Saturday, February 19, 2011

Not Cured


I spent way too much time yesterday trying to get my computer system to function again and I have it back to just above barely functioning this morning. It is not cured yet but it is more functional.

I was able to remove some programs, compact some things, defrag the hard drive and get my AVG to scan and my Malwear to remove a bunch of junk and I had it running full speed last night but it was temporary.

This morning it is just above being dead. It acts 80 years old like I do somedays which is great for an elderly person but not acceptable for a 20 year old.

In my calling for help I found out most technicians that operate a computer business are out of business. Do you think people have learned to transfer their data to a newer computer or forget about the old data because there wasn't much on their anyhow? I know a lot of people just buy a new one and move on.

I only need the CPU and none of the stuff attached to it in these box deals that assume you are starting out from scratch.

The company I may take mine to is fairly local and has a room you can drop your hardrive to anytime. Now if they just had a loaner I could use to access the Internet, that would be something. I think I will have to provide that myself.

This thing still isn't right and I might get through till Monday. I found another attack on my Malwear software this morning and removed the threat.

If I didn't save my hard drive and I think and I hope I did, the world won't end but my contact to it will temporarily.

I want to buy a little Toshiba external hard drive I saw and back up my system on it and start eliminating a bunch of rarely used pieces like a huge file of pictures and power points and documents and software I rarely access but want to keep.

As long as Iranium hasn't hit me I will be OK.

Have you heard about this new movie about Iran and its impact on the US?

It sounded pretty real and scary to us.

Ed

6 comments:

  1. My computer was down for a couple weeks before Christmas and it was agravating. Contrary to what the geeks think who design this stuff, it's not the least bit intuitive in nature when you have to set up all over.

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  2. I can relate to what you are going through. My computer became infected and locked me out of about half of my ag software programs. Finally got it cleaned up after a couple of weeks but since it was 8 years old, I decided I had better get a new one. I figured it was trying to tell me something. As Gorges Smythe indicated, this is no small task for the computer illiterate. It has taken most of the winter to transfer and re-install all of the programs and files as well as learning the idiosyncrasy of the new system. It appears it is only going to get worse as we become more and more dependent on technology in agriculture. A pair of pliers and bailing wire will no longer fix it.

    Ron Swanson

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  3. I guess it depends partly on our methods as to how badly computers are needed. Back in 1999, I cracked up every time I saw the cartoon of the Amishman standing in his field with his wife (American Gothic style, including pitchfork), wearing a shirt that said, "Y2K READY!"

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  4. Those are pretty good comments. It made the blogging all worthwhile! I plan to take this one in to a new tech group that took over LuAnn's business computer needs, buy a new one and that little external hard drive to keep going and keep from losing all these records I have on here!

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  5. I went from a commodore 64 to a Mac and only recently bought a Tablet PC to run FarmerGPS. I have found that I really can't use the PC online without serious virus protection.
    With the Mac I can use the migration assistant which transfers everything from my old to my new computer. I also have not lost my info to hard drive crashes. On the PC I have lost all my field GPS records twice due to hard drive failures.
    But, I'm much more experienced with the Mac and I'm not really advocating that you change computer systems.
    If I were you I'd probably use a different computer to access the internet and if I needed to use that computer for farm work I'd keep my records on a flash drive or an external drive like you were talking about, so if your main HD fails you still have your info.

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  6. I did too, Budde. The online infection is serious for any of us who surf the net with Microsoft. I have never spent the time to go another way.

    You would think there would be a better way that suits you only but I haven't found it.

    I thought I had but it has left me short.

    Ed Winkle

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