Man, I hate computers

[KF0RT]

So, I guess it's been maybe two years since I've formatted this thing, but I think it's time...

Decided today was backup day. I keep all my "personal" data in one folder with many subfolders. That way, I only have to back up the one directory structure. Everything else can be trashed and reinstalled from scratch, providing I can find the original install CD's. About 50 gig of data, and I back it up (semi-regularly) to an external (USB) 120 Gig hard drive, using a single xcopy command.

Went to do this today, and it appears there's something amiss with my USB 2.0 setup. Gets a ways into it then the whole box locks up. Seems to be working on the old 1.1 USB channel, but man, it's slow.

Plus, the machine has had two years worth of checking out ham software and installing/uninstalling various pieces of dubious software and hardware. All in all, two years is a record for me. But it's no fun starting over because it will take months to get things back to "normal." Not to mention the day or so it will take just to get things mostly working again.

Blecchh.

Anyone know of a good "disk cleaner" program that will cure all the ills while I saw logs and dream about being on a beach somewhere? Sure would be nice to have a silver bullet for this...

73, Rob
JustVentin', CO

[N7RJD]

Problem with running a lot of the various types disk cleaner programs unattended is when they popup boxes asking things like "Are you sure you really want to delete this file?" Leave it run all night, wake up just knowing it will be done and find one of those on the screen with a blue bar showing 3% done.....now we're talking frustration.

[KA9VQF]

A long time ago I bought a tape drive backup system. I put it on my new at the time P120 windows machine. Every Friday it would backup pretty much everything on the hard drive.

I had about 60 tapes full of backups,… I thought.

It turned out that none of the stuff I thought was on the tapes was usable unless it was put back with the software that came with the tape drive.

When the virus I thought I was protecting my machine from with all these the backup tapes ate the software on the HD I was screwed.

It didn’t help to reinstall the tape drive software, I guess the bug that got the machine was imbedded enough that there was no getting it out. It would reinstall itself and eat the drive again. I put in a new HD and was afraid to install anything from the backup tapes because I didn’t know when the virus had lodged itself in my system. I was pretty sure it was on the backup tapes too.

I used what I thought was the best virus scrubber at the time. Norton didn’t do much to help the situation. I finally did a clean install and went on from there. I suppose if I had had a real computer guru around they could have fixed it.

[N2NKW]

Quote[/b] (KF0RT @ July 08 2006,19:09)]So, I guess it's been maybe two years since I've formatted this thing, but I think it's time...

Decided today was backup day. I keep all my "personal" data in one folder with many subfolders. That way, I only have to back up the one directory structure. Everything else can be trashed and reinstalled from scratch, providing I can find the original install CD's. About 50 gig of data, and I back it up (semi-regularly) to an external (USB) 120 Gig hard drive, using a single xcopy command.

Went to do this today, and it appears there's something amiss with my USB 2.0 setup. Gets a ways into it then the whole box locks up. Seems to be working on the old 1.1 USB channel, but man, it's slow.

Plus, the machine has had two years worth of checking out ham software and installing/uninstalling various pieces of dubious software and hardware. All in all, two years is a record for me. But it's no fun starting over because it will take months to get things back to "normal." Not to mention the day or so it will take just to get things mostly working again.

Blecchh.

Anyone know of a good "disk cleaner" program that will cure all the ills while I saw logs and dream about being on a beach somewhere? Sure would be nice to have a silver bullet for this...

73, Rob
JustVentin', CO
I try to do a fresh re-install once every 6 or 9 months.

My external hard drive has both Firewire and USB ports on it. If your computer and external HD have firewire, try using those. If your computer has no firewire ports but your External HD does, try getting a firewire port card. I just installed a usb2.0/firewire card in my computer a month ago as my old usb ports were 1.1. It's pretty simple.

I was thinking about the backup situation myself. I got to thinking about my install habits. WHen I download an application from the net, I put it in the Applications folder I made in My Documents. If I can, I also try to get any program cd's and make images of them and put them in a subfolder inside of Applications. That doesn't always work though due to more and more cd's being copy protected. When I backup, I just backup my Applications folder and thats it. Everything else goes. Does anyone else do this at all?

One thing I have been thinking of but never tried is, when doing the actual install of a program, putting the install somewhere outside of "C" drive. I was thinking of making a Installed Programs folder inside of My Documents. I know technically it will still be in C drive but they wont get mixed up with other programs inside C:Program Files or C:Windows. I think that would make it easier to backup any important programs without having to hunt them down in C Drive I think.

When it comes to cleaning out folders after performing an uninstall of any experimented or temporary programs, I wonder if it would be easier? I know some uninstalls don't completely uninstall programs. They always leave a root folder behind along with some extras somewhere in My Programs or Windows Folder. Does anyone think this is a good idea or might it cause problems?

[WA5KRP]

Quote[/b] (KF0RT @ July 08 2006,19:09)]Anyone know of a good "disk cleaner" program that will cure all the ills while I saw logs and dream about being on a beach somewhere? #Sure would be nice to have a silver bullet for this...
I can paint this bad boy silver if thatzwutchawant, pally:



http://www.delta-education.com/images/products/1305556.jpg



WA5KRP
Alnico, Texas

[K0RGR]

I have children and occasional houseguests who seem to enjoy destroying my PCs. I have 5 of them online right now with more in the wings. The one in the living room gets trashed fairly often. One of the kids seems to attract spyware whenever he logs on. Another one keeps loading drivers for a video camera so he can talk to his family in Germany - and it blows up Windows every time.

So far, I have confidence in the backup products from Xpoint. Every time the kid blows up the 'family' computer, I issue a three-fingered salute and answer yes to the question that asks if I want to restore from an Xpoint backup. In about 20 minutes, it is 2004 again, when the system was new and had only essential software on it. I also have it on CD in case of really bad infestations requiring the hard drives to be scratched and reformatted. The fellow who told me about Xpoint had the whole thing set up on a diskette that would completely wipe and low-level format the hard drive before restoring from the Xpoint backup which is in a hidden partition on the hard drive. Unfortunately, I don't know what he was using to do the disk wipe.

When I can, I make use of the Windows recovery program first - but it's usually best around here to just wipe it and start over. I need to do that with this computer - it's getting pretty unreliable at startup.

[VE7NOT]

I keep all my stuff on my E drive. 80 Gig external. As it is even with mega huge programs like fs2000 (with 4 gigs of add ons) and about 12 ham progams and 980 song/47 videos I still have a huge amount left over for my wife and foster daughter to use. Now my young kids only use C drive and then can mess it up all the want cause:

I have the installation cds

I have every useful item on the other drive.

Firefox is on E drive so the kids have to ask permission before I hook it up http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

Simple.. when done I disconnect the usb cab,l and take it to my hiding spot.

[k4kyv]

I have an external USB2 100 gig harddrive. I manually back up my data files by dragging and dropping copies of My Documents, user profile data,bookmarks, e-mail folders and desktop files into the external drive.

I have automatic backup software available, but have never installed it. I keep the external HDD turned off via the power switch except for when I am actually doing backups.

If I want an additional backup copy of a file that's not too large, I use my hotmail account. They will now accept up to 10 mb attachments. I simply attach the file and e-mail it to myself, and store the message in a Hotmail folder I created just for that purpose.

[KF0RT]

Think I'm gonna try uninstalling and reinstalling the USB 2.0 card. Got everything backed up using the slow USB port; only took a couple hours (to do a 10 minute job).

I do love those external drives, though. This machine has a firewire port, but none of my external drives support it.

Last fresh install was on October 12, 2003, so definately a record.

73, Rob

[al2i]

Family room has the same Windows XP computer running continously and used almost continously since 2001 -- 5 users, lots of demo software, file sharing, etc. All my tax records, kids homework, business files. It has survived every known virus, windstorms, power crashes, lightening and forest fires. I'm typing on it now. You guys are wimps.

[N0WVA]

Is there any advantage to having two computers; one to keep all personal stuff and one with just basic stuff for internet?