Laptop Amnesia

[Bobby Dazzler]

Strange one this.

Been using my laptop extensively over Christmas - all those CDs have to find their way on to my shiny new iPod somehow!!

Anyway, all was well when I powered down yesterday, and it hasn't been touched all day.

Booted it up tonight, and my laptop seemed to forget who it was. Lost all my desktop shortcuts, wallpaper (restored the Sony wallpaper it was shipped with), and all items in the Programs meny refused to load - when I clicked on them it attempted to install them.

Curious, but nothing a reboot wouldn't sort. Two re-boots later and my laptop was still blissfully unaware of all the joyous times I've spent with it, surfing MBClub, ripping CD-ROMs, etc.

System Restore put things right again. For now I'm pointing the finger at Bill Gates and his Windows Updates. Any other ideas?

 

[grober]

I would back up any important data, Emails and favorites/bookmarks etc NOW just in case your hard drive is about to thro wobbly!

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

Grober.

Good point. Better do a fresh back up tonight.

Not normally a problem as I only have a few photos on there. Since Christmas though I've added more than 7gb of music into iTunes!! ...and I only have a CD-writer and not a DVD-write. Doh!!

If the worst happened and I didn't back up my music, anybody know if you can restore it from the iPod back to the PC, so effectively my iPod is the backup? I'm guessing it may be restricted to prevent music sharing?

 

[ShinyF1]

You need to make your ipod an additional disk drive and copy certain folders to the PC - did it over christmas for a nephew who set [and forgot] a password on his new Nano. We manually backed up the data to my PC, then reset the iPOD.

Try this link:

http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/copying-music-from-ipod-to-computer/P1

Good luck

 

[pammy]

Yes - before installing iTunes you install Music Rescue - that then pulls the info from your iPod. Then install iTunes and Robert is the brother of your mother or your father.

Go to iLounge.com loads of stuff on there for this type of thing

 

[grober]

Grober.

Good point. Better do a fresh back up tonight.

Not normally a problem as I only have a few photos on there. Since Christmas though I've added more than 7gb of music into iTunes!! ...and I only have a CD-writer and not a DVD-write. Doh!!

If the worst happened and I didn't back up my music, anybody know if you can restore it from the iPod back to the PC, so effectively my iPod is the backup? I'm guessing it may be restricted to prevent music sharing?

Theoretically yes but as you see from the previous replies not necessarily as straightforward as an MP3 player for example.
see this article which may not be totally up to date since functionality is changing almost daily! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPod

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

Terrific - thanks folks.

The ilounge article in particular was very useful.

Given I've already installed iTunes, I guess manual method of recovery in the event of a hard disk failure is the best approach for me to take - should I ever need to.

On a related note I've noticed that when ripping CD-ROMs through iTunes, my wireless broadband connection is dropped. When it's finished ripping that album, the connection is restored. Irritating, but not the end of the world. Anybody else encountered it too?

 

[fredfloggle]

Strange one this.

Been using my laptop extensively over Christmas - all those CDs have to find their way on to my shiny new iPod somehow!!

Anyway, all was well when I powered down yesterday, and it hasn't been touched all day.

Booted it up tonight, and my laptop seemed to forget who it was. Lost all my desktop shortcuts, wallpaper (restored the Sony wallpaper it was shipped with), and all items in the Programs meny refused to load - when I clicked on them it attempted to install them.

Curious, but nothing a reboot wouldn't sort. Two re-boots later and my laptop was still blissfully unaware of all the joyous times I've spent with it, surfing MBClub, ripping CD-ROMs, etc.

System Restore put things right again. For now I'm pointing the finger at Bill Gates and his Windows Updates. Any other ideas?

Turn auto updates off!! be in control of what you allow to be installed - I for one never use windoze updates, I get the PC the way I want it then ghost it - you can easily back up all of your settings and shortcuts on a stick and data on a non bootable partition..

Have a look and see if the software actually exists in program files , if it does and won't run from the shortcut it would sound like your "path" has been changed.

 

[grober]

Terrific - thanks folks.

The ilounge article in particular was very useful.

Given I've already installed iTunes, I guess manual method of recovery in the event of a hard disk failure is the best approach for me to take - should I ever need to.

On a related note I've noticed that when ripping CD-ROMs through iTunes, my wireless broadband connection is dropped. When it's finished ripping that album, the connection is restored. Irritating, but not the end of the world. Anybody else encountered it too?

Ripping a CD TRACK and writing to CD/DVD is pretty processor/bus intensive and can't really be interrupted without compromising the quality of data being tranferred so I,m guessing the wireless facility is disabled to prevent any problems/interrupts?

 

[HughJarse]

Ripping a CD TRACK and writing to CD/DVD is pretty processor/bus intensive and can't really be interrupted without compromising the quality of data being tranferred so I,m guessing the wireless facility is disabled to prevent any problems/interrupts?

Mine doesn't In fact my processor doesnt rise above 10% of useage.

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

Mine doesn't In fact my processor doesnt rise above 10% of useage.

Now you're just showing off!!

My laptop is only 512mb and I can't remember the processor speed, so not really high spec by modern standards. Few yeard old now.

 

[HughJarse]

Now you're just showing off!!

My laptop is only 512mb and I can't remember the processor speed, so not really high spec by modern standards. Few yeard old now.

LOL I wasn't just stating another point of view

 

[Viking2]

It is unlikely that Windows Update has caused your problems. The update normally runs on the second Tuesday of each month. It is more likely that one of the other programs has caused the problem. I would always recommend that you run autoupdates and keep your PC up to date. Make sure your virus scanner is up to date as well. It is possible that the system was a bit clogged up with temporary files, try getting rid of all the files in the Temp and Temprary Internet Files folder.

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

It is unlikely that Windows Update has caused your problems. The update normally runs on the second Tuesday of each month. It is more likely that one of the other programs has caused the problem. I would always recommend that you run autoupdates and keep your PC up to date. Make sure your virus scanner is up to date as well. It is possible that the system was a bit clogged up with temporary files, try getting rid of all the files in the Temp and Temprary Internet Files folder.

Thanks Viking2.

My laptop always seems to be doing some kind of update or scan - I think I may take security a little too far!!

My Temporary Internet Files are cleared every day too...

...just in case my wife finds out which websites I frequent. I spend far to much time on one of them, which I have an unhealthy passion for. Oops, she's coming, I better close the window!!

 

[carnut]

Lap top probs

Here are some suggestions:

1.When you boot up do a Ctrl/Alt/Del and see in task manager what is going on. Dont be concerned at the number of processes ( 48-52!) going on at one time. One particular Process thats memeory hungry is Msmngr that can take 100% CPU and its normally doing an update of virus or spyware on boot up. Click " endprocess" to stop it

2. Check you dont have more than one AntiVirus prog running as they just each other and act like the ouslam bird! Also check when they autoupdate; if its when you boot its just another process that taking CPUs and time!

3. Upgrade your memory ..Its very cheap(circa £20 for 512mb) and easy to do yourself. If you dont fancy doing it PC World will do it for £14.95!It will make all the diference. Modern PCs can go to 2 gig or more

4. Itunes is memory hungry and if you are doing anything else it goes slow! I now need 1 gig to run ok with all the other stuff

5. Get a registry cleaner ( bought or freeware) to clean up you PC

6 Try CCLeaner (http://www.ccleaner.com/ ) its free and cleans you urls etc whenever you want

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

Cheers carnut - very useful