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Post by blockhead on Apr 25, 2020 22:46:59 GMT
Since 240 GB SSDs are cheap, about $30, I was planning on changing them on a regular basis. I'm not at all sure what regimen I should take though. Suggestions? I don't know enough to make a good suggestion. SSDs are still a very new thing to me and I don't want to give you bad advice. Sweet. Looks like you're ready to go, burner-wise.
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Post by jgf on Apr 25, 2020 22:48:11 GMT
SSDs are very reliable today, just stay away from the "budget" brands. Crucial MX series SSDs are getting excellent ratings, plus they have a certain degree of "fail safe" in their circuitry; a 500gB is only about $70 (I missed a sale last month when they were $60), cheaper and faster than the equivalent WD Blue. They also come with free download of cloning software to move your OS from the HD, or previous SSD, to the new drive. But still never defrag an SSD, it uses a massive amount of the finite read/write cycles for no appreciable benefit. (And in desktops I've never bothered with those $15 drive bay adapters, just get a roll of velcro tape, slap a piece on the back of the drive and another where you want the drive, and stick it there.)
For backup I use external USB drives, a 1tB is only about $40 now; I alternate two of them, making a full backup of both internal drives every couple of months. For incremental backups, or saving a complete game install, I use flashdrives.
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Post by Sniffles on Apr 27, 2020 3:06:08 GMT
I really miss Techy and his back ups. Feel like a babe in the woods without the bail out. And the Little Iron Lady sitting there in the corner of the desktop catching BSODs and blowing off viruses. When they got bought out all the small change customers got kicked out. All his employees got dumped. LIL vanished. But they gave him such a ridiculously high price for his company he was able to give all his employees down to the part time janitor a golden parachute. Finally got a straight answer from him what LIL was. "Back in the day. We were rebuilding an HP 3000, my first serious machine, from parts I scrounged for free. Fucking monster machine that kept us warm from the 50 and 100 mb HDs that ate the entire living room. We were marvelling that we got it working and kicking it back with some smoke while tossing around the idea of OSes. The HP spoke 7 languages native. So why the hell can't we write our own OS? Dug out Peter Nortons books and started hammering away in MASM. Then it was why reinvent the wheel? Use the operating systems other have developed with our baby as a sub operating system running the show. Listening to The Doors album that night, Gonna tell you bout the lady with the wrought iron soul, as we fired up our sub OS. And Little Iron Lady was born. She was rebuilt, recompiled, redesigned, rewritten by myself and every crack programmer I knew at one time or another. Since she was written in raw machine code with our own tweaks added she was almost self encrypted. We originally fired her up under Windows 2.0 with a modified Red Hat bootloader. She had her own communications protocol. In fact she was modeled after a highly modified version of Red Hat 1.0 and using an end all be all WINE sort of interface. She took over all the hardware on a machine and built her own interface. So the OS subs that connected to the hardware were actually talking to LIL and LIL ran her own show. She had a static side that couldn't be altered as it was in a different disc format, and a dynamic side that was compiled every time a computer started up, linux kernel style. Trash the dynamics and the OS sitting on her face and she'd just drop to her boot routine and recompile herself. Virus proof, BSOD proof. Crash the OS and she'd just sweep up the pieces and restart it. I cringe on how much coding we put into her. The original compile was 14 meg. In laymans terms, 14 meg of raw machine code would be comparable to a modern vesion of Windows taking up about 200-300 GB. We hammered it down until she ran partly in memory at 1.2 meg. When we converted her Windows side to native 64 bit we expected a nightmare. Was a real bitch for a couple of weeks then it suddenly went smooth sailing. The whole plan behind LIL was of course to run in the background, run automatic back ups and act like safety net. No chance anyone will ever build something like her again. We had an honest 5,000 programming hours in her over the years. Probably more. Tp simplify all the above turkey dressing, there is a way to have and utilize two different filing systems and structure at the same time, as Linux and Win. If anyone wants to know how, just take an in depth stroll through the architecture of the HP 3000. I won a bet a few years back when some smart ass claimed root kit viruses could still blow off the OS. 20 grand against his near new motorhome. Almost felt sorry for the guy as he plugged virus after virus in and LIL just tossed them in the trash. Can't be done, my man. Fork over the keys and pink slip."
I bought a HP back up 500 GB drive a while back. It died in a week. Haven't trusted them since. Any suggestions for a decent one?
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Post by blockhead on Apr 27, 2020 3:55:50 GMT
Thank you ... I had been wondering about why suddenly techie was not supporting you. The closest thing to that LIL thing that regular people could get would be I suppose a hypervisor. I've not ever set one of those up so cannot say for sure. For hard drives I've been getting WD and Toshiba. Though in December I'd bought a WD "blue" and it had a some really weird problem that I could never sort out (the drive would suddenly be read-only every few days) so I had to return it. And I avoid Seagate: had one crap out on me in under a year. p.s. HP is utter crap. I didn't know they made drives. In the 1980s they made a fine line of calculators, but something changed over time and now they just make crap computers. p.p.s. Compaq is also crappy, btw. Actually ... didn't HP buy Compaq, or the other way around? So now they make crappier crap. Crap squared.
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Post by jgf on Apr 27, 2020 7:26:00 GMT
For regular HD, WD Black is the best (imo); fast, reliable, good warranty (usually five years), and decent prices. I've used them almost exclusively for years and never had one fail (there's a ten year old 500gig SATA in my Vista system that still passes diagnostics with flying colors ...and for over five years that system ran 24hrs/day).
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Post by Sniffles on Apr 27, 2020 8:07:31 GMT
For regular HD, WD Black is the best (imo); fast, reliable, good warranty (usually five years), and decent prices. I've used them almost exclusively for years and never had one fail (there's a ten year old 500gig SATA in my Vista system that still passes diagnostics with flying colors ...and for over five years that system ran 24hrs/day). That is why I insisted on WD Black. But that warranty should come with the disclaimer: WE WILL REPLACE YOUR DRIVE BUT WE DON"T GIVE A RODENTS RECTUM ABOUT YOUR DATA
I think the HP back up drive was bogus. Some pure crap drive marketed as HP for the name to help sell it.
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Post by jgf on Apr 27, 2020 18:52:19 GMT
No manufacturer can guarantee your data, it's up to you make backups. That is why critical computer systems, such as in aircraft, are double, even triple, redundant.
FWIW, the external USB drives I use are WB Elements 1tB (https://shop.westerndigital.com/products/portable-drives/wd-elements-portable-usb-3-0-hdd#WDBUZG0010BBK-WESN), they have functioned flawlessly for seven years and five years; slightly more expensive on Amazon but for an extra $15 you get a three year data recovery warranty. (The Passport model is the same drive in a fancy case that comes in different colors ...for a higher price.)
As for HP, the only computer equipment they have manufactured is commercial mainframe systems; everything else - laptops, desktops, components - is branded equipment (made by someone else, typically Asian companies, to be marketed by HP). After their merger with Compaq that obviously became the manufacturer; eventually the Compaq name was dropped, "Compaq products were rebranded, taking on HP’s nameplate and HP’s new acquisition became the company’s face for its lower-end computers. However, for reasons not stated, HP discontinued the Compaq brand in 2013". While HP's commercial equipment and test equipment is still highly regarded, I would steer clear of any of their consumer equipment (same with Sony).
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Post by Sniffles on Apr 29, 2020 0:22:25 GMT
Okay, back to Morrowind. Here's the plan. A, Rework the keyboard to be like FO 4 which I'm most familiar with. B, Take our level 1 charming darling heavily armed with a soup ladle from Seyda Neen up to Gnissis and find Constance. Walking and swimming and running and hiding. No silt Strider. C, Hide behind Constance a LOT. D, Go find Pemenie and steal her boots.
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Post by blockhead on Apr 29, 2020 2:50:39 GMT
heavily armed with a soup ladle
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Post by Sniffles on Apr 30, 2020 12:11:23 GMT
A pair of loose nuts in Vaardenfel. "Uhhhhh Constance, in case you're wondering what happened to your shirt, you just drank it. And we are now out of health potions. And neither of us is as fast as that rat. Yes, we're going to die... again. By the way, when you claimed you were good at Marksman, did you mean good at shooting every arrow we own off into the blue?" "Sorry about that. I'm still getting the hang of this ring. Let me reload the game."
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Post by Sniffles on May 2, 2020 3:34:58 GMT
Wellllll, see this arrow here? It weighs something over 1 ton. I'm trying to drag it out that door, outside this building, down 3 flights of stairs, down a couple of corridors and into a shop where I'm going to sell it for the price of a nifty bow. I hope.
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Post by Sniffles on May 2, 2020 10:17:22 GMT
So there we were, facing down a dreaded kwama forager in a narrow tunnel. Constant, as in constantly blocks doorways, fires her Dire Frostbloom Arrow as I fire mine. TADA. Dead kwama forager, PC and companion.
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Post by jgf on May 2, 2020 16:16:23 GMT
Never give companions area effect weapons or spells. They either kill you or make any nearby NPCs/creatures want to kill you.
When I played as a pure mage I all too often killed Constance since as soon as I sent a ranged spell towards an opponent she would equip her bow then run near the enemy before attacking, usually just in time to catch my next spell. Or she would bear the brunt of the fighting since she was too close to our enemy for me to use magic. I didn't want to make her invulnerable but Emma had a solution - a small mod that lets Constance teleport home when her health drops to a certain point. No more reloading to resurrect my companion, just return to Gnisis, buy her a drink, and continue our exploits.
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Post by Sniffles on May 3, 2020 3:06:50 GMT
Constance is really no problem. She just needs allowances made. A, Save-A-Lot and B, upon reloading post death, POOF her. Give her a drink and POOF. Passed Out On Floor and you can go get killed without her help. Vilja double equipped with a staff of fireballs and chain lightning is the end all be all to spice up your game and keep you on your toes. (Or knees)
I should make a Youtube video of Constance vs a Winged Twilight. Important safety tip-> make save game before the thing is up in your face.
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Post by Sniffles on May 3, 2020 12:07:12 GMT
Another important safety tip: Solstheim with a level 1 character = not so good.
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