Never Give Up

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Pontius Navigator
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Never Give Up

#1 Post by Pontius Navigator » Sat Dec 21, 2019 2:45 pm

A few days ago my computer failed to boot after the logo, just a rotating circle of dots. Using online help I got into the recovery programs. I went through every option. I could get to C: prompt and see all my files listed. I tried restore to an earlier restore point; it ran but failed as I might have an antivirus running. As I couldn't stop the AV the final option was a complete reload. I am pleased to say that failed as I don't have an original disk.

I tried Safe Boot but all the advice required being in Windows in the first place.

One last try and I found 'press and hold the shift key as you restart. This out me into a different screen with factory reset as the option. This time, with the warning that new programs would be deleted but data would be preserved looked a good option.

It restored and then updated back to the latest Win 10. Now began the reinstall process. I found on the desk top an html file listing all the programs deleted. Some had hot links to previous download files. Slowly slowly I am rebuilding my machine and have not had to use any of my backups.

My machine may be a few years old but the nearest spec replacement is £330 and has a 1 Tb HDD vice 500, but doesn't have an optical drive. Cheaper machines have only 64 or 128 SSD, no optical drive, no Ethernet port etc just to keep prices down.

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ian16th
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Re: Never Give Up

#2 Post by ian16th » Sat Dec 21, 2019 2:50 pm

Pontius Navigator wrote:
Sat Dec 21, 2019 2:45 pm
Cheaper machines have only 64 or 128 SSD, no optical drive, no Ethernet port etc just to keep prices down.
I put a SSD in my desktop.
It was wonderfully fast, but it packed up in just over a year.

Looking things up, this seems to be quite a normal sort of lifespan.

So I went back to HDD, it is slower but reliable.
Cynicism improves with age

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Fox3WheresMyBanana
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Re: Never Give Up

#3 Post by Fox3WheresMyBanana » Sat Dec 21, 2019 2:59 pm

My SSD has been running for 8 years with no problems. I bought a quality brand, not the cheapest. I use it for the operating system and common programs, but store all changing files in an HDD, which is the recommended way to use them. If one has only one disc, then it's recommended to stick with HDD. The great advantage of the SSD is the rapid startup.

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CharlieOneSix
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Re: Never Give Up

#4 Post by CharlieOneSix » Sat Dec 21, 2019 3:06 pm

I have SSDs in three PC's for the OS and programs, HDDs for anything else. One SSD has been running for over four years, the others slightly less. They are Samsung EVOs and have a warranty of 5 years or 75 to 300 terabytes written (TBW) depending on size. Surprised yours only lasted a year, Ian. Surely regardless of make it had a warranty of more than a year.
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ian16th
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Re: Never Give Up

#5 Post by ian16th » Sat Dec 21, 2019 3:07 pm

Fox3WheresMyBanana wrote:
Sat Dec 21, 2019 2:59 pm
I bought a quality brand, not the cheapest.
Difficult to really know who builds what today.

My SSD had a HP badge on it, but who made the memory chips?
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Slasher

Re: Never Give Up

#6 Post by Slasher » Sat Dec 21, 2019 10:25 pm

My XP crashed a couple of weeks ago and tried every trick in the book. Nothing.

Luckily a mate in the ME had an old installation disk which was despatched along with the scheduled batch of ‘shine. After i had installed all the setup exe’s and data xferred from the backup HD it’s now running normally.

Like you say never give up!

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llondel
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Re: Never Give Up

#7 Post by llondel » Sat Dec 21, 2019 10:54 pm

I have an SSD running the /usr partition on my machine, it's a few years old now. Hopefully it will be reliable as it's mostly read, not written to, and it's writing that causes wear on an SSD. that gives me a good program load speed but keeps data and stuff that gets rewritten frequently elsewhere.

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