Where Did 2012 Go?

Hard to believe it's 2013 already. I was so busy in 2012 I didn't get much chance to blog.  Happy New Year (x2), Happy Valentines Day (x2), Merry Christmas (x1) and Happy Easter (x2), etc.!

Now it's Spring, and with it comes a time of cleansing.  Bring your dusty PC to Big Mike Computer Services in Nanaimo and have the dust blown out for free.  Call 250-740-1812 to book your appointment.  While you're there, have Big Mike put your machine on the bench for a quick check up.

Big Mike Computer Services is located at 6132 Mystic Way, Nanaimo, BC.

We do hardware upgrades, virus removal, malware removal, RAM upgrades, tweaks, troubleshoots and transfers.  Need your data backed up or recovered?  Call Big Mike today.

250-740-1812

A Little Tap'll Do Ya

Recently I was asked to try to save the data on a failed hard drive.  This was a fairly new 2 terabyte Western Digital "green" drive.  I was told the drive just "up and stopped" one day and the drive letter disappeared.  I've had the opportunity to retreive data on lots of drives before, and this, I thought, would be no different than the hundreds of others I had managed to get data from.

I hooked the drive up to my test machine and hit the power button.  The machine took a long time to initialize the drives, and then gave me a failure message from the one I had hooked up.  I felt the top and bottom of the hard drive and it didn't feel warm, nor did it feel like it was spinning the platters inside.

My first thought was that it was indeed 'hooped" and beyond my level of repair.  So I called my client and told him what I had discovered.  He said he was between backups on that drive and that there was some stuff on there that was very important.  I told him there were some data recovery companies in BC and we could ship his drive over to one of them but it was not a cheap process.  He wanted to know how much and I said it was at least several hundred dollars for sure.  I told him I could do some research for him and come up with some sort of plan.

I called around and talked to a few recovery companies on the mainland, and came up with the best deal I could find and that was about $750, and if no data could be recovered, then no charge.  But I also had to send a second drive for the data to be copied to and provide a list of the most important folders on the drive so they would at least have something to search for while the drive was running in some capacity.

After working out a deal and confirming with my customer how to proceed, I was getting ready to send in the two hard drives via Purolator.  But during a quick meeting with my engineer friend, I had an idea I would try.  He said it was possible that the platters were just "stuck" because they were in the middle of a read/write when something happened.  He suggested I try holding the drive parallel to the floor and quickly spin the drive back and forth with my hand.  The idea, of course, was to make the case spin faster than the platters, thereby breaking them free.  I tried that a few time but it didn't work.

Then I had another idea.  I was thinking of times when I have had worn brushes on a car starter and had to tap tap tap on the side of the starter to make it move just enough to move past the flat spot so I could start the car.  I took a little hammer and tap tap tapped on the edge of the hard drive in the same manner.  Then I hooked the drive up again to my test machine, and VOILA!  It spun up.

I was so excited.  I allowed my test machine to boot up and I was able to read the drive.  It needed to run a CHKDSK to correct a few small errors, but after that it was able to operate normally.  I called my client and told him the good news.  He was all smiles.  I told him of my new plan to copy his data to a spare drive I had and then to run a thorough diagnostic on his drive.  He agreed.

Well, it took awhile to do all that but overall the result was good.  My customer paid me for my time and expertise.  And it was lest costly than 'Plan A,' so he was pretty happy.  Me too.

So the next time a drive doesn't spin up for an unknown reason, you have something you can try before you send or throw it away.

Happy Computing!

Big Mike

Staples May Inadvertantly Sell Your Data

In the June 22, 2011 edition of the local paper I saw this headline:

"WATCHDOG: STAPLES RESOLD HARD DRIVES WITH PERSONAL INFO"

The article went on to talk about the federal privacy watchdog says Staples Business Depot stores failed to fully wipe personal info and data from laptop computers they resold.  Apparently this has been an on-going problem, which is not good.  After the audit Staples responded saying it was actively testing several means of fully wiping data from returned products without damaging or destroying hard drives or operating systems.

Today's blog is about how to make sure this does not happen to you or your data.

The article did not say exactly how these problems manifested themselves but I can make an educated guess.  I suspect a scenario where someone buys a laptop, uses it for a few days, and then brings it back saying it's not for them or they'd like one that's a bit better.  But in the meantime while they had it they set it up for themselves and copied or stored data, not thinking it needs to be erased before bringing it back.  Or, perhaps someone bought an external hard drive to back up their stuff and then realized it didn't have enough storage space.  So they bring it back and trade it up.

So what can you do?  Here's a simple solution.  And you don't have to be any sort of computer whiz to do this.  If you have purchased a new laptop from Staples or Futureshop or whatever, and you've used it for a few days and saved stuff to it's hard drive, what can you do to make sure someone else doesn't have to deal with your data?

1. Open the Control Panel
2. Find/Click on User Accounts
3. Click on Manage Another Account (Win7)
4. Find/Click on Create a New Account
5. Give the new account a name (such as "BigMike" or "User2")
6. Put the radio dot on "Administrator" account (rather than Standard User) and then click the "Create Account" button.
7. Do not create a password.
8. Log out of your account (for the last time).
9. Log onto the new account from the Welcome Screen.
10. Go into Control Panel, find User Accounts, and delete your old account.
11. If it asks if you want to keep the files, say NO.
12 Log back out and turn off machine.

It's ready to go back to the store now, or even to give to your neighbour or relative without fear of your data being accidentally left on there.  As long as you didn't store data in any other folder other than your own Documents/Pictures/Music folders, all your old stuff should be gone now.

The other thing you could do would be to do a Restore to Factory Default on the laptop.  This takes a long time, however, and is probably not necessary unless you've got a virus or corrupt data.

If I were the Tech Director at Staples, even though it would take extra time, I would insist all the techs learn how to restore to factory settings for laptops so there's almost no chance of any old data being found.*  That said, read how data is erased below.

Until next time,
Happy Computing!


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*NOTE: You have probably heard that even when you delete data from a hard drive it is not really "gone."  This is true but let me tell you what the means.  When you delete a file or folder from a hard drive, it normally goes to the Recycle Bin.  While in the Bin it can be restored if necessary, so you know it's not really gone permanently.  If you hold the Shift button down while deleting a file or folder, it will ask you if you want to "permanently" delete this file.  That's because when you hold the Shift key down while deleting it skips the Recycle Bin and erases the index entry on the hard drive.  In effect, the file is deleted and it would be difficult to get it back.  Difficult that is, but not impossible. 

When the index entry is erased, it's sort of like removing a section from the Table of Contents of book.  Just like a ToC in a real book, it doesn't delete the actual pages where the information is written, but it erases what page it was on, making it difficult to find again.  The file or folder can still be recovered again with not too much trouble if you know what to look for.  As soon as another file overwrites the spot where your file or folder was, it is essentially gone.  Same goes if the drive is defragged.  Your data is "gone" for all intents and purposes.

The RCMP has software that can get back data that has been deleted or defragged up to 6 times.  If you are REALLY paranoid, you can download something called the "Guttman" process which erases and overwrites the hard drive 7 - 32 times.  Very little chance of getting your data back if you run this process.  You could also defrag the drive and each time will push your old data further and further away from being resurrected.

Buy New, or Upgrade?

Which way do you go?

This week I had a client (whom I'll call "Joe") who has a diagnostic device that requires a serial port on a computer to plug into. For a long time he had been using a Compaq laptop, circa 2004, which had, as many laptops of the day, a serial port.

Well, Joe's laptop has definitely seen better days. The battery was toast and the hard drive was just about shot, but salvageable. It could use more ram too at only 768 megs. Adequate, but not great.

At this point, Joe is asking what it costs to replace all this stuff and I do a quick check and it would normally be well over 3 or 4 hundred dollars with labour and taxes. He figures he could put that money into a new machine instead of fixing up the old one. But a new one could be $600 and up after all is said and done. Then a person would need to purchase some sort of adaptor to turn USB into a Serial port. Unfortunately, there are potential issues with these adaptors and not ALL serial port devices will work through them. There was a chance Joe could spend several hundred dollars getting a new maching, only to find out later his usb/serial device works but it sometimes is flaky or inaccurate, or slow, or stops responding.

To upgrade, a new 160 gig drive to replace the 40 gig is about 80 bucks or so. As for a new battery, I called one place and they wanted $178!!!! I was a bit shocked. I called another place and was able to get one sent to me for about $80. Pretty good deal compared to the first quote, that's for sure. To max out the ram on that laptop would be about 130 bucks and bring it up to two gigs of ram. Great for Windows XP.

Since Joe didn't have much money we decided to upgrade, but not everything; just the hard drive and battery. These are the two most critical things. The ram can wait. So we ghosted over his old drive to a new one and replaced the battery, and now it runs like it was new. Joe is happy.

If Joe is happy, I'M happy.

5 Things to Consider when Buying a Computer

What to look for when buying a computer.

This is a rather huge topic so this blog post will hardly be "exhaustive" by any stretch. Rather, these are just a few simple things you may or may not already know about buying a new computer.

1. What will this computer be used for? If you want a travelling machine that you can take on holiday and type emails along the way, you don't need anything high end. Almost any cheap (or rather, "inexpensive") laptop will do. Creative writing, spreadsheets, databases, power point presentations are all pretty easy on any computer and none require a lot of horsepower. On the other hand, if you are planning to record and edit high def video, a cheap machine just will not do the job. If you're semi-serious about editing video then more than likely you'd want a desktop type PC that won't be moved around much after it's initial set up to get that job done, so a laptop will not likely meet your needs. Try to do at least a bit of homework by talking to some computer literate friends or co-workers before you go shopping and at lease figure out what you need this machine to do.

2. Does it need to be portable? Here's something to remember: a laptop is a compressed and flattened down version of a desktop computer. What is gained in space is lost to upgradeability. What is gained in portability is lost to less available internal components. Eight hundred dollars (at today's economy) can buy a pretty skookum PC these days, or a decent laptop. More than likely you'll get a better bang for your buck with the desktop than you would with the laptop. Also, desktops can usually easily be upgraded with a new video card, more ram, nicer monitor, faster harddrives, processors, etc., while you are pretty much stuck with what you get with a laptop.

3. Laptops are meant to be portable, not durable. They will not take much in the way of physical punishment. If you accidently drop a laptop or have one get yanked off the coffee table onto the floor by someone tripping over the power cable, you can almost be assured of some damage.

4. There are three main criteria I look for in a new PC.
- CPU speed. Amount of RAM. Harddrive space.
Firstly, I want to know the CPU speed in GHz (ie. is it a 3.2GHz, or 2.3GHz?). The higher the number the better and the number of cores is good to know too. There are single core processors, dual core processors, tri-core processors, quad-core processors, and even hexi-core processors. The more cores the better. The lower numbered ones will be cheaper, of course, but will be working the hardest to get the job done.

Secondly, I want to know how much RAM it has. Older 32-bit machines have a maximum of about 3 gigs of ram. Some can take 4 gigs but will only read 3.5 at the most. The newer 64-bit machines are usually 4 gigs and up. Sixty-four bit is the way to go if you're buying a new machine today. For those who have older software, SOME of it will not work on 64-bit machine, but that 'some' is very few. Most 32-bit programs will run on 64-bit machine just fine; there are of course exceptions. But we move on.

Lastly, I look for harddrive space. Usually, the more the better, but if you'll be using the computer to write a novel and keep notes and maybe some pictures, you won't need a whole bunch of harddrive space; even a few hundred gigs is probably far more than you'd ever normally use. On the other hand, if you're the person who likes to download stuff and collects every video your friends have sent you in the last 10 years, you'll want to make sure you get lots of disk space. As of today, a laptop sized 1TB sells for roughly $140 to $160 here in Canada. (In five years, if you are reading this blog, you'll either laugh at that price or cry. I remember seeing my friend pay about 800 dollars to upgrade his 486 from 4 megs to 8 megs of ram; when 2 megabyte chips were $200 each. Ouch! I myself paid over $500 for a 10gigabyte harddrive. You would be hard-pressed to even find a 10gig drive today. And it sure wouldn't be a months' rent for it either!)

5. If you are considering building a computer yourself or having one built for you, please don't buy a cheap power supply; and if your data is important, make sure you also buy an uninterupted power supply (UPS) to go with your power supply. That is so you won't have to deal with power issues later on. Get prepared now rather than wish you had later.

I hope that helps.

Upgrading Your Laptop

Most people think laptops are better because they are smaller and take up less space. This is certainly a selling feature of a laptop but there are limitations to laptops of which you should be aware.

Firstly, laptops are meant to be portable, not durable. Meaning, of course, they cannot take much in the way of punishment. If you drop it, there's a good chance it's toast.

Secondly, laptops are not very upgradeable. About the only things you can upgrade in a laptop is the hard drive and the RAM. You will not be upgrading the CPU or the video card.

In my line of work where I repair a lot of computers, a laptop really does me no good. I can't hook up someone else's drive to my laptop, I can not test their RAM or back up their data. But for someone who is on the go all the time and they need their computer, a laptop is awesome!

If you are going to attempt to upgrade either the RAM or the hard drive in your laptop, always remember to remove all sources of power so you don't accidently short anything out. Remove the battery and unplug the laptop before upgrading anything. It doesn't take much to render a stick of RAM inoperable with a static charge. Try to be standing on cement floor or wear a wrist strap and have it attached to ground.