Don't update Windows 10 today

Yes "en-us". But it spells lots of words wrong.

 

Don't get me wrong. I am not a Windows Hater. If anything, I am a Mac/Apple Hater with their arrogant marketing scheme. I am more of Windows junky going all the way back to Windows 3.0, although have played with Linux from time to time. I am just telling the fact that our IT department determined PC on Windows 7 Pro was the most secure and stable environment for our network integration and other software needs back when MS released Windows 8. Thus there is no PC running Windows 10 OS at my work.

 

Am I screwed? On diskpart command there is no volume 0 reported on the hard disk that is FAT32.

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Oops, forgot image. When I remove the boot DVD and run diskpart, list volume command, I get the same screen where volume 0 is blank.


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Just means you lost your boot sector and you'll have to rebuild it.

This article has the command prompt keywords I was looking for, so it should work and has some explanation which is nice: How to Rebuild the BCD in Windows [10 to 20 Minutes]

All of this is because of the "new way" the computer boots, which I don't personally like, but it is convenient some of the time. Other times, like this, it is a royal PITA. It is much more flexible but also much easier to kill.

 

Ah thanks, but I already took the Reset option, Windows reinstalled itself. Saved my files, but I lost all apps and programs that didn't come with the original installation.

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That's basically one up from the most extreme action you could have taken, but it works. It is always a good idea to have a full "dd clone" of your primary machines HDD backed up to an external cold storage disk or even cloud storage if it is small enough. That coupled with an incremental backup system would mean a couple hours of downtime with zero (or very close to zero) data loss.

 

macbook pro

 

... also contains a hdd. Also fails. The MBP is just a fancy PC running OSX. It uses the same UEFI style BIOS. I've had way more system issues and full wipeouts on macs than any of my windows or linux machines. The journal partitioning system is prone to all sorts of ghost files/folders and very easy to take down the whole system. Or worse yet, pretend that it's working while all your family photos just "disappear" and you never know it until you look for it.

Every primary machine should be fully backed up. Bytes are cheap. You can get a 1TB backup drive for less than $50 most days. I've recently been updating my NAS with 8TB drives which are only $170. A drive that sits on the shelf for a decade and is never needed is still worth the price knowing you have cold storage.

 

I have a couple of internal hard drives, same size, though having the second the same size is overkill, but meh. Periodically invoke robocopy (via a batch file) with the -mir switch, copy over various directories, c: to d:,

 

"full "dd clone" of your primary machines HDD backed up"@27. I often whine about importance of frequent data backups. Problems and responses in this thread show that virtual nuts and bolts need to be backed as well.

 

Indeed. I actually just today had a bit of a backup scare temporarily. I got an email from one of my NAS arrays that not one, but two data drives had read errors that were parity corrected on the way out... That's not a good sign. Turned out to be the battery backup unit for the storage card was dead and the array was relying on it for cache performance boost. So I need to order some new small lithium batteries for the cards but at least the drives are intact.

I bet most people have never even heard of SMART let alone monitored their drives' status.

 

Safe bet.

 

I got off this ride a few years back, when Windows adopted the Fisher-Price preschool toy inspired GUI.
I can still drive and fix a windows box (job requirement) and do so daily but, like macs, I won't fork over money for 'planned obsolescence.'

I also no longer fix or repair Wintel 'puters for friends or relatives.
I either put them on a Chromebook if they're just surfers or I load a Linux distro on their box and "throw them into the pool" if they insist on something more 'application-y.'

DistroWatch.com: Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD.
The best Linux distros of 2018 | TechRadar

I can heartily recommend Mint as a fairly intuitive winders alternative....or Zorin (not on techradar.com's list)


No time like the present.

 

i suspect most people don't need to know what 'smart' is, or monitor their hard drive status. especially if the have a MacBook pro.

 

Since upgrading to Windows 10, I've found the the ability to seamlessly transfer our iPhone images over to the pc is seriously hamstrung. This is a commonplace function, I guess Microsoft just doesn't give a cr@p. It used to be I could copy over in short order, properly rotated, and the iPhone copies could be thoroughly deleted, from all the nooks and crannies on the phone. Now I have to do it by hand, use a third-party cobble to get the rotation (mostly) right, and delete the images from the phone by hand.

Also, with the advent of Windows 10, all the nice little windows games morphed into glitzy, ad-loaded Vegas versions, thanks for that. Thankfully a third-party has preserved the old ones, made the Win10 compatible.

 

That's akin to saying most people don't need to know what TPMS is or monitor their tire pressures especially if they have a Prius. You may not need to know what TPMS is or how it works, but you should know it is there and how to at least read the warning signs as the car tells you.

It is a "thing" that effects every hard drive. Every hard drive will fail. Even enterprise class drives will fail. The point is to monitor their goings on over time, and when you start getting errors, start thinking how important that drive failure would be to you. Most drives will self correct some errors and then move the data off that part of the drive reducing the usable size of your drive because it has deemed that part of the drive bad. Eventually, it runs out of places to move things or it just can't read the data. Then you start losing a few bits here or there. A couple bits of a JPG means a few pixels may be out of place, or the time/date/camera info is corrupt but grandma is still there. Maybe the audio track has a new bit of noise you'd never even notice. Without monitoring you'd never notice. Then one day, everything is gone, total drive failure. Or the bits finally do corrupt something really important.

If you do not replace your computer every 2-3 years, then this is an issue for you. And if you bury your head in the sand, you're just kicking the can down the road and hoping you stay lucky.

Not everyone needs an enterprise level of data backup and/or security. If the only things you care about are some photos and maybe documents and you're not a super secret spy man, throw that stuff up into the clouds. Take the laptop and frisbee it as high as it will go outside. Or don't do that and rather just backup everything to Google Drive, Microsoft One Drive, Apple iWhatever, Dropbox, you pick it doesn't matter. The thing is now you have a separate location of a backup. And most likely on a system that is maintained by engineers and professionals and they have multiple copies of your data spread out in multiple places with lots of parity checks and backups. Things "normal people" can't be bothered to do. And when your drive fails, not if but when, all your important stuff can be rescued.

 

If you're not using the Time Machine, you're almost as vulnerable as a Windows user. When my Mac hard drive failed several years ago, I put in a new one, plugged in my Time Machine Drive, and after saying "yes" when it asked if I wanted to restore from there, it was all back like before with all apps, passwords, data, and settings in place. Time Machine isn't the total answer to possible data loss since it can still get stolen or incinerated, but it's infinitely better than nothing.

When I have to make a Windows computer for someone, I now always make a clone using Macrium Reflect And keep that clone inside the new computer, but disconnected. It has saved my bacon several times. That was a decision I made when the drive failed in our on-air computer while I was doing a live radio program and was the only one in the radio station that day.

 

i lost 4 or 5 dells in a few years each before finally switching to mac. they are expensive, but i'm in year six with no issues, other than a few oddities since someone recommended upgrading to the latest o/s.