Re: External Hard drive.

The way you guys are discussing, reminds me of the days of DOS.

Re: External Hard drive.

DOS is sill in there, on W10, and can be used many of the commands can be used too, for example, disk checking and fixing, etc.

Re: External Hard drive.

True, discussion can still be a bit like that. Whether it's found boring or not probably just depends on if there's an interest in computers over and above just using them.

It was around 1997 when I wrote this about why I got computer. It was a page on a web site I once had. I know it's long and maybe boring but I've got nothing better to do right now other than to copy/paste it into this post It's called: Am I going to get fed today?

..........................................

The road accident that brought disability into our lives was indirectly responsible for my computer addiction. Well, there are worse things I could have got addicted to I suppose....

She's only got herself to blame.
"Why don't you take up a hobby?" she said. The reason for the question was that looking after my wife since the road accident and trying to find enough hours to earn a living in had become a losing battle. I finally stopped working as a TV/ video engineer, stowed away the AVOmeter and oscilloscope, and became her full time carer.

For the first time in years I found I had some time on my hands. I couldn't consider doing anything that would take me out of the house because, whilst she doesn't need constant attention, I do need to be around. Anyway the point is that I'm supposed to stay near and treat her care as my job.

The truth was that having the opportunity to hang about with my hands in my pockets staring into space made quite a welcome change for me. I may have given the impression of being bored but in fact it was a new experience and I wanted to enjoy it to the full.

Me!...take up a hobby?
Mrs mart has never been happy to see me doing nothing for too long. When the housework was done and all the sensible things had been seen to, the subject of a hobby came up.

I've never been the hobby type. Like most self-employed people, work took up all the time. Any other interest never got a look in. I was starting to miss repairing TVs and video recorders.

Well OK, I'll give it a go.
One day during one of my hands in pockets staring into space intervals, Mrs mart spoke about a friend being stuck for items for a magazine. He publishes it for a local disabled persons organisation. I idly thought that perhaps I could turn out a few lines for it.

Well a few lines turned out to be lots of lines in the end. At least that's what it seemed like when typed on our correction ribbon typewriter. I think I ended up with more letters on the correction ribbon than on the page but after many hours and swearwords I held a piece of paper which was titled 'Pushers Lament' (later renamed 'Carer's Lot').

It was all about coping with a partners sudden loss of mobility. Not much in the literary sense when compared to..er..well almost anything really but at least it made the magazine a little fatter. I was asked to contribute more. If I was going to do that I couldn't do it on that typewriter. I'd have to get a word processor.

From the intention of getting a word processor sprang the idea of going the whole hog and getting a computer instead. I ended up with a 486 running on Windows 95. It had a whole eight megabytes of RAM inside it.

The computer bug bites.
I always used to wonder how people could spend hours sitting in front of computers but that was before I learned how to turn one on. Having mastered that bit I was hooked.

When we first got it home and connected all the various bits together I felt like Harold Steptoe in that episode where he had built a television. He nonchalantly said that he didn't need to turn it on because, having followed the instructions to the letter, he was sure it would work. This of course was only to put off the moment where he turned on and it didn't.

Am I a man or a mouse? (squeak)
Plucking up courage I gingerly pushed the on/off switch and it started to make a jet engine powering up type noise accompanied by a rattling noise and a lot of beeping and hooting. Mrs mart and I exchanged nervous glances and waited for the smoke. Well none came and the screen burst into life. Loads of writing flashed by that soon settled down to display 'The Desktop'. It sat there waiting for me to do something in a computer-like manner. This is nothing to someone who's used to these things but for me, never having approached a computer before, it was a worrying moment.

Televisions must be listened to carefully, especially at switch on. The internal noises give indications of whether it's running happily or not. Swift action in turning off if it doesn't sound right can save the destruction of components. The reason the noises worried me was a throwback to that I suppose. Now I know that these are just the happy and contented sounds that computers make when they start up.

The need for speed.
No one who gets interested in computers is ever happy with theirs for long. The need for speed and efficiency gets into the blood. A year later with many hours of experience under my belt, the addiction was complete. The 486 had turned into a 166 Pentium with 32 megabytes of RAM. Even that's been upgraded to 64 megabytes and has an extra drive in it. But still, 166Mhz? It's a bit slow for these days isn't it? I MUST HAVE MORE!

In my case, being able to sink into the computer has been a godsend. Since 'herself' is unable to do many things independently, I must stay near. When I sit down for hours in front of this glowing screen I'm in a sort of 'standby mode' and ready for any request she makes of me. I'm lucky to have found something so absorbing to fill those periods of time.

True, I do some useful things on the computer but really, the fact is that I've spent more hours just playing around with the operating system than actually turning anything out on it. Anyway, at least I know now what some of those weird computer expressions mean but you can put your own interpretations on some of the jargon for a bit of fun. For instance:-

Autoexec.bat....A better quality battery for an up market car.
ScanDisk.........An Abba record.
DOS................Somewhere to get your head down.
Floppy............Something you get if you drink lots of beer.
Flatbed scanner.. Examining device found in hospitals.
R.S.I................Really Strange Injury.

Learn from me before it's too late!
Having had a computer for a while, my advice on getting one is this. If you enjoy doing the garden, seeing your friends and relatives occasionally, keeping the house clean and tidy, doing the cooking and washing up, keeping yourself clean and tidy (and shaved), washing the car, and all the other things your supposed to do then DON'T GET A COMPUTER!

If on the other hand you don't give a tinkers cuss about any of these things they're wonderful fun. When Mrs mart calls me to do something for her, I make it my habit to jump to it because the ten minutes I thought I had spent clicking the mouse (sounds like some sort of bad habit) has turned out to be an hour and a half. so she isn't really asking for me constantly.

Shame on me!
I had to sympathise a while ago when, at half past seven in the evening, I heard the tapping of crutches behind me. I tore my gaze away from the screen and there was Mrs mart.

"Am I going to get fed today?" she asked in an 'I'm trying not to be a nuisance' type of voice. I felt really bad ..and hungry too now that she'd come to mention it. I realised then that I had to get the obsession in hand. To me it's only a big boys toy and I try not to let it exclude other things.

Hmm...easier said than done.

Re: External Hard drive.

What a great story.
I know the feeling having been a carer for the last few years. But before that, I was stuck in the back room on the computer, and she was in the lounge with her TV and Nintendo.
As for the writing bit. For 8 years I had to do 1000 words plus the occasional photos every month for a national magazine. No computer, but a typewriter with plenty of correction fluid.

Re: External Hard drive.

Well done and thanks for reading all that lot Emjay! Also, well done for writing loads on an ordinary typewriter. It must have been quite a task to do that on a regular basis.

I suppose the backup with that was in the form of the carbon copy and cloud storage was if you placed it in a high-up cupboard somewhere?

Re: External Hard drive.

I think the important thing to remember about disk storage is that what ever type you use it will fail, Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life. Sorry slipped into Casablanca mode there.

If you do back up then ideally you should keep two copies; at least one of them off site. No point in having a back up next to the computer if your house burns down.

Personally I have a couple of NAS devices (Network Attached Storage) one has four 4TB HDDs in it the other has two. The advantage is that they use RAID format whereby if a hard disk fails the data is recoverable from the remaining disk(s). Every day my desk top computer is backed up to these devices and my laptops are backed up whenever they are connected to the network - it is very quick and efficient.

The larger NAS is also the Media Server for all my music, movies and TV programs - these devices have multiple uses.



Some one mentioned DOS. Yes it is still alive and well, much improved and much quicker than any back up program.

A simple text file with the line:

robocopy "%userprofile%\Documents" "\\NASname\%computername%\%userprofile%\Docume nts"

would backup all the documents in your WINDOWS document library to a NAS and running it daily would also add any new or changed files.

It would be better able to do it with some refinements on the command line (eg /ndl /r:2 ) and it would be necessary to tailor it more precisely to your system but that is a start. (there are better versions elsewhere in this forum)

Re: External Hard drive.

Another trick, which I use, is to buy another hard drive with ,at least, the same volume size as the original, and then clone the Boot Drive to it.

Run on the clone, for a month say, and then clone it back to the original , and then repeat the process every month.

(Keep the unused disk in a safe place so that, like Omah, you can grab it in the event of a fire!)

That way, you always have a full bootable copy and it is up to date within a month.

Works a treat.

If there are programs, or files, on different drives, in your system, the registry knows where and what they are !!!
That's because the Registry is copied in the cloning.

Re: External Hard drive.

I don't get it. PC's are made for storing things yet so many people don't use them for this reason. External hard drives can get corrupted if there is something attached to whatever is being stored.

Ten years ago I bought 2 500GB hard drives (Master & slave) and still have lots of space. My advice is think ahead.

Re: External Hard drive.

You are making two fundamental errors.

PC are not for storing things they are for calculating things. Storage is a minor and very secondary function especially in the days of Cloud and remote storage.

Secondly 500Gb are tiny drives my last PC had four 2 TB drives my current server has four 4TB drives.

Thirdly Master and slave drives went out when Noah was a boy.

You are making THREE fundamental errors...

Fourthly as has been discussed elsewhere no matter what hard drive(s) you have it will fail. External hard drives are ideal for backups for the day your motherboard or your power supply gives up and takes the hard drives with them or the hard drives themselves self destruct.

You are making FOUR fundamental errors...

As you say: Think Ahead.