For almost a week, the Internet has been unavailable to me, no email, or online purchases. I don't know if my old win 10 computer died or if I got hacked or what? Eventually, I gave up on it because I knew that by August Win 10 was not going to be supported anyway.
My actual computer needs are minimal. I don't do games and it doesn't take much to just browse the Internet and do MS Word. When I got home with the new computer and monitor, the first thing I did was look inside it. Much to my surprise, there are no drives in it, and only two memory sticks. The SATA port is empty. It appears as if they are using One Drive as a hard drive and they sold me 1tb of space, which I pay $98 a year for.
Their stated philosophy is that it is harder to hack One Drive than a personal hard drive. For now, I am stuck and cannot argue the point. They feel that spinning Hard Drives are obsolete. I have several SSDs and find them hard to use with the old computer. IF I make use of more drives, I'll likely just buy new ones if I can. I have a dozen or so thumb drives.
The new win 11 computer has almost a dozen USB ports and more slots for ???
It's been a trudge. For now, Gwen Brown is gone because I can't sign on. For some reason, Ahabidah worked. It seems that software developers are doing a major remodel. The only "backups" that I have for my stories is on this site.
Ahabidah
Comments
Hard Drives are Recoverable
Gwen, there is a high probability you haven't lost anything. Most HD are recoverable via a stand alone port. There are adapters one may drop a HD in no matter what the connection and pull all the data off of it. Careful as you will want to scan your old HD before extraction.
On another note there are SSD to plug into USB ports other than the jump drives one normally uses. Same with DVD drives and such a USB port to plug them into.
It's a shame they didn't explain what was or wasn't inside your computer before you purchased it. There is no way I'd buy a computer with out all the bells and whistles in the computer but then I am still using floppy disks, along with the hard shell disks with a 286 computer, a Win XP, and a Win 10, and an Apple.. No longer writing programs or building computers from the Mother Board up but haven't forgot most of it. I really don't want to build another computer to have what I want in one when Win 10 goes. I have a Win 10 basic installation disk with nothing but the basic OS. I'll go to that if necessary.
The bottom line is your system can be a stand alone system if you work at it and plug in all the accessories to make it a viable machine for your needs. Still, I think the sales wasn't right.
Hugs Gwen
Barb
They want everyone slaved to the SYSTEM. Only when those like myself are flushed will they achieve their goal.
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
Hard Drive Not Accessible
This "All IN One" has always been frustrating because there are no accessible slots. It is all neatly screwed together. It did last a long time. If I got to the HD, then I would have to power it up. That is why I was so happy to buy a Tower. With no car and only a bike or public transit and nearly being handicapped, the options are limited.
Go to the Library or Internet Cafe
and look at SFF systems (Small Form Factor). One of these is the Intel NUC. These are smaller than a 2lb bag of flour.
As you say, your needs are minimal. One of these would have satisfied your needs perfectly.
My own web site runs on a system of this type.
I think that I'm sorry to say, that the salesman saw you coming and sold you a lemon. Totally unfit for purpose (your purpose, not his).
Samantha
They tend to overheat on higher loads
IMO, SFF machines tend to overheat on higher loads (we had a bunch of NUCs for some time at the office - for use in our demo hardware. They had two possibilities when loaded - either sound like a jet engine on take off or get overheated. (Okay, I am exaggerating a bit, but still).
My current one (gigabyte brix, with ryzen in it) is pretty 'hot' too, but I was able to tweak fan setting in it.
The loads as outlined
are not that high at all.
Just writing a few documents, sending emails and watching YouTube is not high usage unless you get the 'Celeron' powered NUC's.
My website runs on a ryzen NUC and the only time that the fan works is when I'm doing a major update and then it is only briefly.
I checked the CPU temps just earlier during a large hack attempt and all CPU's were at 29C.
Samantha
If I were you -- I'd consider returning that PC
I understand why Microsoft is pushing people to the cloud as then you aren't owning your machine, you're essentially renting it. I feel it's a dishonest business practice and I refuse to participate. The only reason to have a Windows machine these days is if you're into gaming or running a home business. If this isn't you, most people's PCs are glorified browsers and for those people there are a lot of ways to get on the internet without needing to pay Microsoft $100 every year for the privilege of being bound to their system.
I currently have two PCs. One is a Windows 10 desktop and the other is a $50 laptop I bought at a yard sale. The first thing I did when I got the laptop was to wipe the hard driving and install Linux Mint. I've used the laptop for 8 years and it's perfect for writing on the go or browsing sites like BigCloset. The one downside of a Linux solution is you won't have Word on your PC (I use LibreOffice) but if you want to keep using Word, you can use the free version on Microsoft's website.
If I were in the market for a new desktop these days, I'd buy something cheap like a used Lenovo Thinkcenter and put Linux Mint on it.
https://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-ThinkCentre-M700-Tiny-64-Multi...
The PC above comes with a decent processor (more than enough for your needs) and Windows 10. At present, I'm not worrying too much about Microsoft's claim they aren't supporting Windows 10 after October 2025. Even though they say they won't support it, you can still upgrade to Windows 11. I'm planning to do that with my desktop next year and see how it works. If not, I'm going full Linux.
If you are uncomfortable doing this yourself and want an alternative ... check to see if there are any respected computer shops in your area. I'm sure they could hook you up with a better solution (I bet they could fix your old computer or at a minimum save your old files).
I have a feeling you went to a box store to get that PC. Most of the people at those places are clueless and push people to cheap Chromebooks or Microsoft's OneDrive machines to get a sale. I help a few dozen people with their PCs and see this sort of things all the time. It's how they sucker people into subscriptions. Maybe I'm a dinosaur but I will never like this new direction of paying for shared data. It smacks of BigBrother and it'd be nice if these companies let us retain a little illusion of privacy.
If you bought a new computer
it likely has an M.2 SSD rather than a traditional hard drive. Your computer wouldn't even boot if it only used OneDrive, and you shouldn't be having to pay anything per year for your regular storage: you just got talked into paying for additional cloud storage/backup.
M.2 drives will just look like a stick attached to your motherboard with a little header and like 1 screw, and with your lack of familiarity with modern computers I can see how that would be confusing. But no -- your computer isn't going to be cloud only :)
Melanie E.
Tower Amazingly Empty
I had the side cover off. The drive bays are empty. There are two sticks, 4chips each that I think are the 12k memory. I think the core i5 chip has a fan on top of it with what looks like an open oil filter sandwiched in between. My degree was in Electronics in 1970, so I am really dated. Then, a chip with 4 transistors was a big deal. I remember a card reader being as big as a Van and water cooled.
I suspicion that somewhere on that mother board is a "boot" chip. The SATA slot will get a drive when I am sure what I am doing. Advice is welcome.
As I said, the "Gwen Brown" log in would not work, but the Ahabidah one did, though windows spell checker does not like the way I spell it. I'm slowly getting the "Fawlty Tower" to do what I want. As to the Win 10, win 11 issues, I thought there was more time. Almost anyone knows more than me.
What I'm saying is it doesn't need a SATA drive.
I don't have pics to point out to you where the M.2 drive is at, but the things are about as thick as two sticks of gum and not much longer/wider, and will generally be flat against the motherboard. They don't connect with cables: they plug directly into the board.
Gwen... I'd really suggest that you don't go modifying the computer without making sure you know what you're doing first.
Melanie E.
Here are a couple of pics to help identify the M.2 drive.
My wife's tower, a Lenovo Idea Center, a terabyte M.2.
To find out just what drive(s) are installed on the device go to settings; storage; storage usage on other drives.
That will give you a list of drive with their size and how much is being used. These are solid state drives and are reputed to be more reliable than the older spinning disk hard drives.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
Melanie's correct
A computer has to have some onboard storage for the operating system to start up and run and the newer M2 drives are as she described. Although depending on what you bought, there are some (lower end) laptops that have a very small storage chip built directly on the motherboard. I have one like that, I use it when I'm going some place that my better laptop could be damaged or stolen.
Windows 11 really pushes hard for you to use one drive and a microsoft account for your login, making it seem like you must! It's possible to set up a windows 11 computer with a local login although it takes a bit of trickery. Microsoft is really making Linux and Apple look more and more like better alternatives.
We the willing, led by the unsure. Have been doing so much with so little for so long,
We are now qualified to do anything with nothing.
How about Windows 7?
I dunno about Win 11 vs. Win 10. My computers run Win 7. (I had to switch to Win 10 at work, and I hated.) In fact, when I accidentally poured wine into my old laptop, I managed to order a new one with Win 7. Yeah, I know MicroSloth doesn't support it, but I can't say it ever really did.
I'm a great believer that if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Yeah, it doesn't support the latest versions of some programs (e.g., Chrome, FireFox), but I like to stick with the old versions anyway because newer versions often break stuff I like.
(I actually prefer Linux, but the more recent distributions have a bad case of Windows envy -- they keep adding the stuff I hate about Windoze. Not to mention the creeping nanny-ism.)
I'm Not That Smart
I am hearing what you are saying. With my old computer dead, I was cut off with no ability to contact anyone I know online. Assuming that my health does not take me, I might try to retrench and do something else.
PS I did just now talk to a "Geek Squad" agent. He assured me that the 1 tb drive is a single chip on the (6x6 inch) motherboard. I am going to let this rest now. The technology now makes me feel very inadequate.
Win 7
I used win 7 for a long time before upgrading. I probably wouldn't have if I hadn't been offered a win 10 upgrade for free. Even then I dithered a while and finally when the free window was about to close, I made the leap. It was a steep learning curve to jump from win 7 to win 10 without taking the steps in between.
I'll not be upgrading until I need to replace my computer and win 10 can't be bought for love nor money. With my track record, we might be on win 20 by then. I just up graded my Microsoft Office 2010 with Office Home & Student 2021. (I refuse to rent Office 365).
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
Lost faith in Micro$oft a long time back
As so many others have posted in their comments, Micro$oft has become the great, big bully and villain in the arena of home computing! I came to see the light way back in 1999, and divorced from M$ after WinXP. And I have shared my story in response to several different blog posts, but since the proverb says “repetition is the mother of wisdom”, I will repeat it here again. Please bear in mind that these are my experiences, conclusions and consequences. Your mileage may vary!
For context: All this happened while I was living in Paraguay (one of two landlocked countries in South America), in a rural community almost 500km (a good 8 hour drive) from the nearest big city with connections to the rest of the world.
In late 1998 I got laid of from the computer department of the biggest company in town, and decided to go freelance with consulting and translations. I was able to get a nearly leading edge PC, since hardware prices had come down to levels close to those in the USA. For ethical reasons I wanted to use “legal” software. But when M$ demanded USD_650 for a license of MS Office97 Pro (because I need the database Access), I said “Fuck you!! I am NOT paying more than three monthly gross incomes!!” and I got myself a neatly pirated copy of MS Office97 Pro.
Then in mid-2000 I got the opportunity to do some software development for an organization from Canada that I was liaising with. And they requested that I have a “legal” copy of the toolkit installed. When I told them that M$ was demanding over USD 600 for VisualBasic 5 Standard and almost USD 1000 for VisualBasic 5 Professional, the immediate reply was to not waste any money in Paraguay. At the next meeting they handed me a brand new box with VisualBasic 6 Professional they got in Canada for CAD 150. That pretty much was the straw that broke the camel's back. And together with the disaster of Office2000, it was the start of my separation and divorce from M$.
In my [not] so humble opinion, the last decent version of office productivity software released by M$ was Office97, and the last usable operating system was WindowsXP. In fact I had one old notebook computer running WinXP for software testing until late 2019, and one very old Pentium classic running 24/7 with Win98 until 2022! (With 24MB RAM and 3GB HDD doing it's job just fine.)
In early 2001 I transitioned to OpenOffice (the predecessor of LibreOffice), and for 99% of my documents the conversion was flawless. (The rest used some very eclectic features that needed a workaround.) And since OpenOffice was multi-platform, exchanging documents between Apple, Linux and Windows was (and still is) completely transparent. The installer for M$ Office 97 had a footprint of over 600MB, supported only one language and cost about $500-$600. On the other hand, the installer for OpenOffice had a footprint of less than 150MB, supported 30 languages “out of the box” and was free for the download.
Around 2004 I exchanged WinXP for OpenSuSE Linux, because unlike WinVista there was no need to upgrade my hardware to keep a decent working environment. I even had several different servers running in the background for an overall responsiveness that was equal or better than WinXP. After Oracle bought SuSE and changed the distribution philosophy I decided to switch Debian for it's stability.
Back in the mid-1990s M$ started cracking down on software piracy in Paraguay, going hardcore with search warrants and lawsuits all over the place. It was estimated that over 95% of all software was pirated. About 99% of all computers in the courts ran with pirated software. Oh the irony!!!! By the turn of the century M$ was starting to chill down, since almost all lawsuits got trapped in the judicial quicksand and fizzled out.
On the other hand, Apple seems to have very stable software system that just seems to work. But I refuse to pay the exorbitant premium for their hardware. And developing custom software for that platform is difficult and very expensive.
In conclusion: I will gladly put up with the occasional quirk that is par for the course when trying to befriend Linux. Plus I am not required to hand my hard-earned cash over to some greedy corporation, and I have a vast selection of options free for the download.
Darkness In The Force
Thanks for your reply to this blog. It sounds like you are a very able software engineer. My only interest in the Computer and the Internet is writing. Very early on, I could do some Basic but that is likely 40 years ago.
I am at wits end right now and may end up printing my stories out and using USPS to send them to BCTS or another publisher. I have started to mail cash to BCTS because my Bank is so crazy now.
I don't know what I am going to do.
Ahabidah (Gwen Brown)
Straight UP Nightmare
For a brief moment, suicide seemed plausible. It is still early enough that I might return to the store and try to find a live person to talk to. The Customer Support people I get on the phone, so far speak with a strong Indian accent. They probably know the subject well. After seemingly endless hours picking through the various menus, it is still a black hole.
I did just learn that a company called "Crossbow", is producing a chip that is smaller than a postage stamp that has 1 tb of storage, and that is what is in my HP computer. All this is an unwelcome distraction away from writing TG short stories. I am mulling over the idea of just starting over with computers.