A tale of woe

[imoldernu]

It went like this:
Finally decided to go w/ Windows 10
Everything worked fine until the error code: Sector to small to load.
Ok... Windows 7 still worked... Keep it.
Except W10 keeps trying... 15 minutes every boot up.
So... Delete the KB file that starts the download.
Doesn't work... reloads with Windows update.
So... refuse windows updates... ok? Yeah.
One more try... This time... a light color blue screen... Can't load C:Boot\UBC..
Dead computer... No Windows 7 restore disk.
Go to Computer #2 to get UBCD.ISO file. Fine all ok.
Then convert ISO to USB...USB boot to Linux.
That's where the real trouble starts.
Must Format new USB memory stick.
Now, computer #2 has a 2 terrabyte Seagate drive which is almost full.
The Seagate Drive is Drive E.
So I plug in the memory stick and format Drive F.
Complete format... Takes 20 minutes.
I then download the UBCD diagnostic file to the stick.
Or so I think>>>>>>
Turns out that when I plugged in the stick, it took over the E drive space
and... moved the Seagate drive to to letter F....
Not only did I format the drive, but by turning my 2T Seagate into a linux UBCD ISO boot drive, it destroys the Drive descriptor, and while my device manage sees the drive, there is no way to access the drive to use it for anything... unless... I plug it in to my last computer, which will render it useless.

So... net, net.... One HP desktop rendered useless... One Seagate 2T drive with the history of our lives... dead and gone... and left with one computer with Windows 10... (the most hated of all)...

Where is the justice? DW suggested I call Microsoft... I think she wants me out of the way.

Am going back to the local library, for the first time in ten years.

 

[pb4uski]

OMG! What a disaster! I'll stay with Win7.

Good luck.

 

[Walt34]

Note to self: Do not update to win10....

 

[Jack_Pine]

Have a backup for that 2TB drive?

BTW, aren't computers fun?

 

[braumeister]

You DID have a separate backup drive with a current backup on it, didn't you?

 

[Sittingduck]

Another Windows improvement I see. Thanks for the heads up.

 

[ls99]

I think the 2 Terabyte drive was the backup.

 

[mn54]

my windows xp still works just fine.

 

[Lakewood90712]

Time to shell out a couple of hundred $ to a geek and get everything squared away

 

[Meadbh]

Time to shell out a couple of hundred $ to a geek and get everything squared away

+1
For this you have your emergency fund, right?

 

[spncity]

That sounds like a nightmare. So sorry.

 

[CaliforniaMan]

I have always had a rule about upgrading MS operating systems. Never update a working operating system, never. You can never know what incompatibilities you will find with whatever hardware, software or configurations you have setup, until it is too late. If it is working, leave it alone. You get the new version when you get your next new computer. So, no, I will not be "upgrading" to Windows 10.

 

[drb391]

I have always had a rule about upgrading MS operating systems. Never update a working operating system, never. You can never know what incompatibilities you will find with whatever hardware, software or configurations you have setup, until it is too late. If it is working, leave it alone. You get the new version when you get your next new computer. So, no, I will not be "upgrading" to Windows 10.

my plan exactly. Win7 is supposed to be supported til 2020 (? give or take). by then it'll be time for a new puter... and prolly Win 12 or 13

 

[Boss2014]

I have always had a rule about upgrading MS operating systems. Never update a working operating system, never. You can never know what incompatibilities you will find with whatever hardware, software or configurations you have setup, until it is too late. If it is working, leave it alone. You get the new version when you get your next new computer. So, no, I will not be "upgrading" to Windows 10.

Great advice !!

 

[Bestwifeever]

Sorry to imoldernu for the shock of losing so many digitized records. Perhaps some of your children have copies of some of the material and can help you fill in the blanks if the geeks can't recover some of it.

I have always had a rule about upgrading MS operating systems. Never update a working operating system, never. You can never know what incompatibilities you will find with whatever hardware, software or configurations you have setup, until it is too late. If it is working, leave it alone. You get the new version when you get your next new computer. So, no, I will not be "upgrading" to Windows 10.

I was just thinking about this. Has Microsoft ever pushed an upgrade to existing PCs so heavily? My MSDOS based pcs run back to maybe 1992--they each kept whatever OS they came with. More recently I think I had three different OS's on a desktop (Windows 95), laptop (XP), and notebook (7) and all ran fine and could share docs. It never occurred to me to upgrade their OS's. My newest laptop was 8 and I really really disliked it, even the mini upgrade to what, 8.1? So is MS's big push to do wholesale upgrades to earlier OS's (something I don't think the company ever did before) an admission that 8 was a really big mistake?

My attempt to upgrade to 10 resulted in my wifi not working. I googled the problem on my iPad and read about several workarounds that may or may not be successful and are certainly not how I want to spend any time. Grrrr. So I solved the problem in a different way at the nearby Apple store.

 

[2017ish]

I think it is time to contact your grandson at IMSA. He should be able to fix....

E.T.A.--agree with others that I'm glad I've ignored the update notices so far....

 

[jollystomper]

Sorry to hear you had these troubles. In IT we call it being on the "bleeding edge"...

 

[pb4uski]

I have always had a rule about upgrading MS operating systems. Never update a working operating system, never. You can never know what incompatibilities you will find with whatever hardware, software or configurations you have setup, until it is too late. If it is working, leave it alone. You get the new version when you get your next new computer. So, no, I will not be "upgrading" to Windows 10.

Sounds like good advice to me.... if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Now that I think of it, I'm not sure that I have ever upgraded an OS, I get a new computer long before the OS is obsolete. And I keep my computers a fairly long time, but not forever.

 

[MichaelB]

I have always had a rule about upgrading MS operating systems. Never update a working operating system, never. You can never know what incompatibilities you will find with whatever hardware, software or configurations you have setup, until it is too late. If it is working, leave it alone. You get the new version when you get your next new computer. So, no, I will not be "upgrading" to Windows 10.

This is what I have always done, especially since MS has never been known to deliver high quality bug free new releases. It is not clear what requirement is being met for those upgrading to Windows 10, except perhaps price.

Imoldernu, +3 or 4 on the suggestion to break open the emergency fund piggy bank and call in a nerd. Many of us have suffered this type of HW failure, it's painful but you will survive. Best of luck.

 

[Tailgate]

Let me be the first smart ass to offer you a big glass of Apple kool-aid.

 

[Onward]

I also never, ever "upgrade" a machine's OS. Far too many things to go wrong.

 

[W2R]

Imoldernu, what a disaster! I am so sorry you are going through this. Yours is not the only tale of woe related to Windows 10 installation that I have read, either. If misery loves company, you do have some apparently.

I think Microsoft should never have encouraged people to upgrade their operating system. Back in the days of Windows 95 I thought nothing of installing a new operating system but Windows is much more complex now than it was then, and I just don't relish the process any more.

I need a new computer anyway very soon, so I am looking at laptops with Windows 10 pre-installed.

 

[imoldernu]

It gets worse...

So... Lost one comuter and a 2T hard drive...
On to the second computer, on which i had installed W10 successfully.
That was the computer which held duplicates of my files... in essence my backup.
Because I didn't trust W10, I looked at the option to restore to Widows 7. Why not?
So, on the opening window I see Restore.. to go back to windows.
This mentally challenged mind, thought.. Yeah... like System Restore.
system retore returns to the last good wokig system.

Not so... It means restore only the original operating system.. The rest of the information ... in my case 780Gigabytes of files... gone... in about 7 seconds.

Well, at least it gave me the orignal Windows 7 system. I spent about 8 hours restoring programs, downloading some, running others from CD's and DVD's. I also copied whatever files i could find from my third computer, my Acer laptop, and my tablet.

Not the end of the world...... During this process, I started and restarted Widows 7 many, many times... it was almost back to the way it was.

This AM... first boot... up comes the exact same error file that killed my first computer. Can't go on .... missing File:/BCD on Sata 0.

Am down to my laptop, which now only loads Linux, which i don't understand.

Have decided to forego computers and get in to politics. Too old to do anyting else.
Back to the Public Library.

 

[jimbee]

Imoldernu, you may be able to recover some of the photos using your Linux laptop, an external drive cable/enclosure, and software such as PhotoRec.

PhotoRec - Digital Picture and File Recovery

"PhotoRec is file data recovery software designed to recover lost files including video, documents and archives from hard disks, CD-ROMs, and lost pictures (thus the Photo Recovery name) from digital camera memory. PhotoRec ignores the file system and goes after the underlying data, so it will still work even if your media's file system has been severely damaged or reformatted."

 

[alistair]

Tale of woe indeed.

By, "lost 2TB hard drive" do you mean data lost (due to inadvertent format) or drive has some sort of read/write issues?

If you're lucky, you may be able to recover a "formatted" drive, depending on how it was formatted. Requires special software and more than you average nephew/next door neighbor's kid.

For physical issues, get Spinrite (www.grc.com) and thank me later. It works like a dream and can recover almost ANY drive, regardless of format.

I think everyone else mentioned the other issues to cover this tale of woe (e.g. offline backups).

FWIW, I use CrashPlan backup service. Works well and thoroughly encrypted online. customer service is quite good too. Sweet spot is that you can use their software for free backups if you backup to a (highly trusted) friend/family member at another location. They install the software and you backup to their site (presumable to an external drive); they can do the same to your site. I use their servers, so not free, but quite reasonable for several computers.

Reminds me, I do need to re-do my local, offline harddrive though... it's been unplugged for months and I keep ignoring the pop-ups...