Oops, it DID show up, and in reply I got the most ***incredible tutorial*** from KYLE that I am sure will benefit other non-geeks like myself who are dealing with hassles sans guru. For my comments on Kyle's tutorial, see his new post.
HB
Yeah, I suspected as much. Guess there's no use hanging on to the next few months just because I paid for them already. They sent me a free disc for Ghost, since I was having such hell with the old GoBack, and damn'f it didn't take over my E drive!
(Excuse CAPS - helps reply stand out)
TRUST ME, I WOULDN'T GO *NEAR* A DEBIT CARD!
I NEVER USE OE. I USE GMAIL AND VERIZON (the latter because it's part of a package).
I'VE TRIED NOT TO, BUT COULDN'T SEE A WAY TO DO IT? CAN I POST FROM A FAKE EMAIL ADDRESS OR NONE? SERIOUSLY, I'VE TRIED TO LOOK INTO THIS. MAYBE YOU CAN HELP?
I THINK I DO HAVE A ROUTER. SOMEONE INSTALLED WIFI ON MY SYSTEM. HOWEVER, I HAVE SEEN NORTON FOIL SEVERAL WORMS AND VIRII.
THANK you much for this heads-up. I have to study it to digest; my few remaining neurons probably can us the exercise!
HB
I agree with you on this; just lack the tech skills, but am working on locating my old guru.
Very good analogy for the non-geek; thank you.
No, it's got lots of room.
I'm guessing you probably > > have a lot of music or video or photos stored on the drive. You have
Uh, unclear. Are you saying that a single HD is easier to back up? Intuitively, sounds right.
When I got my present computer, nearly 6 years ago, I thought about partitioning, but I didn't have the skill, and 40 GB seemed to stretch into the dim horizon. Well, we know better now! I have checked out some Seagates wih 500 GB for $114.00; doesn't sound bad. I understand that it's more eexpensive if you buy complete with cables and manual. Is a non-geek safer doing that than going bare? I read that I HAVE the cables and of course the motherboard. But I want a HD that, as one kind poster put it, lets you just press a button to transfer all existing data.
Whoa. Spending money on a 500GB drive when you have plenty left on your 160GB makes no sense. PC manufacturers set the big partitioned HD trap for many customers.
Memory and backups are unrelated. You got good advice on the memory issue. Remove what caused it - some kind of Norton app - or add memory, or both. Backups, partitioning (usually unnecessary) and recovery strategies are a different issue. As far as a "press a button" method, that probably exists with an external HD/software combo but I don't know anything about it. Probably way expensive too, and it won't be "push button." Don't toss your Norton Ghost CD. It's good stuff when used correctly. Wait a while until you learn more.
--Vic
Hmmm, Most mobo BIOS can do a recovery, all the Lenov(IBM) laptops has a blue button to push for recovery/restore coming from hidden partition, etc. Just bring up the task manager to see what's going on and adjust atart up applications.
There's "recovery" and there's "recovery." Google lenovo restore crash. Doesn't look "push button" to me. Plenty of gotchas with Thinkpads. Back to strategies and goals. You have to define your "recovery" goals. Here's mine.
- If my C: drive crashes I want to put a new one in or swap in an existing drive, then be back real close to where I was in 10 minutes.
- If I get hit by or even suspect a virus I want to be back real close to where I was before the infection in 10 minute.
- I never want to install my OS more than once.
- I never want to install an important app more than once. My strategy has known weaknesses. Everything is on the local box, no external storage. A fire or a lightening strike that gets both hard drives with the stored images blows me out of the water. Maybe I'll address that. Not really enthusiastic about it, but I should at least put my images on an external drive and put that in a different room. I refuse to rent a safe deposit box.
Anyway laptops, desktops, home and corporate all require a strategy that works for the individual. The home desktop has an advantage. When I was toting a corporate Thinkpad and crashed the HD the image that corporate put back needed a lot tweaking to get me back where I had been. Hours worth. I do much better with my home computers. The Thinkpads were good machines and didn't crash often. But *nothing* is entirely "push button" without some upfront work.
Since I was often involved in recovery of various corporate mainframe systems I always covered my ass real well. So when we went to Thinkpad workstations and I had a lot of important data in Office I used the company backup software to back it up. But as usual I verified the backups, and the size growth wasn't right. Like others who even bothered to schedule backups mine were scheduled for the lunch hour, and I never closed Office. I dug into the enterprise-wide backup software logs for my machine and found that Office wasn't backed up if it was running. Duh. The imaging team appreciated hearing that and issued a "directive."
Non-Lan home systems are much more clear cut. Many ways to meet my goals, but I've been using Ghost for years. Some people don't want to go to the effort and have no problem re-installing Windows or losing data. I bet my brother has installed one version or another of Windows a thousand times. I think he actually likes doing it. Different strokes.
--Vic
Hi, Recovery to a known state, back up/restore, save/restore. All the time when I was active or at home I have been using Thinkpads. We have 4 in our home at the moment, 2 desktops, one server. Computers in every floor all networked via wire or dual band wireless. Nothing in the world is perfect. Simply you gotta know what you are doing. I retired in 1996. Is there any major corporation w/o disaster recovery plan with regular staff training? All the places I worked military, commercial, industrial, educational outfits had vaulted backup data kept in more than one place and within
24 hours in most case system will be running again. If hardware suffered a fire or something they take backup data to other operational site. No RAID in your disk susbsystem? My server has, level 5. one drive crash? no sweat it keeps chugging along pull bad drive plug another new one in. I usually do incremental backup, Every 6 months or so, image backup. At home I use DLT tape library on SCSI. What is your specialty in IT world? Trying to impress ordinary Joe, the consumer?
Yep. BTDT. Nothing to do with Higgs though, except to point out there are gotchas all over the place.
So tell Higgs how to RAID his box. I don't think he needs it, but maybe you can convince him.
Not at all. Not me talking about SCSI. Maybe you can convince Higgs to use SCSI. Hardly a "Joe, the consumer" solution. Higgs has to say what he wants before anybody can offer advice. That was my point about goals, and pointing out different needs. And letting him know there is no "push button" recovery solution. If that ruffled your feathers, well, tough shit. My past specialty doesn't matter. My current specialty regarding this thread is meeting my home desktop recovery goals, as I stated them. Higgs might have different goals.
--Vic
Hi, We used to have jokes which goes like this. Answer to smart question is free and welcome. Answer to dumb question will cost you. Most annoying thing in my working days was people lie to cover their a*&, machine never lies. I wasted lot of valuable time because of lying people. Partitioning a big drive does not make much sense. If it crashes everything on it is lost and it has only one moving head arm creating bottle neck for I/O. Instead of 1 TB drive, better idea is to have two 500GB drive. Running system needs strict dicipline. Some day it'll pay a big dividend. Over and Out.
The 160 GB is EXTERIOR.
My main HD is only 40 GB, of which about 80% is Used.
Yes, Norton Security, whole package. Bought few years ago and renewed annually. BUT NOW WHOLE NG IS URGING ME TO DUMP IT AND GO TO AVAST OR SOME OTHER ANTI-VIRUS.
or add memory, or both.
So, good idea to add memory to existing 40GB HD? In earlier posts on this thread, I said that I started 6 years ago with a "big" 256 of memory, then added another 512 a few years ago. (Stupid! I could have bought a Gig for not much more!).
OMG I am losing what's left of my mind!!! Are you saying that Ghost can be used independently of the whole Norton Security package??? IOW, when Norton renewal time comes up in a month or so, if I don't re- up w/Norton, can I still use Ghost?
Please clarify on this; I am getting more & more confused. NOTE THAT OTHERS ARE SAYING THAT THE (TO ME) VALUABLE BACKUP, ETC. FUNCTIONS OF GHOST CAN BE PERFORMED INDEPENDENT OF GHOST BY EXISTING PROGRAMS WITHIN WINDOWS, ETC.
HB
WHY DOES YOUR EXTERNAL HD HAVE TO BE IN A DIFFERENT ROOM? Straight question.
[...snip...]HB
Hmmm, Just don't waste too much money on a box nearing it's obsolescence. Do you know what kinda motherboard you have? Quickest recovery is possible running Raid 1 with two identical HDD. Is your HD controller Raid capable? What brand motherboard? No backup utility will give you a recovery in 10 mins.
But if you DO have a 500GB or 1TB drive, one way to speed it up is to partition it.
Jikes. your system disk should be 40+ % free. You are on the brink of disaster. Mine is 80GB,25% used,since 2004, and about 150 programs/packs installed. When you get near 60%, get a new harddisk, and clone your old disk onto it.
I'd be replacing the 40 with something a bit bigger
I gb of ram is almost a requirement to run more than one app under XP.
Yes you can still use Ghost. I'm not a big fan of it, but it is about the only Norton product I'll use.
Simply to secure the data. A lightening strike can wipe out every hard drive in your computer, and externals connected to it, and so can a fire. Just talking about where you store it. Unplug it and put it elsewhere if you're using it for backups and want to be safe about it.
--Vic
=3D=3D You have received some very good advice from three or four people. Deep sixing Norton AV using an uninstall utility from their website should be number one on your priority list. I will never allow McAfee AV or Norton AV on any computer of mine ever again. I use Avast FREE and it has performed well for years but there are others just as good. If you choose to ignore most of the suggestions, that is your prerogative but would be a mistake IMHO. =3D=3D
750MB is completely inadequate. I don't even know how you get that figure these days!
Buy memory. Everything else is sort of OK.
Jeff
Buy more memory. Buy more memory. Buy more memory. This is wayyyy too little. Everything wants more memory these days, FF in particular.
Then upgrade your main HD or move virtual memory and and as much else to another drive. 40GB is too small these days.
Oh, and buy more memory. Or turn off the flaming alert and learn to live with a slowed down computer because it is using the swap file.
Buy more memory. In this case Norton is right, computer memory is too low.
Did I forget to mention buying more memory?
Jeff PS. You need more memory.
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