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The new computer is working. The good things are:
So what, you ask, are the bad things.
First, I relied on my backup too much. I have an HP server on the desk that takes a backup every day. However, the backup is not easy to use when the computer goes belly-up, and I didn't discover until too late that there is a recovery procedure. When I did find it, I then discovered that if you change computers the old backup doesn't transfer to the new computer. I didn't use other tools I have, such as Acronis TrueImage, which would have helped immensely in this situation.
Second, I didn't write down the methods for restoring items such as my email from Thunderbird and my iTunes library, both of which are extensive and are not on the C: drive. I have 44GB of emails, from the last 18 years. I keep everything. This has saved my bacon several times, when someone denies that they said something or other I can dig out the email and show them. However, Thunderbird has a difficult recovery procedure when you reinstall the program. The first time I did this it was excruciatingly painful. The second time I remembered what I'd done and it was relatively painless. iTunes, of course, was quite different. There are two library files which you have to delete from the new installation and copy from the old one. When I did that, iTunes filled up with my music (which, of course had been there all the time). However, not all the album artwork migrated over.
A thing I did right was I put all my data on a drive other than the C: drive. That meant that all my data was preserved even after I had to reinstall Windows 7 Professional. I tried various recovery methods, but none of them worked. Had some of the data been on the C: drive, I might have lost it forever (even with a server backup). It wasn't, and I didn't. In addition, the data drive was a totally separate drive from the Windows drive. If your C: drive dies, you still have your data.
A good outcome of this was: I now have a clean install of Windows 7 Professional 64 bit. Windows tends to accrue a lot of cruft over the years. I know people who reinstall Windows every 6 months. They keep a backup of their disk, of course, and try to make sure that all programs are housed on their data disk. I can now configure Windows to my liking.
Here's a picture of Gertrude. I named the computer after Gertrude Stein, a great mind of the 20th century.
- It has 16GB of RAM: this allows it to boot up in record time.
- It is quiet. You can hardly hear it going—even though it's got 4 fans in it.
- The drives that I installed from the old computer still work, and almost all of my data has been preserved.
- It's got USB2 and 3 both.
So what, you ask, are the bad things.
First, I relied on my backup too much. I have an HP server on the desk that takes a backup every day. However, the backup is not easy to use when the computer goes belly-up, and I didn't discover until too late that there is a recovery procedure. When I did find it, I then discovered that if you change computers the old backup doesn't transfer to the new computer. I didn't use other tools I have, such as Acronis TrueImage, which would have helped immensely in this situation.
Second, I didn't write down the methods for restoring items such as my email from Thunderbird and my iTunes library, both of which are extensive and are not on the C: drive. I have 44GB of emails, from the last 18 years. I keep everything. This has saved my bacon several times, when someone denies that they said something or other I can dig out the email and show them. However, Thunderbird has a difficult recovery procedure when you reinstall the program. The first time I did this it was excruciatingly painful. The second time I remembered what I'd done and it was relatively painless. iTunes, of course, was quite different. There are two library files which you have to delete from the new installation and copy from the old one. When I did that, iTunes filled up with my music (which, of course had been there all the time). However, not all the album artwork migrated over.
A thing I did right was I put all my data on a drive other than the C: drive. That meant that all my data was preserved even after I had to reinstall Windows 7 Professional. I tried various recovery methods, but none of them worked. Had some of the data been on the C: drive, I might have lost it forever (even with a server backup). It wasn't, and I didn't. In addition, the data drive was a totally separate drive from the Windows drive. If your C: drive dies, you still have your data.
A good outcome of this was: I now have a clean install of Windows 7 Professional 64 bit. Windows tends to accrue a lot of cruft over the years. I know people who reinstall Windows every 6 months. They keep a backup of their disk, of course, and try to make sure that all programs are housed on their data disk. I can now configure Windows to my liking.
Here's a picture of Gertrude. I named the computer after Gertrude Stein, a great mind of the 20th century.
