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Dev!l

Dev!l

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Feb 5, 2010
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It's been over 2 years since I have this computer and God it's almost come to a standstill. I've always put off formatting the HDD because of the data I have on the computer, I don't really know of any good data backup softwares that would serve the purpose. I pretty much want a clone of ALL the data i.e. Documents, files, software data and what not. I don't want to format my computer and then be like "Shit! I didn't backup XYZ!".

OS: Vista Home Premium 32-bit (Should I switch to Windows 7 or downgrade to XP?)-Please link me to a good torrent after you recommend one of these :p

Specs:
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E4600 @2.4Ghz
Ram: 2GB
Graphics Card: Nvidia GeForce 8400 256 mb RAM (dedicated)

What anti-virus do you guys recommend?
How do you manage to keep your computer in shape?

That's pretty much it. Any questions you've got or any other stats you need let me know.
 


I was in a similar situation. I went the XP route and eventually gave up when I could not get my drivers working correctly + consistantly. I miss XP.

I then formatted, reinstalled vista and reloaded my programs. Took some time but for the last 5 months my comp has never run smoother.

I have a compaq presario laptop purchased about 1.5 years ago for reference.
 
omgyams said:
I was in a similar situation. I went the XP route and eventually gave up when I could not get my drivers working correctly + consistantly. I miss XP.

I then formatted, reinstalled vista and reloaded my programs. Took some time but for the last 5 months my comp has never run smoother.

I have a compaq presario laptop purchased about 1.5 years ago for reference.
Click to expand...

As you said, driver compatibility is an issue. WHy didn't you go with Windows 7? And what did you use to backup the data?

Dark Cognitive said:
USB hard drive > Backup Data > Format Comp.

/thread
Click to expand...

Backup data using...?
 
Dev!l said:
OS: Vista Home Premium 32-bit (Should I switch to Windows 7 or downgrade to XP?)-Please link me to a good torrent after you recommend one of these :p

Specs:
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E4600 @2.4Ghz
Ram: 2GB
Graphics Card: Nvidia GeForce 8400 256 mb RAM (dedicated)

What anti-virus do you guys recommend?
How do you manage to keep your computer in shape?

That's pretty much it. Any questions you've got or any other stats you need let me know.
Click to expand...

1st off it's time for a new rig if you can afford it, them specks be whack!

If you have no desire to at least throw some new gear in your rig, like more ram or a better graphics card, you might as well downgrade to XP because I wouldn't recommend running Windows 7 without at least 4 Gigs of ram. Because if you're a multitasker shit gets ate up fast.

For ant-virus ESET is great, small footprint and doesn't take up a bunch of resources. I even put it on my moms crappy laptop and it runs great.

I subscribe to a pretty easy system to keep my system fresh.

1. Don't ever leave your system in a state where you can't recover from catastrophe. Offload or duplicate important documents and work to a cloud based backup system (like dropbox) and or an external hard drive.

2. If you don't need a document or some other data on your hard drive at the time offload it to another source. I have a 750 GB hard drive, I only partition half the drive for use because I find it hard to believe you could really have that much data on hand that you need. This will keep you system zippy!

3. Be vigilant on what you install, and uninstall all applications you don't need or don't use. This shit will pile up over the years and negatively impact your system.

4. Run good anti-virus, and use NoScript or similar plugin when browsing the web.

5. Don't be afraid to wipe everything clean every 6-12 months.

Good luck to you.
 
1st off it's time for a new rig if you can afford it, them specks be whack!

I just bought myself a new lappy. I have this one as well, a desktop. I haven't started using my lappy that much, I've to pick up a Wi-Fi modem. I'll need another thread for that question... hah!

If you have no desire to at least throw some new gear in your rig, like more ram or a better graphics card, you might as well downgrade to XP because I wouldn't recommend running Windows 7 without at least 4 Gigs of ram. Because if you're a multitasker shit gets ate up fast.

Aren't the requirements for Vista and Windows 7 the same?

For ant-virus ESET is great, small footprint and doesn't take up a bunch of resources. I even put it on my moms crappy laptop and it runs great.

Do you have original copies, if not please tell me where you got yours from! :p

I subscribe to a pretty easy system to keep my system fresh.

1. Don't ever leave your system in a state where you can't recover from catastrophe. Offload or duplicate important documents and work to a cloud based backup system (like dropbox) and or an external hard drive.

Just took a look, dropbox wouldn't really work, would it? I mean 2GB for free users going up to $20/month for 100GB.

2. If you don't need a document or some other data on your hard drive at the time offload it to another source. I have a 750 GB hard drive, I only partition half the drive for use because I find it hard to believe you could really have that much data on hand that you need. This will keep you system zippy!

I have a 1TB external HDD. I have no idea when it's going to crash and when I'll lose all that data. I mainly use it for storing media like movies, TV shows, documentaries, etc... Of course, another reason for buying that was to backup data on it. I'm just wondering what happens if it crashes, can't do much I suppose.

3. Be vigilant on what you install, and uninstall all applications you don't need or don't use. This shit will pile up over the years and negatively impact your system.

That's something I should do. I get so lazy to do that!

4. Run good anti-virus, and use NoScript or similar plugin when browsing the web.

Had trouble keeping up my pirated copy of Nod32 so I switched to Avast! I don't have that plugin, damn! I'll have to get that one.

5. Don't be afraid to wipe everything clean every 6-12 months.

I should muster the courage to do so.

Good luck to you.


Thanks Rage!
 
Aren't the requirements for Vista and Windows 7 the same?
Click to expand...

Essentially yes, but I myself constantly over the 2 Gig mark all the time. Probably because the OS itself is going to consume around 1 Gig. Requirements are just that, requirements, not what you're actually going to need to be productive. If you want to constantly wait, have a laggy system, watch shit freeze on you then by all means stick with 2 Gigs of ram.

Do you have original copies, if not please tell me where you got yours from! :p
Click to expand...
I bought it from the ESET website, first time I bought an antivirus but it's been great. Kapersky would probably be another worthy product. I used Avira for a while but it was causing issues with video playback on my system, and I don't have a slouch of a system:

AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition 3.2GHz (OC to 4.0 GHz, CPU/NB Freq 3000 MHz)
ASUS Crosshair IV Formula Mobo
G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (4 x 2GB) DDR3 1600(9-9-9-24)(modified timing 7-8-7-20 T2 @1.65V)
Noctua NH-D14 CPU Cooler with Artic Silver 5
Nvidia GeForce GTX 275
ASUS Xonar Essence ST Audio Card
Rosewill 1000w Power Supply

Just took a look, dropbox wouldn't really work, would it? I mean 2GB for free users going up to $20/month for 100GB.
Click to expand...

Guess it depends how much it's worth to you to have that extra security blanket. If you're data is worth $140 a year then it's worth it IMHO. At the very least the free 2GB account will still store tons of stuff.

There are a lot of different cloud based backup solutions out there, so shop around. I think Mozzy is cheaper, but from I hear they are also way slower.

Ubuntu One offers 20 gigs for $2.99 a month or $29.99 a year.

I have a 1TB external HDD. I have no idea when it's going to crash and when I'll lose all that data. I mainly use it for storing media like movies, TV shows, documentaries, etc... Of course, another reason for buying that was to backup data on it. I'm just wondering what happens if it crashes, can't do much I suppose.
Click to expand...

Right, that's about what I do. It could die at any time, which is why you should have your really critical shit backuped between a cloud based system and an external hard drive. You could add another hard drive to the mix if that was your preference.

I should muster the courage to do so.
Click to expand...

I think it's a necessity. Windows 7 has been really good about the amount of time between having to do it more so than any other version of windows I have ever used.
 
Dev!l said:
As you said, driver compatibility is an issue. WHy didn't you go with Windows 7? And what did you use to backup the data?
Click to expand...

I used my backup disc that had a vanilla vista install. I chose to revert because i didnt have a win7 key. I used an external 1 terrabyte drive.

Basically stuck with Vista because it was more convenient at the time.
 
Rage9 pretty much summed everything up. I absolutely swear by fresh os installs minimum once a year, usually more frequently. Sucks backing things up but it's worth regaining the speed. I don't rely solely on the cloud for storage. Call me paranoid but I'd rather have my data on my drives rather than someone else's. Dropbox is handy as shit though for moving btw pcs. Get a bunch of memory, like rage said minimum 4gb. It makes a world of difference. I think you need a 64bit windoze os for ram>4gb though.
 
i have a similar configuration to yours , i am really thinking of buying a brand new computer , just getting to anoying
 
What backup program should I use? And are there any good copies of Windows 7 online that any of you can recommend? I'll probably buy another 2 gigs of RAM and add it to this. Waste of money this HP computer is, absolute waste! I'm going to buy an assembled computer next time.
 
Using one of your own servers for a backup target these type of programs
Genie9 (Formally Genie-soft) Backup Store | Affordable Backup Solutions | Discounts and Bundles Available
have worked well for me in the past. Depending on your hosting account, limits on bandwidth / storage is a not an issue and no monthly re-occurring fees. I have used the Genie Backup Manager Professional for a couple of years now. Once setup properly it has kept everything automatically backed up without any intervention. The couple of restores needed went well too.

They use to be all over warez / torrents sites . . . . . . or so I'm told.
 
Just buy a brand new HDD and do a fresh Win7 install on it, then copy whatever data you need from the old drive and keep it as backup.
 
Dev!l said:
Backup data using...?
Click to expand...

Drag and drop... seriously.

What do you have on your machine that you can't simply drag and drop to another drive? What do you have on your machine THAT ISN'T BACKED UP TO ANOTHER DRIVE ALREADY? From the sounds of things you're one dead hard drive away from losing EVERYTHING which is pretty fucking dumb.

For comparison I have 6 drives in my machine:

C: System
D: Dedicated scratch disk
E: Work
F: Resources
G: Work Backup
H: Resources Backup

Other than a few configuration files to export out of a few programs, and my book marks, nothing important is on my system disk (C) it's all on the other drives. My email is on a separate computer entirely and regularly backed up. If I need to wipe and reformat for whatever reason it takes about a day to do so. My next aquisition is a QNAP NAS with 4 or more drives in RAID as a local/VPS server.

What programs do you use that you absolutely must have the data out of?

Make a list of the programs you use so you know what you might need to save settings out of and to make a quick check list for reinstalling everything. Start copying your files, exporting backups out of things like Outlook, your browser bookmarks, passwords, settings for apps like say, Dreamweaver, etc. etc. This will take all of two or three hours to do if you're organized and move quickly.

Double check your list and then reformat.

If you decide to upgrade the current machine, at least go to 4gb of RAM, 2gb just isn't enough. That's your biggest weak point IMO. The video card is pretty sucky but if you're not a gamer it should be just fine. What River just suggested isn't a bad idea either, simply get a new hard drive and start from scratch on it and you have everything on your old disk. Easy.

Now might just be the time to reconsider a new rig though.
 
Fatbat said:
Drag and drop... seriously.

What do you have on your machine that you can't simply drag and drop to another drive? What do you have on your machine THAT ISN'T BACKED UP TO ANOTHER DRIVE ALREADY? From the sounds of things you're one dead hard drive away from losing EVERYTHING which is pretty fucking dumb.

For comparison I have 6 drives in my machine:

C: System
D: Dedicated scratch disk
E: Work
F: Resources
G: Work Backup
H: Resources Backup

Other than a few configuration files to export out of a few programs, and my book marks, nothing important is on my system disk (C) it's all on the other drives. My email is on a separate computer entirely and regularly backed up. If I need to wipe and reformat for whatever reason it takes about a day to do so. My next aquisition is a QNAP NAS with 4 or more drives in RAID as a local/VPS server.

What programs do you use that you absolutely must have the data out of?

Make a list of the programs you use so you know what you might need to save settings out of and to make a quick check list for reinstalling everything. Start copying your files, exporting backups out of things like Outlook, your browser bookmarks, passwords, settings for apps like say, Dreamweaver, etc. etc. This will take all of two or three hours to do if you're organized and move quickly.

Double check your list and then reformat.

If you decide to upgrade the current machine, at least go to 4gb of RAM, 2gb just isn't enough. That's your biggest weak point IMO. The video card is pretty sucky but if you're not a gamer it should be just fine. What River just suggested isn't a bad idea either, simply get a new hard drive and start from scratch on it and you have everything on your old disk. Easy.

Now might just be the time to reconsider a new rig though.
Click to expand...


Thanks for the suggestion. As I said I just bought myself a new laptop which has 4GB RAM, 1GB graphics card, i3-370 processor and a 500GB HDD. I'll upgrade the RAM as you have suggested and I'll save the gaming for my laptop (I'll be working a lot on it though). Has anybody used any good software to backup and restore their data and can recommend one?
 
Fatbat said:
Drag and drop... seriously.
Click to expand...

Agreed. Either buy an extra internal HDD or just buy an external USB drive.

For example, the last time i formatted my laptop i just basically Copy / Pasted the entire contents of my C: and D: drives to a 1TB external hard drive.

It didnt take that long to copy the entire contents over to my external HDD, then once i formatted my laptop i simply plugged in my external drive again and copied the stuff i needed on my laptop back over.

Then you can go ahead and clean up / delete the stuff you dont need from the external drive if you need to, but personally i just leave it as it is, 1TB holds a shit load of data!, and of course its always handy having a backup you can rely on.
 
You are using the laptop for gaming, so you could go with Linux on the desktop and you wouldn't have to upgrade RAM. It will run smoother than Windows and will stay that way, for the most part.

Linux Mint is easy to use and you can try it before installing with a live disc :
Download - Linux Mint


[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8u_RDnZc9w]YouTube - Linux Mint 10 Final i386 Quick Review[/ame]
 
Moxie said:
You are using the laptop for gaming, so you could go with Linux on the desktop and you wouldn't have to upgrade RAM. It will run smoother than Windows and will stay that way, for the most part.

Linux Mint is easy to use and you can try it before installing with a live disc :
Download - Linux Mint

10 Final i386 Quick Review[/url]
Click to expand...

This is a good idea also, 2 GB is typically fine for doing most anything on Linux, assuming you don't mind a little learning curve.

Although with the current Ubuntu release Mint doesn't have the kind of edge it once had.
 
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