For a long time, I wanted to switch over to a solid state drive. I
finally bought one a couple of months ago and finally got around to installing it last week. my current hard drive is a 1 terabyte Western Digital. The new drive is a Samsung SATA 2.5 inch 1 TB drive.
I downloaded the Samsung Magician software to transfer to the new drive.
When I went to use it, it showed my current drive as the source drive
and prompted me install the Samsung SSD drive. It was already there.
After a couple of tries, I unhooke3d the ssd and plugged it in when
prompted. Nothing.
On Mon, 22 Dec 2025 13:20:29 -0500, Paul wrote:
The graphics are still accelerated. The machine has a graphics card.
Windows can open slower due to storage speed. If the window is opening
too slow for you, replace the HDD with an SSD.
The machine doesn't run at 6GHz, but it still manages to get the window open.
Well, if you're happy, it's fine by me. I somehow didn't expected W11 to
run smoothly with older hardware.
Improving your storage, helps.
And not using a $40 video card, also helps.
I had Windows 11 up & running on an ancient Toshiba Satellite A500. It
ran surprisingly well.
Like all my Windows 10/11, nothing personal goes on them. They are for familiarisation only.
I keep a couple of hard drive magnets around so that I can refresh the magnetism of my screwdrivers when necessary. They work really well for
that.
Quite the contrary, thank you very much. Why would I waste time
shutting down and restarting everything, including all programs, just in
case the problem might be 'fixed' by that? Makes more sense to try a few things while the system is up. But as I said, we're used to real systems
and yes, Windows NT and beyond can behave as a real system, well sort
of. :-)
On 22/12/2025 18:41, Frank Slootweg wrote:
Quite the contrary, thank you very much. Why would I waste time
shutting down and restarting everything, including all programs, just in case the problem might be 'fixed' by that? Makes more sense to try a few things while the system is up. But as I said, we're used to real systems and yes, Windows NT and beyond can behave as a real system, well sort
of. :-)
So your system worked, now for some unknown reason it doesn't. You're
not sure why it stopped working. But you NEED to be able to make it work
in the future no matter what. Do you
A) fiddle with it until it seems to be working but and write down the details of the necessary fiddle in case you need it in the future.
B) Reboot and check that that makes it work.
I'll take B every time.
I need to make sure I have a simple straightforward way to get the
system running in the future therefore I MUST check that everything
still comes up working correctly after a reboot.
On Tue, 23 Dec 2025 11:06:18 -0500, Paul wrote:
Improving your storage, helps.
And not using a $40 video card, also helps.
I have an integrated graphics card.
*ouch*
Brian Gregory <void-invalid-dead-dontuse@email.invalid> wrote:
On 22/12/2025 18:41, Frank Slootweg wrote:
Quite the contrary, thank you very much. Why would I waste time
shutting down and restarting everything, including all programs, just in >>> case the problem might be 'fixed' by that? Makes more sense to try a few >>> things while the system is up. But as I said, we're used to real systems >>> and yes, Windows NT and beyond can behave as a real system, well sort
of. :-)
So your system worked, now for some unknown reason it doesn't. You're
not sure why it stopped working. But you NEED to be able to make it work
in the future no matter what. Do you
As I said, I don't remember what the problem was, so this is a rather theoretical (non-)discussion. But in any case, it was not that the
*system* stopped working, so nothing like a system crash and not even a program crash, just something which didn't work just right and which I
could not get to work as it should.
But let's take a general case of something not working as it should.
A) fiddle with it until it seems to be working but and write down the
details of the necessary fiddle in case you need it in the future.
Yes, I would do that. But I would not 'fiddle' endlessly. There must
by some effort-reward tradeoff.
B) Reboot and check that that makes it work.
If not doing A), then B) is often just a hack, i.e. you *hope* that it goes away and stays away, but you have no certainty, let alone guarantee
that it stays away.
Did I already mention that I was a professional troubleshooter for a
large part of my working life? :-) It was always A) and only B) as a
last resort stop gap until the actual cause was found by continuing A).
(See my earlier comment about Five Nines and only 5 *minutes* maximum downtime per *year*.)
I'll take B every time.
I need to make sure I have a simple straightforward way to get the
system running in the future therefore I MUST check that everything
still comes up working correctly after a reboot.
I have absolutely no reason to think that everything will not come up after a reboot. *If* I needed reassurance, the occasional Windows Update Restart is reassurance enough. And there's always this thing called
backup (both system/image backup and file backup).
But if you feel better by doing frequent restarts/reboots, then by all means do so. Your system, your rules. But also, my system, my rules.
On 23/12/2025 20:20, Frank Slootweg wrote:[...]
Did I already mention that I was a professional troubleshooter for a large part of my working life? :-) It was always A) and only B) as a
last resort stop gap until the actual cause was found by continuing A). (See my earlier comment about Five Nines and only 5 *minutes* maximum downtime per *year*.)
On Windows?
I guess Windows servers can manage that, what with being free of users
like me starting and stopping random things at their whim.
But if you feel better by doing frequent restarts/reboots, then by all means do so. Your system, your rules. But also, my system, my rules.
A lot of my work-arounds for software misbehaving are of the form lets
try changing it so that program A doesn't start immediately the system starts up, lets put a 30 second delay and see if that helps. Frequently things that didn't seem to work well together can be made to behave that way, but obviously I have to test it by rebooting, usually multiple
times. Without rebooting the fix is as good as meaningless.
I haven't been here in ages. It looks like there are still people here
who can help with problems.
My computer is at least 15 years old. It was upgraded to Windows 10 soon after it was available. I want to keep this computer going. (It can't be upgraded to Windows 11.) Once or twice a month it bogs down and needs to
be restarted. It can take more than a few minutes before it gets back up
to speed.
For a long time, I wanted to switch over to a solid state drive. I
finally bought one a couple of months ago and finally got around to installing it last week. my current hard drive is a 1 terabyte Western Digital. The new drive is a Samsung SATA 2.5 inch 1 TB drive.
I downloaded the Samsung Magician software to transfer to the new drive. When I went to use it, it showed my current drive as the source drive
and prompted me install the Samsung SSD drive. It was already there.
After a couple of tries, I unhooke3d the ssd and plugged it in when prompted. Nothing.
Thinking maybe a cable wasn't working, I shut it down and swapped the
power and data wires between the 2 drives. It started right up as usual
and the ssd still wasn't recognized. When I'm starting the computer, if
I watch the screen, I see it identify my old drive "WD...(whatever)",
then right below that I see "ssd EVO 870" which is exactly what the new drive is. So it recognizes that the new ssd is there, but it does not
show up anywhere in File Explorer.
So do I give up and consider the new ssd a waste of time and money?
Can anyone think of a work around to make this work?
A week ago, I asked this question. I have been unable to get a new message to post here.
I couldn't even get it to show any new messages after the first few days. I tried to
respond to some people, but couldn't. Right now, I see lots of new messages showing up.
Maybe it's working. Here goes...
Wait! I decided to look over the new replies before I clicked SEND and discovered my
own messages are here. They sent when I wasn't looking. I wondered why they weren't
saved in drafts.
I'll send this out anyway so people will know I wasn't intentionally being rude by
not coming back.
On 12/19/2025 1:29 AM, Steve wrote:
I haven't been here in ages. It looks like there are still people here who can help with problems.
My computer is at least 15 years old. It was upgraded to Windows 10 soon after it was available. I want to keep this computer going. (It can't be upgraded to Windows 11.) Once or twice a month it bogs down and needs to be restarted. It can take more than a few minutes before it gets back up to speed.
For a long time, I wanted to switch over to a solid state drive. I finally bought one a couple of months ago and finally got around to installing it last week. my current hard drive is a 1 terabyte Western Digital. The new drive is a Samsung SATA 2.5 inch 1 TB drive.
I downloaded the Samsung Magician software to transfer to the new drive. When I went to use it, it showed my current drive as the source drive and prompted me install the Samsung SSD drive. It was already there. After a couple of tries, I unhooke3d the ssd and plugged it in when prompted. Nothing.
Thinking maybe a cable wasn't working, I shut it down and swapped the power and data wires between the 2 drives. It started right up as usual and the ssd still wasn't recognized. When I'm starting the computer, if I watch the screen, I see it identify my old drive "WD...(whatever)", then right below that I see "ssd EVO 870" which is exactly what the new drive is. So it recognizes that the new ssd is there, but it does not show up anywhere in File Explorer.
So do I give up and consider the new ssd a waste of time and money?
Can anyone think of a work around to make this work?
Brian Gregory <void-invalid-dead-dontuse@email.invalid> wrote:
On 23/12/2025 20:20, Frank Slootweg wrote:[...]
Did I already mention that I was a professional troubleshooter for a >>> large part of my working life? :-) It was always A) and only B) as a
last resort stop gap until the actual cause was found by continuing A).
(See my earlier comment about Five Nines and only 5 *minutes* maximum
downtime per *year*.)
On Windows?
I guess Windows servers can manage that, what with being free of users
like me starting and stopping random things at their whim.
No, not on Windows. Like I said, on real systems (Windows is just one
FSVO 'real' :-)). They were Unix/UNIX systems in clusters of at least
three systems with most if not all component duplicated, 'even' things
like network interfaces, power supplies and the power 'cords'. The 5
minutes maximum downtime was documented in a SLA (Service Level
Agreement) and if we did not manage that, there were rather hefty
(financial) penalties.
[...]
But if you feel better by doing frequent restarts/reboots, then by all >>> means do so. Your system, your rules. But also, my system, my rules.
A lot of my work-arounds for software misbehaving are of the form lets
try changing it so that program A doesn't start immediately the system
starts up, lets put a 30 second delay and see if that helps. Frequently
things that didn't seem to work well together can be made to behave that
way, but obviously I have to test it by rebooting, usually multiple
times. Without rebooting the fix is as good as meaningless.
Understood.
I don't know if this was/is the same on Windows 10 (I'm now on Windows 11), but on my system I see that programs started from Start-up [1] are started much later (some five minutes) than programs which 'start
themselves' (i.e. have some setting, which says start at login). As I
hardly ever restart :-), I have not investigated where this delay comes
from.
[1]
C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup
On 24/12/2025 09:57, Frank Slootweg wrote:
Brian Gregory <void-invalid-dead-dontuse@email.invalid> wrote:
On 23/12/2025 20:20, Frank Slootweg wrote:[...]
ÿÿÿ Did I already mention that I was a professional troubleshooter for a >>>> large part of my working life? :-) It was always A) and only B) as a
last resort stop gap until the actual cause was found by continuing A). >>>> (See my earlier comment about Five Nines and only 5 *minutes* maximum
downtime per *year*.)
On Windows?
I guess Windows servers can manage that, what with being free of users
like me starting and stopping random things at their whim.
ÿÿ No, not on Windows. Like I said, on real systems (Windows is just one
FSVO 'real' :-)). They were Unix/UNIX systems in clusters of at least
three systems with most if not all component duplicated, 'even' things
like network interfaces, power supplies and the power 'cords'. The 5
minutes maximum downtime was documented in a SLA (Service Level
Agreement) and if we did not manage that, there were rather hefty
(financial) penalties.
[...]
ÿÿÿ But if you feel better by doing frequent restarts/reboots, then by all >>>> means do so. Your system, your rules. But also, my system, my rules.
A lot of my work-arounds for software misbehaving are of the form lets
try changing it so that program A doesn't start immediately the system
starts up, lets put a 30 second delay and see if that helps. Frequently
things that didn't seem to work well together can be made to behave that >>> way, but obviously I have to test it by rebooting, usually multiple
times. Without rebooting the fix is as good as meaningless.
ÿÿ Understood.
ÿÿ I don't know if this was/is the same on Windows 10 (I'm now on Windows
11), but on my system I see that programs started from Start-up [1] are
started much later (some five minutes) than programs which 'start
themselves' (i.e. have some setting, which says start at login). As I
hardly ever restart :-), I have not investigated where this delay comes
from.
[1]
C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup
Ah. So you were just commenting in case I wasn't aware of how unreliable Windows is. I wish you'd said.
On Sat, 12/20/2025 8:15 AM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-12-20 03:54, Paul wrote:
On Fri, 12/19/2025 6:35 PM, J. P. Gilliver wrote:
On 2025/12/19 21:47:49, Hank Rogers wrote:
Graham J wrote on 12/19/2025 2:45 PM:
Steve wrote:
The advantage of the Macrium clone, is it generates new unique GUID for
the blkid, then it fixes the boot menu to point to the new value,
and what this does, is make the HDD and SSD "independent" of one another. >>> The SSD boots whether the HDD is plugged in or not, when done that way.
This might backfire.
Widows 7, and probably W8, looked at the disk identifier to know Windows was legal and not pirated over to another computer.
Telcontar:~ # fdisk -l /dev/sda
Disk /dev/sda: 1.82 TiB, 2000398934016 bytes, 3907029168 sectors
Disk model: ST2000DM001-1CH1
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 9020FF2C-... <====================
...
The disk identifier is not the blkid, but I'd guess it will also look at it.
The license validation is a multi-factor thing. While the disk identifier
may factor into the determination, the motherboard serial number (NIC MAC address) factors a lot higher. One of the reasons motherboards have
captive (onboard) Ethernet and Firewire, is they have MAC addresses that
help identify the motherboard.
The CPU is not supposed to have a serial number. Maybe only one generation
of Pentium III had a serial number. The temptation to put a serial number
in the CPU, must be an overpowering one... :-)
Not a lot of identifiers on a computer, positively identify an attempt
to duplicate a licensed setup. If the hard drive dies, the user has the
right to use a new hard drive (with a different serial number). That
factor alone should not tip over the license.
It usually takes
two or three offenses (an obvious offense, and some suggestive
but not conclusive evidence collected from the sum total of hardware).
Much of this is supposition collected during the WinXP era.
On Fri, 12/26/2025 3:40 PM, Steve wrote:
A week ago, I asked this question. I have been unable to get a new message to post here.I don't know where the setting is for this, but I've discovered one copy of Thunderbird
I couldn't even get it to show any new messages after the first few days. I tried to
respond to some people, but couldn't. Right now, I see lots of new messages showing up.
Maybe it's working. Here goes...
Wait! I decided to look over the new replies before I clicked SEND and discovered my
own messages are here. They sent when I wasn't looking. I wondered why they weren't
saved in drafts.
I'll send this out anyway so people will know I wasn't intentionally being rude by
not coming back.
here (in a test VM), insists on starting*every* session in "Offline Mode". In the File
menu, is an "Offline" submenu with items of interest, so you can check there to see
of something is amiss.
Your messages will pile up. Your incoming will stop. That's when you are Offline.
When you switch the tool back to Online again, your piled-up messages are all sent
out. (If they are not, check for an Outbox or UnSend box in your local boxes section
near the top on the left.)
We're hoping for a progress report, such as "got the SSD", "cloned OK", "managed
to boot it by itself", indicating you're on the right track.
As far as a progress report... yes, I have made some progress but I still haven't gotten the data to transfer over to to the SSD. I'm thinking I should start with a new question starting from where I am now. There are so many posts on this thread and most of them are just people bantering back and forth about things other than my question.
I know this is taking a long time, but I get busy with other things and I don't get back to solving my problem as often as I would like.
| Sysop: | Tetrazocine |
|---|---|
| Location: | Melbourne, VIC, Australia |
| Users: | 15 |
| Nodes: | 8 (0 / 8) |
| Uptime: | 173:06:19 |
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| Messages: | 80,021 |