time has passed since the last restore point (automatic or not) was created. On Windows Vista the minimum interval is 24 hours; on Windows 7 it is 7 days. As far as I know, this interval cannot be changed.

WHAT COOL THINGS CAN I DO WITH VOLUME SHADOW COPY?
If your system malfunctions after installing a new video card driver or firewall software, you can launch System Restore and roll back to a working system state from before the installation. If you can’t get your system to boot, you can also do this from the Windows Setup DVD. This process is reversible, i.e. your current state will be automatically saved as a restore point, to which you can later go back. (Note: System Restore will not roll back your documents and settings, just the system files.)
If you accidentally delete 10 pages of your dissertation, you can right-click the document, choose Restore previous versions, and access a previous version of it. You can open it (in read-only mode) or copy it to a new location.



If you accidentally delete a file or folder, you can right-click the containing folder, choose Restore previous versions, and open the folder as it appeared at the time a shadow copy was made (see screenshot below). All the files and folders that you deleted will be there!



Note: While the Volume Shadow Copy service and System Restore are included in all versions of Windows Vista, the Previous versions user interface is only available in Vista Business, Enterprise and Ultimate. On other Vista versions, the previous versions of your files are still there; you just cannot access them easily. The Previous versions UI is available in all versions of Windows 7.

IS VOLUME SHADOW COPY A REPLACEMENT FOR VERSIONING?
No. A versioning system lets you access all versions of a document; every time you save a document, a new version is created. Volume Shadow Copy only allows you to go back to the moment when a restore point was made, which could be several days ago. So if you do screw up your dissertation, you might have to roll back to a very old version.

IS VOLUME SHADOW COPY A REPLACEMENT FOR BACKUPS?
No, for the following reasons:

The shadow copies are stored on the same volume as the original data, so when that volume becomes corrupt, you lose everything.
With the default settings, there is no guarantee that shadow copies will be created regularly. In particular, Windows 7 will only create an automatic restore point if the most recent restore point is more than 7 days old. On Windows Vista, the minimum interval is 24 hours, but remember that the System Restore task will only run if your computer is on AC power and idle for at least 10 minutes, so it could take days before the conditions are right, especially if you run a lot of background processes or do not use your computer frequently.
There is no guarantee that a suitable shadow copy will be there when you need it. Windows deletes old shadow copies without a warning as soon as it runs out of shadow storage. With a lot of disk activity, it may even run out of space for a single shadow copy. In that case, you will wind up with no shadow copies at all; and again, there will be no message to warn you about it.
HOW MUCH DISK SPACE DO VOLUME SHADOW COPIES TAKE UP?
By default, the maximum amount of storage available for shadow copies is 5% (on Windows 7) or 15% (on Vista), though only some of this space may be actually allocated at a given moment.

You can change the maximum amount of space available for shadow copies in Control Panel | System | System protection | Configure.

HOW EFFICIENT IS VOLUME SHADOW COPY?
It’s quite efficient. The 5% of disk space that it gets by default is usually enough to store several snapshots of the disk in question. How is this possible?

The first thing to understand is that when a restore point is created, Volume Shadow Copy does not create a full backup image of the volume. If it did, it would be practically impossible to store several backups of a volume using only 5% of that volume’s capacity.

Here’s what really happens when a restore point is created: VSC starts tracking the changes made to all the blocks on the volume. Whenever anyone writes data to a block, VSC makes a copy of that block and saves it on a hidden volume. So blocks are “backed up” only when they are about to get overwritten. The benefit of this approach is that no backup space is wasted on blocks that haven’t changed at all since the last restore point was created.

Notice that VSC operates on the block level, that is below the file system level. It sees the disk as a long series of blocks. (Still, it has some awareness of files, as you can tell it to exclude certain files and folders.)

The second important fact is that shadow copies are incremental. Suppose it’s Wednesday and your system has two shadow copies, created on Monday and Tuesday. Now, when you overwrite a block, a backup copy of the block is saved in the Tuesday shadow copy, but not in the Monday shadow copy. The Monday copy only contains the differences between Monday and Tuesday. More recent changes are only tracked in the Tuesday copy.

In other words, if we were to roll back an entire volume to Monday, we would take the volume as it is now, “undo” the changes made since Tuesday (using the blocks saved in the Tuesday shadow copy), and finally “undo” the changes made between Monday and Tuesday. So the oldest shadow copy is dependent on all the more recent shadow copies.

WHEN I DELETE A 700 MB FILE, DOES VSC ADD 700 MB OF DATA TO THE SHADOW COPY?
No. When you delete a file, all that Windows does is remove the corresponding entry (file name, path, properties) from the Master File Table. The blocks (units of disk space) that contained the file’s contents are marked as unused, but they are not actually deleted. So all the data that was in the file is still there in the same blocks, until the blocks get overwritten (e.g. when you copy another file to the same volume).

Therefore, if you delete a 700 MB movie file, Volume Shadow Copy does not have to back up 700 MB of data. Because it operates on the block level, it does not have to back up anything, as the blocks occupied by the file are unchanged! The only thing it has to back up is the blocks occupied by the Master File Table, which has changed.

If you then start copying other files to the same disk, some of the blocks formerly occupied by the 700 MB file will get overwritten. VSC will make backups of these blocks as they get overwritten.

WHAT ARE THE SECURITY IMPLICATIONS OF VOLUME SHADOW COPY?
Suppose you decide to protect one of your documents from prying eyes. First, you create an encrypted copy using an encryption application. Then, you “wipe” (or “secure-delete”) the original document, which consists of overwriting it several times and deleting it. (This is necessary, because if you just deleted the document without overwriting it, all the data that was in the file would physically remain on the disk until it got overwritten by other data. See question above for an explanation of how file deletion works.)

Ordinarily, this would render the original, unencrypted document irretrievable. However, if the original file was stored on a volume protected by the Volume Shadow Copy service and it was there when a restore point was created, the original file will be retrievable using Previous versions. All you need to do is right-click the containing folder, click Restore previous versions, open a snapshot, and, lo and behold, you’ll see the original file that you tried so hard to delete!

The reason wiping the file doesn’t help, of course, is that before the file’s blocks get overwritten, VSC will save them to the shadow copy. It doesn’t matter how many times you overwrite the file, the shadow copy will still be there, safely stored on a hidden volume.

IS THERE A WAY TO SECURELY DELETE A FILE ON A VOLUME PROTECTED BY VSC?
No. Shadow copies are read-only, so there is no way to delete a file from all the shadow copies.

A partial solution is to delete all the shadow copies (by choosing Control Panel | System | System protection | Configure | Delete) before you wipe the file. This prevents VSC from making a copy of the file right before you overwrite it. However, it is quite possible that one of the shadow copies you just deleted already contained a copy of the file (for example, because it had recently been modified). Since deleting the shadow copies does not wipe the disk space that was occupied by them, the contents of the shadowed file will still be there on the disk.

So, if you really wanted to be secure, you would also have to wipe the blocks that used to contain the shadow copies. This would be very hard to do, as there is no direct access to that area of the disk.

Some other solutions to consider:

You could make sure you never save any sensitive data on a volume that’s protected by VSC. Of course, you would need a separate VSC-free volume for such data.



You could disable VSC altogether. (After disabling VSC, you may want to wipe the free space on your drive to overwrite the blocks previously occupied by VSC, which could contain shadow copies of your sensitive data.) However, if you disable VSC, you also lose System Restore functionality.  Curiously, Windows offers no option to enable VSC only for system files. If you want to protect your system, you also have to enable Previous versions (see screenshot to the right).
The most secure approach is to use an encrypted system volume. That way, no matter what temporary files, shadow copies, etc. Windows creates, it will all be encrypted.
Notice that VSC only VSC only lets you recover files that existed when a restore point was created. So if the sequence of events is as follows:

create file → create restore point → make encrypted copy → overwrite original file

the original file will be recoverable. But if the sequence is:

create restore point → create file → make encrypted copy → overwrite original file

you are safe. If you make sure to encrypt and wipe files as soon as you create them, so that no restore point gets created after they are saved on disk in unencrypted form, there will be no way to recover them with VSC. However, it is not easy to control when Windows creates a restore point; for example, it can do it at any time, just because your computer happens to be idle.

CAN I PREVENT VSC FROM KEEPING SNAPSHOTS OF CERTAIN FILES AND FOLDERS?
Yes, but you have to edit the registry to do that. Here are detailed instructions from MSDN.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN VSC RUNS OUT OF SPACE?
Most of the time, most of the data on your disk stays unchanged. However, suppose you uninstall a 5 GB game and then install another 5 GB game in its place. This means that 5 GB worth of blocks got overwritten and had to be backed up by VSC.

In such “high-churn” scenarios, VSC can run out of space pretty quickly. What happens then? VSC deletes as many previous shadow copies as necessary, starting from the oldest, until it has enough space for the latest copy. In the rare event that there isn’t enough space even for the one most recent copy, all the shadow copies will be deleted. There are no partial copies.

Thanks to Adi Oltean, who was one of the engineers of Volume Shadow Copy at Microsoft, for answering my questions on the subject.

To access System Volume Information folder (where restore points are located), see here: http://www.raymond.cc/blog/archives/2007/11/08/about-recycler-and-system-volume-information-folder-in-xp-and-vista/

[Stealth]

Stealth, funny that you claim so much expertise on the field but yet you seem to have little idea about low-level formatting (LLF). Yes, that might have been necessary to do until around 1990's. But since then low-level format should never be done by end-user. Tools provided by HDD manufacturers might still be called "low-level format" tools, but they do not do low-level format. Instead they perform some form of error checking and zero-fill that Nuke already described earlier in the topic. Yeah, you can avoid bricking your HDD if you really know what you're doing, but there's no ****ing point in doing it in the first place! So please, stop talking about low-level format.
I'm wondering if you're reading the same posts i am... i NEVER advocated doing a low level format. The only time i mentioned it, in my first post in this thread, was to make fun of those members who posted saying that the best way to get rid of a virus is to zero-write a drive - my initial post was poking fun at methods that take 10 hours to perform... No, i agree with you - low-level formats went out of style 15 years ago.  Learn to understand sarcasm.  The fact that the very next thing i mentioned was running "42 different virus scanners" should have made that obvious.... guess not to everyone though.

And as I happen to work in the IT industry as well (Woo, big surprise here! Not.) I know very well that instructing people to do system-restore saves you a lot of time to serve other customers. I would do the same. Why the hell I would spend hours instructing someone to do what I suggested here if I can get away with 10 minutes on system restore. I don't care about customers on personal level, the sooner I get rid of them, the better. If 1 in five customers get back that system restore didn't help, the time we saved in those 4 out of 5 is still well worth it.

Now, what would I do if I was in the same situation? I sure as hell wouldn't settle with system restore because I would forever be left paranoid about what crap might still be left in my computer. This wouldn't be the case with your average customer who's happy with whatever you tell them. Bottom line is, customers are idiots. Granted, most of the time I think people here are idiots too but I still give them the same advice I would give to my real friends.
so you wouldn't settle for doing a system restore just to get the system RUNNING again, and then run through a virus scanner?  No?  Well with the cost of hard drives and memory these days, why not just buy a new hard drive and new memory.  Reinstall the operating system on the new drive, and i guarantee you there will be no trace of the previous virus, trojan, etc. etc.... hahaha

If you would follow your own advice in the same situation, good for you. Just don't come crying if you've had a trojan in your PC for last two months keylogging everything just because you were satisfied with system restore. I prefer solution where I can be relatively sure no crap is left in my PC, the amount of time and effort spent on cleaning the PC is well worth it.
I still think that doing a system restore to get your computer running is not a bad thing.  Once it's running, you can run whatever virus scanner you want...

Not to mention it teaches you a valuable lesson. Don't get infected in the first place.
That's a stupid thing to say.  Even the best get infected.  Shoot, even Barracuda networks... arguably one of the best system security hardware device providers in the industry, got hacked the other day.  Ironic?  no, not really... it just proves that it happens to the best of us.  I consider myself a high-end computer user, i really do, but there are times every year or two that i'll go to the wrong site and end up with a minor case of browser hijacking, or something similar.  Now it never gets to the point that my whole computer is infected/crashes, but tsill...

[Nuke]

-snip-

so its a mythical magical convoluted process that may or may not do what its supposed to do. il stick with manual backups and not letting they system know where i keep my data. i simply put nothing on the c drive that isnt expendable. i never allow the c partition to be over a hundred gigs, and the d partition is whare all my important data is. and i manually back that up to another drive. really critical stuff (like my modding stuff and all my source code) gets backed up on another computer and sometimes flash cards and my ipod.

[Stealth]

-snip-

so its a mythical magical convoluted process that may or may not do what its supposed to do. il stick with manual backups and not letting they system know where i keep my data. i simply put nothing on the c drive that isnt expendable. i never allow the c partition to be over a hundred gigs, and the d partition is whare all my important data is. and i manually back that up to another drive. really critical stuff (like my modding stuff and all my source code) gets backed up on another computer and sometimes flash cards and my ipod.

Very nice. I agree with you on everything

My primary computer at home runs off a disk array that, nightly, copies my C partition to a seperate NAS.  My data drive is shared between all computers, and on a seperate SAN.

[Stealth]

Stealth, funny that you claim so much expertise on the field but yet you seem to have little idea about low-level formatting (LLF). Yes, that might have been necessary to do until around 1990's. But since then low-level format should never be done by end-user. Tools provided by HDD manufacturers might still be called "low-level format" tools, but they do not do low-level format. Instead they perform some form of error checking and zero-fill that Nuke already described earlier in the topic. Yeah, you can avoid bricking your HDD if you really know what you're doing, but there's no ****ing point in doing it in the first place! So please, stop talking about low-level format.

And as I happen to work in the IT industry as well (Woo, big surprise here! Not.) I know very well that instructing people to do system-restore saves you a lot of time to serve other customers. I would do the same. Why the hell I would spend hours instructing someone to do what I suggested here if I can get away with 10 minutes on system restore. I don't care about customers on personal level, the sooner I get rid of them, the better. If 1 in five customers get back that system restore didn't help, the time we saved in those 4 out of 5 is still well worth it.

Now, what would I do if I was in the same situation? I sure as hell wouldn't settle with system restore because I would forever be left paranoid about what crap might still be left in my computer. This wouldn't be the case with your average customer who's happy with whatever you tell them. Bottom line is, customers are idiots. Granted, most of the time I think people here are idiots too but I still give them the same advice I would give to my real friends.

If you would follow your own advice in the same situation, good for you. Just don't come crying if you've had a trojan in your PC for last two months keylogging everything just because you were satisfied with system restore. I prefer solution where I can be relatively sure no crap is left in my PC, the amount of time and effort spent on cleaning the PC is well worth it.

Not to mention it teaches you a valuable lesson. Don't get infected in the first place.

Wait, i just noticed - you're the guy that keeps using the word "virii"

So tell me - did you make that word up? Because i know you didn't see it published anywhere reputable... lol.

[jr2]

Aeeeiii..........

Enough of the potshots at each others' technical prowess.    It's not that big of a deal.  Live and learn.  Once you think you know everything and stop the learning process, you consign yourself to the dust heap of technical knowledge.  I've always said viruses but I was willing to change if the correct term was different.

@Stealth: yes, you can use System Restore and then run a scan.  However many viruses nowadays cannot be removed this way.  Especially the fake anti-virus ones.

[Fury]

So tell me - did you make that word up? Because i know you didn't see it published anywhere reputable... lol.

Well excuse me for not having english as my native language and for using "virii", which must be the most serious error in grammar I have ever made.

so you wouldn't settle for doing a system restore just to get the system RUNNING again, and then run through a virus scanner?  No?

Nice try, but no. Buckshee Rounds didn't have any problems with getting his system running and he was able to run whatever scanners he wanted. Would I use system restore on my own computer to solve a virus or malware infection? Perhaps as intermediary step at most, but not as solution.

Well with the cost of hard drives and memory these days, why not just buy a new hard drive and new memory.  Reinstall the operating system on the new drive, and i guarantee you there will be no trace of the previous virus, trojan, etc. etc.... hahaha

Congratulations. With that and your obsession with "virii" you just awarded yourself with retard of the day award. I'm done with you.

[Buckshee Rounds]

I've done system restore and then the cd cleanup thing, system seems fine, but I'm wary nonetheless. Anyway...

Got another problem for ye HLPers. I bought a HD 6950 to replace a GT440 (I didn't know this was a crap card). It connects up fine all the usual stuff checks out, only problem is it's so freaking big it covers the SATA ports/pins/connector thingies, meaning I can't hook up my hard drive. Needless to say I'll be returning this card, to bad too it was a sweet deal at £205 total including postage.

Now, I'm going to need another card, preferably one of equal ability to the 6950 as I'm looking to play Shogun 2 at high settings. Obviously I'll need it to fit so it has to be no bigger than 11 inches and have a breadth of less that than the 6950 (roughly 2-3 inches) so I can use the bloody SATA things. Any suggestions?

[jr2]

Get a SATA cord that has a 90 degree bend build into it on one of the sides. 

EDIT: or both of the sides

like this:

[Stealth]

So tell me - did you make that word up? Because i know you didn't see it published anywhere reputable... lol.

Well excuse me for not having english as my native language and for using "virii", which must be the most serious error in grammar I have ever made.

so you wouldn't settle for doing a system restore just to get the system RUNNING again, and then run through a virus scanner?  No?

Nice try, but no. Buckshee Rounds didn't have any problems with getting his system running and he was able to run whatever scanners he wanted. Would I use system restore on my own computer to solve a virus or malware infection? Perhaps as intermediary step at most, but not as solution.

Well with the cost of hard drives and memory these days, why not just buy a new hard drive and new memory.  Reinstall the operating system on the new drive, and i guarantee you there will be no trace of the previous virus, trojan, etc. etc.... hahaha

Congratulations. With that and your obsession with "virii" you just awarded yourself with retard of the day award. I'm done with you.

Just chill out kid.  Really... you're one of those people that take 10 hours to fix a problem that it would take anyone else 10 minutes to fix, because the easier solutions just aren't good enough for you.  That's your perogative.  In the meantime, anytime I get a "Virii" in my computer, i'm going to keep running system restore, and save myself 9 hours of time...

[Stealth]

Nice try, but no. Buckshee Rounds didn't have any problems with getting his system running and he was able to run whatever scanners he wanted. Would I use system restore on my own computer to solve a virus or malware infection? Perhaps as intermediary step at most, but not as solution.

oh gee, what do you know... so system restore did work on his system.  Fail.

Buckshee rounds: Glad it worked.  Don't worry, as long as you could get the computer running, and then run/ran a virus scanner, you have no need to be wary.  Anything left over would be found by a reputable virus scanner

[Mongoose]

I think everyone in here could stand to tone things down a tad.  Y'know, whoever noted that this place gets all testy every spring was right on the money; this isn't the only thread where there's been a degree of dick-waving going on.

[Nuke]

GEEK FIGHT!!!

but seriously i havent seen a real virus in years, i mean every few months il get a hit but most of the time its a false id. probably because whoever programmed the virus included the same library as some piece of software im using.

[Stealth]

LOL you call that a fight?

i don't fight with someone that doesn't know how to say 'virus'


jk jk

[Buckshee Rounds]

Get a SATA cord that has a 90 degree bend build into it on one of the sides. 

EDIT: or both of the sides

like this:

Thanks jr2 this worked perfectly, I can fit the card in no probs. One more obstacle though I'm afraid. When I turn on my monitor it says it doesn't have an input signal, despite being connected to the correct dvi port (I used both ports to no avail) and despite the fact I've uninstalled the nvidia drivers. Now I know the card is seated right and working as I can see the fan doing it's thing, but for whatever reason the monitor remains blank.

My fear is it's a problem with the card, or more specifically how my motherboard is handling the card. This is a HD 6950 and my motherboard while being top of the line two years ago is well...two years old. I turned on my speakers to see if I could hear windows wee startup tune but it wasn't there. To be sure I took the card out and the tune played so I fear it might be the hardware.

For a so called "straight forward upgrade" this is getting really irritating.

[jr2]

If your old card is built into the motherboard, you probably have to (using your built-in card while the new one is removed) go into the BIOS setup. (Usually the F2 key whilst booting, when it's testing the memory or sometimes it says ASUS or Dell or w/e manufacturer logo.  But I've also seen the Delete key, F12, Esc, F11 etc... depends.)

Now find the setting to disable the on-board video, disable it, exit BIOS setup (make sure it saves the changes, usually it asks when you try to exit), then shut it off.  Now put in your new card and try firing it up.

You may find that downloading your motherboard's user manual will prove handy for you to find which key gets into BIOS and where the setting is to disable your built-in card.  Oh, and if it still doesn't work and there is a setting to assign an IRQ to VGA, you might want to try switching that on.

[Buckshee Rounds]

The board never came with an integrated gpu it's always ran on a card via the pci-e slot. When I looked into BIOS the primary graphics adapter was already set to pci-e. None of the IRQ settings have an option for VGA, it's either 'enabled' or 'reserved'. The board is an MSI MS-7366, P6GNM series.

I should clarify that I'm using a d-sub to d-sub cable with a dvi adapter on the end to connect to the card. This setup worked for me in the past so I can't see how it would be a problem. Is it worth buying a dvi cable?

The downloaded manual is almost identical to the one I have on paper unfortunately so no help there. I doubt it's a BIOS issue. I'm looking on AMD's site to see if there's some kind of fix. I really don't get why this is happening. My machine isn't the best in the world but it more than qualifies for running this card.