Kevin's Watch

How did you tell your drives were failing? I've been trying to figure out why my PC keeps freezing lately...

Started when I was trying to download an update for a Steam game (The Long Dark, might be your sort of game actually) and the download just wasn't working. After a few tries, Steam decided that the game wasn't installed, and re-installing failed too.

Then I got a few of those "disk needs to be checked" screens when booting.

If you open your command prompt you can get a basic disk health status by going to the relevant drive and entering:
But that's very basic, and will only show something if the drive is currently having a problem. Often (especially when just booted up) the drive will behave fine and no errors will show.

My HWiNFO also showed "Disk Warning: Yes" under the status for my drives. (Both drives were 10 years+ old though. )

Again, also not necessarily 100% reliable for the same reason.

Seagate offers a free prog to test your drive for errors that you can get here: https://www.seagate.com/gb/en/support/d ... /seatools/

You can also check your Windows Event Log to see the causes of any recent crashes etc.

--A

Wow so much cleverness

I'm waiting for the prices on high-capacity solid-state drives to come down a bit more before I add or change anything - should be viable, barring any emergency meltdowns or whatnot.

Yeah SSD drives are the way to go, but right now they're like big drives used to be back in the day in terms of cost. And mostly their capacity isn't great either.

(Haha, my first hard drive was 20MB and now a 250GB SSD is too small...)

--A

My first computer ever was a Mac 4mb .. purchased in 1994 .. got it when at Uni ... soooo nothing now

USB sticks are bigger now .. used floppys

Ok Im exhausted .. been windy AF today so have been clearing away fallen branches and leaves .. and now done. Had to clear the debris as it fell in front of the wood shed and we have to fill it tomorrow.

Haha, got my first computer in 1987. It didn't have a hard drive. Booted up on a DOS 2.3 floppy.

--A

I'm getting a notice to delete a previous version of windows to free up some disk space on my c drive.

Its kind of irritating. I have plenty of room on my d drive. Beyond games, I'm cautious of what I should try to transfer there though.

Oh! First hard drives! (Maybe a good one for the "Baker's Dozen Game." )
Mine was 420mb.

I remember wanting Linux so bad - but I'd need to keep Windows on one partition, add Linux on another.
Imagine my excitement when I found out about Minix!
Minix was AMAZING. It required SO little space and it was (basically) UNIX.

Eventually, I spent SO much time in Windows Explorer finding stuff to delete ("scrimping and saving" HD space) that I made a bigger partition and got Linux instead of Minix.

Sorus- making what? Digital art? Videos? Audio tracks? *inquiring minds want to know. ...inquiring minds... so nosey...*

First hard drive? 10 mb in a PC-XT back in '83.

Damelon wrote:I'm getting a notice to delete a previous version of windows to free up some disk space on my c drive.

Its kind of irritating. I have plenty of room on my d drive. Beyond games, I'm cautious of what I should try to transfer there though.

You should take this to Av

Damelon wrote:I'm getting a notice to delete a previous version of windows to free up some disk space on my c drive.

Its kind of irritating. I have plenty of room on my d drive. Beyond games, I'm cautious of what I should try to transfer there though.

Can move anything that's pure data. Can't move installed programs unless you uninstall them from C, and re-install on D.

Removing those windows.old folders won't hurt anything though, assuming you don't still keep docs etc. in them. If you do, just move what you need out and delete them.

--A

Im going to copy and paste all this advice in case anything weird computer wise happens

It's the day before Mother's Day here so I'll be going this morning to the cemetery to get a hanging basket of flowers for her.

Damelon wrote:It's the day before Mother's Day here so I'll be going this morning to the cemetery to get a hanging basket of flowers for her.

Happy Monday folks. Cold and wet here, and of course, I'm at work. Sucks to be me I guess.

--A

Beautiful day today .. had to pack up .. left on a job interstate and cut Trevs hair, straightened up at home so he and the anjibals will survive .. now chilling with a new bunch of fur kids .. very sweet kitty on my lap .. one terribly matted that Ill attend to tomorrow .. lucky I brought my grooming kit with me cheers queers

How many critters are ya caring for there?

And also, sky, how does the initial hand-off go?
Like, do you show up and the owner talks to you for 20 minutes about each of the different pets and/or livestock, and hands you the keys?
Or you've usually communicated & arranged things beforehand?

I like to be able to imagine what it's like... also, I remember how hard it is for my family to leave on vacation / holiday / a trip... even just wrapping up work responsibilities & getting the car packed.
I just imagine some of your customers saying, "SORRY - I have to finish getting everything in the car!" or, alternativelly, "SORRY! I can't take much time to show you around - I have to catch my plane. Text me with any questions."

I've had a crazy, sort of amazing weekend.
We had a birthday party for the older kiddo.
Some years we've actually SKIPPED having a party b/c, well... it involves pesky work like cleaning the whole house, & because I've stressed so much.
Even just a month or two ago, I told THREE different people in one week, "No; you can't come in." (because the apartment was messy.)

Cleaning the house & getting ready -did- involve conflict, but...
It's kind of thrilling to take a risk, to push through and do something unfamiliar.
And there were unexpected resources provided for me on the other side.
At the actual party, literally every adult who came brought food.
They washed my dishes, too. It was awesome.