Going from Dial-up to WIFI

No, no John, my internet computer is not refurbished, yet it still has a measly 250 watt power supply !!!!

And now, The NEWS ...

Reporting on my progress...

I plugged the 2TB backup drive in, followed the instructions, which was surprisingly easy using the Windows 7 disk management.

Formatted it to NTFS. Then used the backup feature of Windows 7. It just asks a few simple questions about what I wanted to include in the image. And where do I want to put it, DVDs or Drive E (the backup drive).

Surprising to me, (a little), was that it also copied the the HP Restore partition and the full OS partition.

What is a little unsettling is that Windows says the backup drive now has 1.72 TB free out of 1.81 TB. Maybe this is one of those Windows odd calculations.

Went to a computer repair shop and asked him how much it would cost to check that second used 1TB drive.. $25. To also reformat it clean..$10 dollars more.

Do all that and put the drive into the computer and restore the image? (He doesn't do images, he installs Windows, goes get the drivers for my computer). Along with a 500 GB hard drive (i think used) Errr...$189. I told him that is getting close to the cheapest new computer Walmart sells, $300.

Do I know how to screw in a hard drive and plug the cords into it, I think so? I saw "new" Seagate 1TB drives on EBAY ..New? $70.
It was hard for me to find 1TB (SATA 2 or 3) on Newegg. Newegg is tricky for me.

I'm not sure if the image can be installed onto different sized hard drives. I read that the Windows image is based on a file system method, maybe it skips all the empty sectors.

Over for now. Best Wishes, Robert

Windows explorer, click on this pc, right click on the drive, select properties, tools, error checking and you've just saved $25. When you do a backup it compresses the data so the system image is much smaller than you might think. This is normal.

You normally need a recovery disk to restore the disk image. If you have a CD burner or DVD RW device windows back up can create one for you. Burn two in case the first doesn't work.

Open the case I prefer to use an antistatic strap but touch the back of the case first to earth yourself. You'll probably need a screw driver but apart from that taking a hard drive out and putting a new one is is fairly straight forward.

The drive is probably sata but look up your model on the internet first or use belarc to determine what sort of drive you have. Basically they change the connectors every few years to screw people in the name of progress. Or take the back off and take a photo of the connectors and we can probably work it out but you might have to send it via email.

Once the drive is replaced then boot from the recovery disk with the external drive attached. Follow the instructions and it will reinstall windows for you on the new hard drive.

The cheapest way is newegg.com and use the knowledge in the forums. We are cheaper than the computer stores and probably know a lot more.

Cheerio John
 
Hello! I'm still here!

Moving real slow however. I took that spare 1TB drive I had, and took it to a computer guy. Asked him can you check it? Yes, $25. ( could you tell me if it has two partitions?) . Hey, you want me to check it, I'm a trained computer technician!! My time is money!!

Me: Just check the disk drive. A day later, his wife calls me back you can pick up the drive. (just for the heck of it, (in the store) I asked her, "how's the drive?" . She says, "it's good". I ask her, "did he say if it had two partitions? She say's "he didn't say ..."

(I Guess if he would have said it, it would have been $10 more) !!!

So, for now, I'm gonna go with that drive, but these past days, I've upgraded my browsers. No horrible problems. I've gotta get things right, because I must save the image again with this new stuff on it.

Looked for hard drives. Lot's of them that are under the heading of SATA are of the SATA 6 variety. I went on the real Western Digital Factory site and could't figure out exactly what that was, they had a WD Gold Enterprise drive (with a Gigantic cache) that looked like a plain SATA.

I went on Newegg, and saw some SATAs, but there are a lot of bad reviews, I went through a lot of them. If I buy a drive, it will probably be from them! So that's the NEWS as IT happened !!!
 
Hello! I'm still here!

Moving real slow however. I took that spare 1TB drive I had, and took it to a computer guy. Asked him can you check it? Yes, $25. ( could you tell me if it has two partitions?) . Hey, you want me to check it, I'm a trained computer technician!! My time is money!!

Me: Just check the disk drive. A day later, his wife calls me back you can pick up the drive. (just for the heck of it, (in the store) I asked her, "how's the drive?" . She says, "it's good". I ask her, "did he say if it had two partitions? She say's "he didn't say ..."

(I Guess if he would have said it, it would have been $10 more) !!!

So, for now, I'm gonna go with that drive, but these past days, I've upgraded my browsers. No horrible problems. I've gotta get things right, because I must save the image again with this new stuff on it.

Looked for hard drives. Lot's of them that are under the heading of SATA are of the SATA 6 variety. I went on the real Western Digital Factory site and could't figure out exactly what that was, they had a WD Gold Enterprise drive (with a Gigantic cache) that looked like a plain SATA.

I went on Newegg, and saw some SATAs, but there are a lot of bad reviews, I went through a lot of them. If I buy a drive, it will probably be from them! So that's the NEWS as IT happened !!!

SATA 6 is backwards compatible.

Cheerio John
 
Hi John, They are compatible ? Using the SATA 2 cable on my current drive? (I keep seeing SATA 6 cables with latches on them) ?

Robert.
 
Thanks for this information John! This takes away my concern about the SATA 6 drives. The Staples guys I talked with, said the drives wouldn't work with SATA II connectors !!

Bob P.
 
Hi John, They are compatible ? Using the SATA 2 cable on my current drive? (I keep seeing SATA 6 cables with latches on them) ?

Robert.


Latches are to stop the cables working loose and giving an intermittent connection, it does happen with the older ones, I suspect due to vibration. Other than the latch they are identical.
 
OK John, I believe that SATA 6 drives will work on all SATA . This has opened me up to the 1&2 TB Seagate internal drives they have at the Staple store.

The 1TB sells for around $62. I would buy this, and just keep it as a second drive to have on hand. Or maybe just use it now to install the image on and and use it...I do like brick and mortar stores.

Why would it say on the box (something like) computer must have 5V dc? ??

Do all hard drives use 5 volts dc? And a little strange to me, it is a "thin" drive. Will it mount in the usually way, do you think? When I saw "thin", I'm thinking that they are using laptop drives inside!

Robert

Gotta get my head together to be careful installing. Avoid static at all cost, Shut the computer and monitor off off, maybe remove the power cords. Is it necessary to shut off the "gateway"? I guess I would have to unplug it. It doesn't have an on/off switch...
 
OK John, I believe that SATA 6 drives will work on all SATA . This has opened me up to the 1&2 TB Seagate internal drives they have at the Staple store.

The 1TB sells for around $62. I would buy this, and just keep it as a second drive to have on hand. Or maybe just use it now to install the image on and and use it...I do like brick and mortar stores.

Why would it say on the box (something like) computer must have 5V dc? ??

Do all hard drives use 5 volts dc? And a little strange to me, it is a "thin" drive. Will it mount in the usually way, do you think? When I saw "thin", I'm thinking that they are using laptop drives inside!

Robert

Gotta get my head together to be careful installing. Avoid static at all cost, Shut the computer and monitor off off, maybe remove the power cords. Is it necessary to shut off the "gateway"? I guess I would have to unplug it. It doesn't have an on/off switch...


There is a very minor risk of injury if you leave the PC plugged in but it does happen to earth the PC. Clip the wrist strap to the frame and you are static free. If you aren't using a wrist strap touch a damp handkerchief then the bare metal on the PC to discharge any static first.

Cheerio John
 
OK John, I believe that SATA 6 drives will work on all SATA . This has opened me up to the 1&2 TB Seagate internal drives they have at the Staple store.

The 1TB sells for around $62. I would buy this, and just keep it as a second drive to have on hand. Or maybe just use it now to install the image on and and use it...I do like brick and mortar stores.

Why would it say on the box (something like) computer must have 5V dc? ??

Do all hard drives use 5 volts dc? And a little strange to me, it is a "thin" drive. Will it mount in the usually way, do you think? When I saw "thin", I'm thinking that they are using laptop drives inside!

Robert

Gotta get my head together to be careful installing. Avoid static at all cost, Shut the computer and monitor off off, maybe remove the power cords. Is it necessary to shut off the "gateway"? I guess I would have to unplug it. It doesn't have an on/off switch...

I recommend leaving the PC plugged in, but off. In fact when you turn it off, unplug the PC initially and press the power button to discharge any capacitors in the power supply. You may even hear the fan spin for a second or two. Once discharged, plug the machine back in to keep it grounded. A wrist strap is recommended at least this time of year with our 15- 20% humidity! I've never seen it so dry as it is this year.

All hard drives have +5V. This is needed to power the hard disk motors, otherwise, the drives won't spin. The olden days saw +/- 12V to spin the motors. We've come along way since then. :)

Laptops these days use the same connectors even for SSDs.

The drive kits come with converter cables that go from the "fat" power plugs to the thinner SATA-type connectors in case you need them. I recommend saving them in case you want to setup another drive someday and need to setup another drive. There are some older kits that had a combo adaptor that had both connectors in one. I still have a couple of those connectors "somewhere" in one of the gazillion boxes I have of stuff from years of upgrading PCs.
 
John, thanks for the good information. I also went onto the Comcast forums and asked if I could just unplug the modem/router cable from the computer before working on the hard drive installation. The answer to that was yes.

I didn't ask if you can leave the router on while doing all this, but I think you can. I swear the technician who installed the modem powered it up first and then plugged the yellow cable into the turned-on computer.

Wish me luck, I do things slowly. But I'll report it here if I get it done.
 
Yes, you can leave network equipment turned on 24/7 if you wanted, it will do nothing without the PC as a destination of the internet traffic.
 
Thanks Fellas,

Now there's another question. (whenever I go online and search to find an answer, the answer isn't logically there..)

Like my question about "does a new updated Firefox use the same cookies and bookmarks". The answers in my searches got me into finding the profile folder etc, etc.

The Firefox homepage didn't say anything about "so easy, Firefox will keep all your cookies and bookmarks". I wasted my brain trying to find the answer!!

And the answer was, (when I took the plunge and upgraded to the latest version of both my browsers, all the cookies just worked, all my bookmarks were right there!)

Now here's two more questions it is kind of hard to find with searches... 1. should I insert the Windows repair disk into the CD/DVD drive before turning off? I seem to remember that you have to hold the shift key to stop it from booting up..?

And it also seems logical that the backup drive has to be plugged in before I unplug the computer? Or could the discharge harm the USB drive.

(My, my, When some people get older they worry more)!!! Bob P.:)
 
Thanks Fellas,

Now there's another question. (whenever I go online and search to find an answer, the answer isn't logically there..)

Like my question about "does a new updated Firefox use the same cookies and bookmarks". The answers in my searches got me into finding the profile folder etc, etc.

The Firefox homepage didn't say anything about "so easy, Firefox will keep all your cookies and bookmarks". I wasted my brain trying to find the answer!!

And the answer was, (when I took the plunge and upgraded to the latest version of both my browsers, all the cookies just worked, all my bookmarks were right there!)

Now here's two more questions it is kind of hard to find with searches... 1. should I insert the Windows repair disk into the CD/DVD drive before turning off? I seem to remember that you have to hold the shift key to stop it from booting up..?

And it also seems logical that the backup drive has to be plugged in before I unplug the computer? Or could the discharge harm the USB drive.

(My, my, When some people get older they worry more)!!! Bob P.:)

I'd put the windows repair disk on the shelf.

Win 10 so possibly win 7 bottom right there are icons. One looks like a small USB stick, you might have to dig out the up arrow symbol to find it. Click it and it will offer to eject the plugged in hard drive. Say yes. Then it will show a small screen saying it is safe to remove the drive. Remove it.

Cheerio John
 
John, You are a patient man. I myself am patient when trying to help somebody.
But I feel I am pushing things too hard here in this thread!!

I've been doing searches probably for hours trying to find some clear instructions on how this should be done, but there's no step 1,2,3,4 on this. Just now, I have the thought that maybe the Seagate website could describe the 1,2,3,4 way to do this. At some point, the Seagate external drive has to be plugged in.

I ejected and unplugged it a couple of days ago fearing that the image file on it could get tampered with ...

Typical of internet screw-ups. online, I found that my local Best Buy had a few wrist straps in stock. I called them by landline and no live person came to answer, So I hopped in the car and drove about 7 miles to the store ... and they were out of them.

In my searching, I found some people suggesting to also save an image with a different program (Easus, Macrium etc.) just in case the windows image doesn't succeed .

I'm getting the feeling I should soon dive into doing it (like i did installing the new browsers) but right now, to the Seagate site and maybe forums I'll go, if they have them! No need to solve this thing for you. You have already done too much!! Thank You!!

Bob P.
 
John, You are a patient man. I myself am patient when trying to help somebody.
But I feel I am pushing things too hard here in this thread!!

I've been doing searches probably for hours trying to find some clear instructions on how this should be done, but there's no step 1,2,3,4 on this. Just now, I have the thought that maybe the Seagate website could describe the 1,2,3,4 way to do this. At some point, the Seagate external drive has to be plugged in.

I ejected and unplugged it a couple of days ago fearing that the image file on it could get tampered with ...

Typical of internet screw-ups. online, I found that my local Best Buy had a few wrist straps in stock. I called them by landline and no live person came to answer, So I hopped in the car and drove about 7 miles to the store ... and they were out of them.

In my searching, I found some people suggesting to also save an image with a different program (Easus, Macrium etc.) just in case the windows image doesn't succeed .

I'm getting the feeling I should soon dive into doing it (like i did installing the new browsers) but right now, to the Seagate site and maybe forums I'll go, if they have them! No need to solve this thing for you. You have already done too much!! Thank You!!

Bob P.

The belt and braces method is two windows system images on two devices. The other thing is if you are running windows ten then create a Microsoft account. Should the backup fail for some reason the Microsoft account will let you reinstall Windows on the machine. I know people who periodically wipe their machine and reinstall everything from scratch for performance reasons.

Newegg.com or Amazon.com sell things like anti static wrist straps quite cheaply. Amazon.com are safe for credit cards or you can buy an amazon gift card Newegg.com I use paypal and a credit card with paypal. An alternative is talk nicely to someone who shops at Amazon and ask them to buy you one and give them the money.

Cheerio John
 
If you drive, head up to U-Do-It. in Needham off of Rt 128 (I-95)
Well John, There are two things that wouldn't allow me to do that...

1. I live down near Cape Cod.

2. I drive a 97 Toyota Corolla that has a rubber timing belt (which hasn't been changed in a long, long, long time) So I stick around my local area. I know, "change the belt". The car is kinda old and many things need changing. But perhaps with the stimulus check money, I'll finally have it done!

I think the answer would be for me to buy a 1 TB hard drive, either WD or Seagate (I read somewhere that the same size drive makes it easier for the image. Then install it in my computer ( the mother board has a connection for a drive 2 (If my measly 250W power supply can handle it).

Then format it with my current Windows 7 ..Or, Perhaps the repair disk does the formatting when it installs the image. Could you take a look at this web page?

I can sort of understand what needs to be done. (naturally the backup USB drive has to be plugged in when the imaging is needed.

Forgive me if I have been a little slow on the uptake here! Bob P.


https://smallbusiness.chron.com/need-format-new-hard-drive-before-restoring-system-image-79105.html
 
Back
Top