Tag: operating system

Reformat Fun Time

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily BlogLeave a comment

I just love to reformat my hard drive and start over from scratch.  Okay so that’s a lie, but it is nice to start fresh every now and then when my computer becomes so slow and even using crap cleaner and defragmenting doesn’t help.

The first thing you want to do before reformatting your hard drive is to back up all of your files either onto DVD’s, any cloud service or a back up hard drive.  I chose to use a back up hard drive because I don’t really feel like having to copy all of the files from DVDs or having to download all of my files again.  I won’t have to do anything with a back up hard drive, I’d just leave all the files there because they are easily accessible if I need them.  I’ve already done that, although I had a little issue when moving files around that resulted in panic and using Recuva.  See my last post.

The second step is to reformat my hard drive, but making sure I pick the correct hard drive, you know, the one that has my current operating system, not the back up hard drive, because talk about a nightmare.  UGH!

The UPS tracking says it will arrive tomorrow between 10:45 a.m. and 2:45 p.m. which means I can start reformatting either tonight before I go to bed, or when I wake up early in the morning.  I like to be prepared so I can just pop the DVD in the drive and get the show on the road, because the sooner I install the new operating system, the sooner I can get back to doing the thing I love to do, which is check Facebook and Twitter, despite the fact that I can do that on my Chromebook, Nook HD+ and my phone.  Could someone remind me why I even still use a computer? :p

I’m just kidding, of course I have a computer so I can play EverQuest, blog, money management, print packing slips and labels for my Etsy shop among many other things.  It’s not just about Facebook, although that’s mostly what I use it for.

I was hesitant to get Windows 8.1, but now I’m kind of excited to start over with a new operating system.  This should be fun.

Recuva from @Piriform

On By Michel McDonaldIn Computer, Daily Blog1 Comment

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I’ve been making backups of my documents from my hard drive to my backup hard drive because I am getting ready to reformat my hard drive to install Windows 8.1. Instead of copying all my files, I moved them so that they were no longer on my hard drive, well, I learned the hard way that that was a huge mistake.

On the backup hard drive, in order for me to get to the My Documents folder, I had to go through several other folders, so I wanted to make it so when I went into the D drive, I would immediately see the My Documents folder. You see, my backup hard drive used to be my main drive, so it still has the Windows installation on it, so I had to go through documents and settings. Anyway, I tried moving the My Documents folder and an error occurred with moving one file and the moving stopped which for some reason deleted everything in the My Documents folder from My Pictures down. Ouch!

So I went into full panic mode. I googled on my Nook how to recover deleted files because I couldn’t access my D drive recycle bin. I found Recuva from Piriform. I am familiar with their program called Ccleaner because I’ve been using that since 2002 or 2003. I did a deep scan which said would take 4 days, and it scanned all night and most of the next day. I was chatting with someone on my Chromebook and accidentally used my desktop computer’s keyboard which canceled my scan, but it still showed me all the files it found to recover. It took 13 hours to recover all but about 5591 or so files.

Recovering all of my files is a huge weight of my shoulders. Now I can continue where I left off so I can reformat my hard drive so when Windows 8.1 comes, all I have to do is install it.

I have Recuva in my list of programs to install with the new operating system so I will be prepared for future disaster, if that ever happens again. Also in my list are Ccleaner and Defraggler. I highly recommend these programs to anyone who needs them.

Windows 8

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily BlogLeave a comment

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Well I bit the bullet and bought Windows 8. I couldn’t really afford to pay the full price of $119.99 +$9.00 tax, but I was able to buy it from sales on my Etsy shop. I can’t say I’m happy that I was forced to upgrade to an operating system that I hate, but Microsoft ended support for XP, so my options are limited.

I’m backing up my files onto my spare hard drive so I won’t lose everything. I’ve already done the compatibility test and it is compatible, so all I have to do is wait for the DVD to come in the mail. In the meantime, I will have to use my Nook HD+ to do all my web stuff because I wouldn’t want to catch a virus before 8 comes.

I also had to cancel Netflix and EverQuest for the month because I didn’t have the entire amount from Etsy. I had to take some of my grocery money for the balance which was $30 and I had to pay my Etsy seller fees for the month which was $17. I should have just enough money to feed us, although, it would be nice if I could get some of that grocery money back with a few more sales on Etsy.

I dread having to learn how to use my computer all over again, but I’m actually sort of excited and curious at the same time. I’ve used a Windows 8 computer a couple of times because people are always asking for my help. I’m a computer nerd, so people think that I automatically know how to use an operating system even if I’ve never looked at it before. Well, now is my chance to go in balls deep.

Today is Saturday, so I’m sure they won’t get the order until Monday. Who knows how long that will take to get to me. It will give me just enough time to back everything up though. Now it’s a waiting game, which is the worst game ever!

My CR-48 Brick

On By Michel McDonaldIn CR-482 Comments

In the middle of December of 2010, Google surprised me by sending me an email asking me if I wanted to test a laptop with the new Google Chrome operating system if I sent in bug reports.  Happily I accepted the task and received my free laptop 2 days later.  I was shocked that I actually got it and I did the happy dance.  It’s sometimes mistaken for the pee pee dance, but it was a happy one.  I have had a wonderful year testing out this wonderful toy, but sometimes good things have to come to an end because it’s a brick now.

Ok to clarify, the laptop isn’t broken, it just won’t stay online.  I have it connected through my WiFi network, but as soon as I try to type something, it loses the signal.  The only way to get it back is to reboot.  Rebooting used to help, but now it just won’t stay connected anymore.  It will stay connected for hours, but as soon as I try to type something, it goes offline.  I can watch videos on YouTube, I can browse people’s Facebook page, I can look at any website in the world, I just can’t type anything.

At first when this would happen I would switch over to Verizon 3G, but I only get 100MB free data every month and I have already used 50MB over the last few days every time I want to type something.  At this point it’s just a waste of electricity having it on because if I want to type something, I have to do it on the desktop.

I tried doing research to get it fixed.  I went to the help section and looked at boards and found out that this is happening to a lot of people.  Someone said that Google was in touch with him and sent him an email with a link to a website that has instructions on how to take the laptop apart to re-seat the wifi connection, but I’m afraid I might just make it worse.  I really don’t know if that is the problem because it never gets moved, so there is no reason for anything to be loose in there.  It stays on my desk in the same spot all the time.  I rarely if ever bring it to another room of the house, and when I do pick it up, it’s to dust.  And, it only goes offline when I try to type something, why would it stay online for hours at a time, but then shut off as soon as I try to type something if the problem is that the wifi connection is loose?  I don’t think they are related.

A few of the people say that it’s not a software glitch, that the hardware needs to be re-seated, but that does not seem to make sense in my case.  I think it’s a software glitch and the only thing I can do is wait for Google to put out a new update.  How long will that take?

I have cleared my browsing data, browsing history and emptied the cache.  Before that whenever I would move the mouse it would go offline, so now at least it stays online until I type something.  It has gotten a little better, but not by much.  I deleted the cookies, cleared saved passwords and autofill form data and I deleted all of my files because they were redundant anyway.  I most likely downloaded images for blog posts or to transfer to the micro SD card for my phone.  The remaining files that aren’t on my computer were transferred to a USB flash drive.

I will continue to do research on the matter because I really want my CR-48 back.  I have lived my whole life without it, but I don’t know if I can live without it now.  I know that’s sad, but it is such a cool thing.  For anyone who doesn’t have one, they don’t know how awesome it is so they don’t know what I mean, but trust me, if you had one you’d understand.

I posted on the Google help boards, so hopefully I will hear from someone who can help.  Will update on the matter.

Gmail Video Chat with CR-48

On By Michel McDonaldIn CR-48Leave a comment

I got my CR-48 in December the first week they were shipping them and I didn’t really mess with the video chat until Christmas day when a friend of mine got a webcam for Christmas.  We tried it but my mic didn’t work so she couldn’t hear me.  When we came home from San Diego after Christmas we tried it again but my mic still didn’t work.

I’ve been so frustrated that the mic didn’t work and that I had no volume control but realizing I wasn’t testing the laptop but the operating system I started to come to the realization that it might never work.

Whenever Google would do an update on the Chrome OS I would check the mic settings and it never worked, that is until yesterday when they did their update.  I immediately checked the mic settings and not only did the mic work but so does my volume control.  Finally!

I emailed that same friend about trying again and she finally got on Gmail today so I sent her an IM directly from the Gmail site using Gmail chat.  I started the video chat but her video didn’t work at all.  I thought, well let’s go to Facebook using the Social Plus extension.  That didn’t work either so we went back to Gmail but I waited for her to engage me this time.  I don’t know what she did but it worked and we talked for about 45 minutes I would say.

It was a success!  It was as good if not better than using Skype.  Since I’m on a cloud based computer I can’t install Skype so Gmail chat is the next best thing.

The only strange thing about it was that when she held something up to her webcam it looked like a mirrored image to her but it looked normal to me.  I held up a package of something and it was a mirrored image to me but she saw it normal.  It was a little strange but if you think about it, we’re sort of like looking in a mirror, she can see me as if I were on the other side of the glass and vice versa.  A bit weird but that’s fine, I’ll take what I can get.

I’m just really excited that I can video chat lol.