TacoMagic

A while ago I saw an extremely horrible vampire movie. I can't remember many details about it except that it took place either in South Africa, or somewhere similar. Also, the movie was a huge diatribe against the government. Near the end of the movie it's discovered that the HIV virus was created in order to kill vampires.

Other than that, I can't remember much. I think the movie name had darkness, black, or some other word for the lack of ambient light.

Any help appreciated.

I have a 2001 Ford Escort that has recently developed a front-end wheel wobble (not a bounce or a shudder). It's extremely speed selective; it occurs at 30-35 mph and again at 40-45 mph. It feels like only one of the tires is wobbling, but it's possible that each speed is associated with a different front wheel. Speeds outside of these two ranges are generally wobble-free, with the occasional isolated wobble when traveling at speeds close to the above (such as 50 mph). Also, the wobble doesn't happen at all during acceleration; only during cruising, coasting, and deceleration. It's the worst during coasting and light deceleration.

So far I've checked my breaks, wheel balance, and rims. The breaks are fine, balancing the tires didn't improve performance, and the rims are undamaged. I have a book that suggests the CV joints might be the problem, but to my knowledge shouldn't CV joint problems increase during acceleration rather than deceleration and coasting?

I'm really puzzled here. I'm thinking it could be a bearing problem, but I really don't want to have to pull my hubs if there are some easier things I can check first.

Any help is appreciated with either ideas of things to check, or diagnostic tests I can do to narrow it down.

OS: Windows XP

For a long time I've been running two players in my system. I've never had much use for having two of them, but I've always liked the idea of them both being there. Originally I had a NEC DVD Burner that worked perfectly and a NEC DVD reader (harvested from a previous system: DV-5500A) that would give me a blue screen of death if I put anything into it. Oddly, after the reboot, if I left the disk in the drive, I could play it just fine. Weird huh? Anyway, both were IDE drives, with the poorly functioning drive slaved to the one that worked.

I had that setup for about 2 years... now fast forward to today: I get myself a used TS-H653N (Dell I think, possibly HP). Since I've got a spare SATA slot, I pulled out the old NEC and pop in the "new" drive. Everything booted up fine, and XP correctly identified the drive and everything seems to be going smooth... until I start trying to put discs into it.

I can put a CD into the drive, and it will read the CD for about 1 to 2 minutes before XP crashes and reboots (says it recovers from a critical error). A DVD is even worse, as XP will crash usually during spin up. At that point I figured I managed to purchase a bad drive.

Then the next step: on one of the crashes I loaded up Ubuntu instead of XP. I figured if Ubuntu couldn't handle the drive, then I'd know for sure. Surprisingly, Ubuntu handled the drive flawlessly. I could read, write, swap disks, etc. The drive was working even better than the NEC that has always held the top slot in my rig. I decided on a whim (ok not really a whim) to toss the old NEC back in and see if Ubuntu would be kind to that drive as well. Indeed it was.

So, I've pretty much narrowed this strange crash problem to XP. And with it crashing on two different drives in the "#2" spot, I think it has something to do with XP not liking the secondary drive (which is strange since the TS-H653N is technically a master of it's own buss).

I turned off the reboot on system failure and captured the same message on both drives: PAGE_FAULT_IN_UNPAGED_AREA. In order to rule out malware/viruses, I've done several full sweeps of my system with various programs (found nothing). I also defragged which, as expected, didn't really help.

The crash also happens in safe mode, which doen't not encourage me towards a positive resolution.

From here I really need guidance. What is the best way to go about resolving this issue without formatting and re-installing XP (Plus hoping really hard that I don't get the same problem again)? Is this a known issue with XP, or am I looking at some kind of file corruption?

If you need more information, please let me know.

I know the reason why, was just wondering if anyone else noticed, and was amused by, the sudden flood of algebra and calculus questions?

I've doing a brake job on my Ford Escort, and since I've never worked on fords before I ended up having a question with the rotor:

Where are the lugs that hold on the rotor? I can see several bolts on the backside of the assembly, but I'm pretty sure only 2 of them are the ones I actually want. I'm pretty sure I don't have to break off the axel bolt, but it's a possibility at this point. I could always break off everything then re-assemble, but it's way easier to remove the correct bolts and save an hour's extra work.

I've already pulled off the caliper, so that's out of the way.

If anyone has a pic of the lugs I need to break out that would be awsome, otherwise a good, detailed descritpion of their location would be helpful.

Thanks.

Hello,

I will be going on a road trip in the early spring (late march) and may pass through any of the following states:

Indiana

Illinois

Ohio

Kentucky

Tennessee

West Virginia

Virginia

North Carolina

What are some of the best things to see in these states? I'm willing to see just about anything: State Parks, National Parks, museums, historical landmarks, great places to eat, scenic drives, shows not to be missed, tours, old military installations, etc. I love to sight see and have never done a roadie through this area.

Any suggestions of what is not to be missed would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,

Taco