Can't Boot? Try Unplugging All USB Devices.

Today I was called to check out a computer that would not boot.

As it turned out, the problem was that he had a USB printer attached that was powered. It happened to be a Canon Pixma printer that was plugged into the wall for power and p...lugged into the laptop via USB.

Here's the deal. USB ports are powered. Not only that, but many of today's printers have card readers, which show up as drive letters on your machine. So what happened in this case was that the laptop was looking to be booted from a USB device such as a USB stick or cd-rom, OR another media drive like Compaq Flash or SD chip, etc. See how that works?

Nowadays USB sticks have all but replaced external DVD-RW as the primary or secondary bootable device. From the factory these little ACER ONEs are set to look to boot from a USB device, and if nothing is there to boot from it usually next tries to boot off the hard drive. Sometimes the next boot device might be to boot off the LAN or network.

In my case today, it hung looking to boot from a USB drive letter that had nothing to give back. As soon as we unplugged the USB printer and rebooted the machine, it booted up just fine as normal.

Check out my website: http://www.bigmikecomputerservices.ca/

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.

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.

Batteries LIKE To Be Used

It's true. Batteries like being used. That is how they live and thrive. I'm speaking metaphorically, of course, about the rechargeables used in laptops, cellphones and cordless phones.

Rechargeable batteries will develop a "memory" over time, and this is especially bad news if the battery is never allowed to drop below, say, 90%, before it's charged again to 100% where it usually sits at 99% for days on end.

What happens is that after a while the battery will believe it needs recharging when it gets down to, say 92%. So you've hardly used it at all (maybe 5 or 10 minutes) and it's complaining that it needs recharging!

There was a lady who came into the computer shop one day and explained that she had bought this nice laptop to save space and it sat in this one spot for two years without ever being unplugged. Then one day she decided to take it with her on a trip to Vancouver on the ferry and she was stunned to find out the battery wouldn't last more than 5 minutes and it would die. She couldn't understand why it wouldn't last longer, as she had never used the laptop battery. It had always been plugged in.

I explained to her about how laptop batteries develop a memory and there is a way to reverse the damage, or at least make the situation a bit better until you can get a new one. Remove your laptop battery completely and let it sit on a shelf for three weeks. Then give it good 8 hour charge before you use it. Drain it again and set it on a shelf for a few weeks and it will drain completely just sitting there. Charge it up again with a good 8 hour charge (some battery companies suggest 15 hours). If you repeat this a few times, you old battery will come back to life to a certain extent. But the damage is already done and you should think of buying a new battery soon.

Whenever you can, consider your cellphone battery, your cordless phone battery, and your laptop battery. They really do like to be used. If you can, and it's convenient, drain them right down as low as you can before you charge them up again. Rechargeable batteries will last much longer if you treat them this way.

Moral of the story? If your laptop is going to sit plugged in for months on end, take the battery out. Just don't move it around too much because if the power chord gets loose or something, you don't want to have you machine suddenly power down because the chord was yanked out. A battery would have saved you in that case.

Bottom line: use your battery. Or, if you have a laptop that is always plugged in, remove the battery completely.