Computer problems and/or advice 2013

[Maggi Young]

Crumbs- 18 months seems very youthful to me- though in technical terms it's probably geriatric. Had you thought of fetching it up a Via Ferrata and threatening to chuck it into space? That should terrify it into action.
If Alan and Co. don't come up with a rescue plan you may just have time to write a note to Santa......

[johnralphcarpenter]

Microsoft were very helpful to me - there is a phone number on their help website. I was experiencing very slow loading, constant crashes of Internet Explorer, and a refusal  to install updates. They tried various things by taking remote control and eventually downloaded and reinstalled Windows 7 for me. Took three days in all but their people in India were very patient!

[Alan_b]

What next apart from a sledgehammer? Reformat the hard disc?

I see a lot of quite new hard discs that have a very short life.  My guess is that that is your problem.

Make a back-up copy of all your documents, music, photos etc. to an external hard drive or a memory stick or a "cloud" storage server.
As the computer begins to start, press the F8 key repeatedly to bring up the options menu and choose 'Repair my computer' at the top of the list.
Follow the instructions here  https://kb.wisc.edu/page.php?id=6565 for "from the Windows CD" missing out the first 4 steps and starting at stage 5.
The chkdsk program typically takes about an hour to run through all five stages.  If it reports more than a few bad sectors and/or runs so slowly at some points that it takes many hours to complete then your hard disk needs to be replaced (although the operation may work as a short-term fix).
On a few computers the drive partition you need to check does not get mapped to the normal letter C.  You should perhaps also run Dir C: from the command prompt and look for the normal Windows, Users, Program Files folders to verify that you are checking the correct partition.

Post back to report your results. 

[Martinr]

Thanks Alan, ran it from desktop (started in safe mode) and it took about 1.75 hours . 'replaced bad clusters in two files', several pauses of several minutes while checking free space (235gb of this).

reported 8 bad clusters and 32kb of data in bad sectors then, as I was writing the results down it decided to restart windows all on its own.

Next step is to go back to a series of restarts to see if it's stable and then try loading windows updates.

Any comments on the results?

I then ran a system health check from 'advanced tools' deep in the depths of the control panel. It has flags set for potential drive failure 

[Alan_b]

You cannot check your C: drive from Windows if the Windows drive is your C: drive.  Perhaps you scheduled a disk check on start-up?  This is fine except that the results disappear as soon as the scan finishes and then you have to hunt them down in the Event Log afterwards. 

8 bad clusters indicates some deterioration in the hard drive but nothing too major so far.  The time taken seems reasonable.  So I would be inclined to leave the hard drive in place but run the same check every few weeks to make sure the bad clusters are not increasing in number too rapidly.  Or there could be areas on the drive that are not quite dead but which are very difficult for the computer to read - in which case you will still have problems.  But if you are lucky the computer should now run normally, at least in the short term.

In the mid to long term you probably need to replace the hard drive.  I would clone the old drive to a new one but that requires special software and a second computer.  If you made recovery discs when the computer was new (as you would have been nagged to do)  you should be able to use those to reset the computer to its factory state after installing a new hard drive.

[Martinr]

Thanks Alan, alas back in trouble almost immediately so new drive purchased and fitted, Windows now loading.....watch this space.

Believe it or not I'm one of those people who actually do what their computer tells them and create the necessary back ups...how sad is that

Great place this forum, more useful advice than Samsung product Support and PC World Know How combined.

cheers

[Martinr]

Going OK but oh the stress....I assumed the Samsung windows recovery disc would include the basic drivers for the machine...oh no....so on to the desk top, find the WiFi driver, download it, put it on a stick, load it onto the laptop...ah internet access. We're getting there

[ranunculus]

Going OK but oh the stress....I assumed the Samsung windows recovery disc would include the basic drivers for the machine...oh no....so on to the desk top, find the WiFi driver, download it, put it on a stick, load it onto the laptop...ah internet access. We're getting there

As they say in Eden; 'An Apple day takes all the stress away'.

[Martinr]

So, apple hard drives never fail?

You know you're never going to convert me

[Martinr]

More seriously, I note Apple had problems with Seagate drives a year or so ago. the one I've just removed is also a Seagate drive. Glad the new one isn't!

[Alan_b]

....I assumed the Samsung windows recovery disc would include the basic drivers for the machine...

These days you are generally prompted to create a set of discs that duplicate the contents of the recovery partition on the hard drive.  Since these are typically about 10GB in size that's several DVDs worth.  If discs are supplied with the machine there is often a Windows disc and a separate drivers disc.

I don't think that Seagate are significantly worse than any other manufacturer with regard to drive reliability.  I hope the machine now performs as it should; there will be over one hundred Windows updates to install. 

[Martinr]

Sadly no drivers disc but he ho I'll find them as I need them. I owe you a pint or three Alan. Just finishing the 100 plus windows updates and got all my data back on the machine.

cheers

Martin

[Ian Y]

Good old Admin Fred has been at it again adding another dimension to the forum in the form of an app called Tapatalk.
This app allows much easier navigation around forums and other social media from mobile devices.
For most of us using computers we will not even be aware that that this feature is now enabled, it makes no change - but if you are using a tablet, such as an Ipad, or smart phone simply go to the app store and download the Tapatalk app, lauch it and see for yourself how it works. It is very intuitive and easy to find your way around and you can do everything you can from a computer.
We hope that this may broaden our appeal to a younger generation – it will certainly let them access the forum in a way designed around mobile devices.
I also take this opportunity to say congratulations, and a huge thank you, to Admin, Fred Carrie on being made an Honorary Vice President of the SRGC in recognition of all his work in spearheading and driving the SRGC’s online presence. No matter what content, articles, forums, pictures, journals etc. we had without Fred the enabler it would simply not happen.

[mark smyth]

I'm buying a new digital recorder to record the goings on in my nest boxes. The options are to have no installed hard drive, buy one with a hard drive included or buy my own hard drive off Amazon.

I can buy a 2TB HD from Amazon for the same price as buying a digital recorder with a 1TB hard drive included

How easy is it to install a hard drive?

[Alan_b]

You're in the wrong year here, Mark - it's 2014.

Hard drives come in two sizes, 3.5" for desktop computers and 2.5" for laptop computers.  Provided you get the correct size then actually installing one should not be a problem.