Fauxtoto
Established Forum Member
Quebec, Canada
Posts: 440
Open to constructive criticism of photos: Yes
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Post by Fauxtoto on Nov 2, 2019 21:10:25 GMT
This is a “At least I am not alone” feel good post dedicated to anyone who has done a bad move on a computer. Please, do not be too hard on yourself, otherwise I do not know what I would deserve.
The first personal computer I ever bought, more than twenty years ago, was an already old, one piece, mono-chrome, text only, IBM PS/2 machine, equipped with 512 KB of RAM and a 1,44mb floppy drive. One of the first things I did with it was to learn how to use DOS commands to manage the folders and subfolders, and to navigate into them. With time, I acquired confidence. I then decided to experiment with the “DEL *.*”command. When I performed it, I thought I was in a subdirectory I had previously been able to create and in which I had proudly achieve to copy files well created by myself. In fact I was in the C:\ root directory. The result was that I deleted all the existing files on the hard drive, including the system files, including the ones that were required to boot the system. Fortunately, the nice individual who sold me this used computer knew better. Just in case, he had included in the accompanying kit a floppy drive with the booting system files on it.
The moral of the story is never lose hope.
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Post by hmca on Nov 2, 2019 22:19:38 GMT
Your computer story with its ending sentence can easily be applied to so much in life, Maurice. And it is something we can never be reminded of too often. Thanks for you encouraging words.
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Post by blackmutt on Nov 3, 2019 0:01:37 GMT
I am not alone!! I spent an hour at my local photo shop (a dad & son operation) He uses lightroom and really helped me!! Most of photos are in various areas of my c drive and external drive. Some are lost most likely but between my c drive & external drive I will be able to recover/reconnect them. It will take time and patience but I now know what to do. I had called him earlier in the week and told him of my woes and set up time to bring in my laptop & various drives and we sorted it out. I am lucky to have a brick & mortar store close that is so great! I also know I can go there for any future help. Thanks to all of you that offered suggestions and condolences.
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pontiac1940
CE Members
Posts: 6,362
Open to constructive criticism of photos: Yes
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Post by pontiac1940 on Nov 3, 2019 16:48:40 GMT
Maurice. " never lose hope. " Indeed. Got my first home computer in 1984. Tend to get a new one every 5 or 6 years. Other than a bad Dell tower (a mere 3 years before it went south), I had never killed a hard drive until 2013. You know where this is going...  In 2013, I decided to replace an aging Toshiba laptop (which had become my main computer following the demise of the Dell tower), so bought a high-end Toshiba LT with a hybrid (?) spinning/SSD drive. It was connected to a 24-inch monitor and became my main machine for home and away. Three months later the drive died. Best Buy Geeks shipped it to Vancouver and they said, "Just give the guy is money back. That drive model was bad and can't be replaced." Best Buy gave me a new Toshiba machine. Two months it was dead!! They sent it for repairs, got it back and he Geeks loaded my stuff onto the hard drive. Poof. It died right in the Best Buy tech room while I was standing there!!!  So I killed two high-end gaming laptops (I don't game) in a couple of months!! Nothing was lost. So with the credit, I purchased an ASUS Republic of Gaming laptop that goes into a snit every 3 months, but is still going after close to seven years. Fingers crossed. I backup now and then. " never lose hope. " Clive |
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Post by cats4jan on Nov 4, 2019 13:48:18 GMT
First computer in 1982, an IBM -- second one IBM -- was never going to buy anything but IBM's but then I got brave and bought a clone - Price sent me to clones. Got tired of spending $3,500 every 3 years
Oh, the good old days -- load operating system, take that disc out, load program (in my case, Word Perfect), put a floppy in for the saved files...
Don't remember the first computer with Windows - do remember hesitating switching to a mouse - that is, until my son told me to move on - LOL
Oh, the good old days. As an ex-secretary who needed to type documents without erasures, word processing was a godsend.
Used to buy a new computer every 3 years - just to start fresh. Never transferred files to new computer. That all stopped when I started digital scrapbooking - now I need to transfer files. Wish I could start fresh again - forget about all the old files.
Real freedom occurred when one of the computers started failing and the simple things didn't fix it. That was the first time I re-installed the OS. After that, I lost my fear of computers. Even installed a replacement hard drive once. Brave me.
Switched to Apple in 2013 - my FIL died leaving a less than year old Mac -- and the only person in the extended family willing to try out the Mac was me. Took me a while to adjust, but now I'm a fan - not a 'fanboy' but it's a pretty darn good computer.
Now, I'm back to needing to spend $3,500 for a replacement computer - if I want to buy a Mac with all the bells and whistles desired...
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pontiac1940
CE Members
Posts: 6,362
Open to constructive criticism of photos: Yes
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Post by pontiac1940 on Nov 4, 2019 15:17:33 GMT
Everyone has a computer story. Love 'em. Hate 'em. Mostly love 'em. cats4jan wrote, "Oh, the good old days. As an ex-secretary who needed to type documents without erasures, word processing was a godsend." In 1983, I started writing for a yuppie, up-scale magazine (we'd say millennial today  ), called Western Living. I wrote a monthly gardening column for WL for five years (and later expanded to writing fishing stories for outdoor magazine). Like everything we wrote back then, I wrote long hand and paid a typist to type my submissions. In 1984, we had dinner with a friend and he showed me his Tandy (Radio Shack) Color Computer (CoCo). Wow! Naturally, I bought one immediately and hooked it to a 14-inch (?) color TV for a monitor. The "Scriptsit" word processor was a plug-in ROM pack. Spell check analyzed every word (by word) and took forever. I was printing on a glacially-slow dot-matrix printer. I was in heaven. And THEN I bought an external disk drive that took 5.25-inch floppy disks that I would mail to the magazine. I was in heaven!! Been a good ride despite occasional bumps.  |
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Post by cats4jan on Nov 4, 2019 20:04:12 GMT
Never had the 8 inch, but those other 2 look very familiar. I wish I had a history of my computer life. I find it so fascinating that I was a part of the evolution - - manual typewriter to using a phone as a computer and a camera. I do have a history of my scrapbooking journey These are only a few of the titles I bought. I found Microsoft's photo editing software to be pretty good, but they are the one that pulled the plug and stopped updating it. (Picture It, before it morphed into Digital Image Suite, was included in each package of the scrapbook paper I used to buy) I had to change to Photoshop when Microsoft gave up. Bought my first bundle of Photoshop Elements and Premiere by accident. Thought I was buying 'full blown' Photoshop. Did wonder why I got both titles for $79, but...I've never regretted choosing Elements rather than the full program. I tried CC one year and found it overblown and unnecessary for my needs. And now, there is hardly anyone who needs CC - Elements is such a comprehensive and excellent program.  |
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Post by kdcintx on Nov 4, 2019 22:37:07 GMT
Me too. Got my first computer around 1983. It was an IBM with 2 - 5.25 inch floppy drives. Also got a dot matrix printer and an amber monochrome monitor. I was in graduate school and was thrilled, no more handwriting papers. Took out a loan to buy it and ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
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Fauxtoto
Established Forum Member
Quebec, Canada
Posts: 440
Open to constructive criticism of photos: Yes
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Post by Fauxtoto on Nov 7, 2019 19:07:01 GMT
blackmutt, I am sorry if you lost some information, but glad that you are now on the good track. Ladies and gentleman, thank you for your replies and interesting stories. It made me realize that the “more than twenty years ago” I wrote about would rather be “more than thirty years ago”. I should have used Excel to count the years…
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So I killed two high-end gaming laptops (I don't game) in a couple of months!! Nothing was lost. So with the credit, I purchased an ASUS Republic of Gaming laptop that goes into a snit every 3 months, but is still going after close to seven years. Fingers crossed. I backup now and then. 
), called Western Living. I wrote a monthly gardening column for WL for five years (and later expanded to writing fishing stories for outdoor magazine). Like everything we wrote back then, I wrote long hand and paid a typist to type my submissions. In 1984, we had dinner with a friend and he showed me his Tandy (Radio Shack) Color Computer (CoCo). Wow! Naturally, I bought one immediately and hooked it to a 14-inch (?) color TV for a monitor. The "Scriptsit" word processor was a plug-in ROM pack. Spell check analyzed every word (by word) and took forever. I was printing on a glacially-slow dot-matrix printer. I was in heaven. And THEN I bought an external disk drive that took 5.25-inch floppy disks that I would mail to the magazine. I was in heaven!! Been a good ride despite occasional bumps. 