a series of unfortunate events

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unionrdr

unionrdr

Homebrewer, author & air gun collector
HBT Supporter
Joined
Feb 19, 2011
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Location
Sheffield
Boy, what a friggin' month so far! car still failed NO part of e-check, needs minimum of head job...maybe rings too, so new head doesn't blow rings. Then one CC double charged on payments, so called & getting money back in a couple weeks that broke the bank, geez. So no money on my phone yet this month.
Then the hard drive went out Saturday morning, so wife & middle son going to Best Buy to look at a new all-in-one computer for my father's day present! These new all-in-one comps look pretty decent. Using the Toshiba laptop I bought her a year or so ago atm.
Looking at their online site, at a Dell Inspirion all-in-one desktop with 19.5" touch-screen, 4GB memory, 1T hard drive, 2.3GHz Intel 6th generation i3 core speed, the usual built-in webcam, Intel HD graphics 520. USB 2.0 & 3.0, 64 bit operating system, same type of optical do-it-all DVD-RW, CD-RW, etc drive as the Gateway, blue tooth, monitor 1600 x 900 HD+. Built-in wireless Ethernet LAN too. All for 580 bucks. With 12 month financing on my Card & 5% back.
Sounds pretty good to me!? Amazing how computers, desktops in particular have changed since the Gateway GT 5438 was new? Printer fubared a while back too, so instead of a new hard drive, I said to heck with it, since wife & son wanted to buy me a new one for father's day! Hearkens back to how Sharon & I used to out-do each other on valentine's & sweetest day gifts for each other. Old system had the same or comparable parts, but it's old, outdated & falling apart besides. I an kinda hacked that I hadn't saved some of the latest book stuff on flash drives before it fubared, though. Damn. Got external drive stuff from 5/4/16 to help out, besides the 2 flash drives for back up stuff, at least. So I should be able to get pretty close to where I left off? I'm curious what y'all think of these new-fangled contraptions?:rockin::mug:
 
Between a laptop, a desktop, two tablets, two phones, a router, two access points, two wireless video bridges, two wired video bridges, an xbox, and a wireless 2DS, ...

I am sick and fvking TIRED of these "new-fangled contraptions" and miss the old days of "listen to the fvcking radio" or watch one of 13 channels on the TV (after it's done warming up for 5 minutes). Or, god forbid, going outside to do something!
 
What is going on with the drive? I think the biggest question I have is, Does it make a clicking noise when you power it up? Does the computer BIO recognize it at all?
 
Yeah, I can dig your rap! But, being a writer, I'm jonesin' not being able to write when I finally got going again...now only to start gain with a couple of'em. At least, one, anyway. The other will have to have the re-write done again. Damn. I also have a big Belkin router...idk if the built in one on the new one will need it to send signal to the others, including game consoles. We need to weed the gardens out front yet...
** The drive makes noise when it starts, like a blower spooling up. Then some hard clicking later...then stops. It has I/O errors. So I couldn't get the repair disk to even boot past the " starting windows" screen. Couldn't hit a lick with it in some 3 Days. I gave up on it. Some $580 for the new one I was looking at.
***PSS- My wife & son brought me back an HP Pavilion with 1T hard drive, 23" HD+ monitor, ...boy, is this thing fast! Was on sale for like $550! Learning Windows 10 is gonna be fun, though. But boy, is this big letterbox monitor easy to see, compared to the square 15" I was using! Still have some setup to figure out from backup files though?...
 
A good backup system is a must. I have been using CrashPlan for home for a while and I like it. It's automatic and keeps the directories I want to save backed up without my intervention. You would need a separate drive to back up to, and/or they have a remote backup location (cloud storage) option.

For Windows 10 I recommend just playing with it. I haven't spent much time on it, but when I was checking it out I think the user interface is not bad. It's slightly more different for an administrator, but nothing as difficult as Windows 8 was. Make sure to do a google search on how to clean up all of the privacy concerns and reporting that it will be doing be default.

A drive that spins up, clicks and then shuts down is very likely unrecoverable. They call that the "click of death" and I doubt the average computer repair guy could deal with it. It may be possible to have a professional recovery service get some of the data back, but that would be very expensive.

With the right screwdriver you could remove the rare earth magnets inside, though. I have a nice collection at work and at home. At work the guys use them to affix dams to the EDM machine to contain the flushing oil, or for setting up temporary chute guides for the plastic injection machines. There are always interesting things you can do with them.
 
Homercidal said:
A good backup system is a must. I have been using CrashPlan for home for a while and I like it. It's automatic and keeps the directories I want to save backed up without my intervention. You would need a separate drive to back up to, and/or they have a remote backup location (cloud storage) option.

For Windows 10 I recommend just playing with it. I haven't spent much time on it, but when I was checking it out I think the user interface is not bad. It's slightly more different for an administrator, but nothing as difficult as Windows 8 was. Make sure to do a google search on how to clean up all of the privacy concerns and reporting that it will be doing be default.

A drive that spins up, clicks and then shuts down is very likely unrecoverable. They call that the "click of death" and I doubt the average computer repair guy could deal with it. It may be possible to have a professional recovery service get some of the data back, but that would be very expensive.

With the right screwdriver you could remove the rare earth magnets inside, though. I have a nice collection at work and at home. At work the guys use them to affix dams to the EDM machine to contain the flushing oil, or for setting up temporary chute guides for the plastic injection machines. There are always interesting things you can do with them.
Click to expand...
I still have the 2T external hard drive, took a lot of files off it. Just can't get all my BS2 setup, recipe, etc. files to import? Otherwise, I got most of my stuff back,...as of 5/4/16 anyway. Lost my latest book, though. A romance novel from the man's perspective, & no weird stuff this time at all. Oh well, I'll keep looking. Working on Tippy Tippy Tappy II; Historic Styles & struggles again today. Downloaded latest Open Office, 4.1.2, something like that.
I've got drop box set up finally, besides the external 2T drive. Gotta set up the cloud, too.And the external is a USB 3.0 device, with the 3.0 plug in wire, coded blue inside the socket end. White inside is supposed to be USB 2.0. That drive is way faster now, wow!
And yeah, it clicked, then clicked & made a grinding sound, sort of like a weed eater stuffed full of grass & weeds. I also transferred Avast! to this new machine.

agrazela said:
What kind of car?
Click to expand...
It's my 1994 Ford Probe SE tuner. Turns out compression is low. That low oil pressure reading, th8is time, wasn't clogged galleries. It was the pump going south, so Seafoam didn't help much. Here's a pic or two...

 
Sorry for the computer. No help there.
As for the car how far off are Nox readings. A new converter can usually cover that up. And a little rubbing alcohol in the tank. Half bottle.
 
NO readings were still like 1820 or so. Dang. Needs a valve job at least. But that increasing compression could blow out what's left of the rings, so I'll have to do the old in-car rebuild like the old days. I've got cylinder hones & spring compressors. I used to rebuild my small blocks & hotrod'em. The car gas newer stainless steel custom exhaust with the GT converter, which has 2 1/4" inlet/outlet pipes, thus acting like a high flow converter on the 2.0L SE. Did the Seafoam bit on tank, intake & crankcase. Just learned this morning how to clear temp files & such in Win10...
 
I finally got the BS2 files in Documents re-associated with BS2 program to get everything back together in Win10 HP system. An HP tech also showed me how to right click on start menu icon to get a Win7-like menu to make getting to certain functions easier. Like disk cleanup & the like. Way harder in Win10's style.
I also found that PDF's can be input to the Kindle Reader App, but not by the command prompt in the app. You have to get the PDF in Documents, then right click to search for reader app, choosing Kindle as the reader. The PDF will now show up on your Kindle library list. I also made a separate folder for PDF's in the Kindle library to keep them together. This also means my more private books with the cover at the top page can be input to Kindle library as well. It makes a nice place to keep PDF's together...
 
unionrdr said:
Translation please?...^^???^^^
Click to expand...

516A6NYXHFL.jpg
 
unionrdr said:
Yeah, I can dig your rap! But, being a writer, I'm jonesin' not being able to write when I finally got going again....
Click to expand...

GilaMinumBeer said:
Lemony Snicket.
Click to expand...

unionrdr said:
Translation please?...^^???^^^
Click to expand...

GilaMinumBeer said:
***Insert image of another horrible Jim Carrey film adaptation to a great children book story which I refuse to display***
Click to expand...


He's a writer!!!! You can't link the image to the movie version, it gives no justice to the original!

For clarification unionrdr, here:
latest
 
Haven't seen the books in ages, so I forgot all about them. Got a new computer for Father's day from SWMBO with 1TB hard drive, quad core & "Bo"...whatever that is? 23" HD+ monitor too! sure makes it easier to read with trifocals...
Car still runs great, just won't pass that one pesky test@#$^*&&^*%$:mad:
 
Well, I just completed the last piece of the puzzle. My Best Buy card membership got me early access to a sale for this Friday. I save more by buying today. $150 printer for $60! Replaces fubared Lexmark X5470 all-in-one printer with wireless Cannon all-in one. Since my new HP has Wi-Fi & Blue Tooth, it'll be fine. Also works with new style phones to direct print from them. Takes 2 different size SD cards as well. And since it's black & silver, it'll match the new desk & computer perfectly! I'll have my son pick it up at local store in a while. HOORAH! :ban:
 
Got some bad news from Canon support on the phone. My Powershot S2 IS will only take an SD card of 2GB (regular SD card) maximum. So I'll be limited to 8 minutes or so of video at a time. I'd have to get the S3 or newer to use the Extreme Pro 32GB max...dammit. :mad:
 
Geez, this is looking like my blog or something? Things are looking up. I went on Amazon to look around for any Canon cameras ( hey, I like Canon) that'd be able to use this 32GB Extreme Pro SDHC memory card I traded the 64GB one for. I thought it'd work in my Powershot S2 IS, but no. So went in search of one that would. I found a used, but VGC Canon Powershot SX500, with a few goodies. $104.99, but $50 off if I got approved for their Amazon/Chase card, which I did. It cost me only $50.48 for the camera, case, batteries, & cables. That's more than $9 cheaper than the S2! Now I'll finally be able to shoot more than 8 minutes of HD stereo video at one time.
The Powershot S2 IS has been a good camera, & I wanted another one at least as good with the same or better features. Gonna give SWMBO the S2, since she wanted a nice DSLR. :ban::rockin:
 
Dang HP support tech screwed up my system trying to restore, it failed. Gotta start all over again with backup from today. Bloody 'ell! :mad:
 
My newer Belkin Router was the least of my problems. One saving grace. But I backed it up to the external hard drive, I got the Gold package from Beersmith on sale for $9.99, the bucks off. All their packages are on sale right now! My gold package saves 125 recipes, & now the notes as well! With the new Canon printer & camera, my whole system is new. So no more problems with that...:ban:
 
I am still having issues. I am currently only getting 16mbps download speeds despite being on a tier that provides 150mbps. Originally assumed it was my modem. Called Cox to verify and they say all looks good from their end. I need to wire the modem directly to the pc (bypass the router) to verify. If that proves to be all clear then I get to dig through my router, piece by piece, to see what could be choking my speeds. I've done that once already and nothing seems out of place.

The real PITA is the backup config file from the old router would not load into the new router, despite being the same brand. Just my luck. With the old router I was getting the speeds I pay for. FML.

Turns out we have 23 devices in total that link into my network. bless.
 
I've got a cable modem rigged to the router. Band width sucks when there's a lot of traffic. Plus the new Win10 Edge browser has a couple glitches even the HP support tech couldn't figure out...~@@$$#^*&^(^^%$%!!!
 

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