ScottFromWyoming wrote:
Else ...any VPNs / individual DNS settings involved between you guys (you and them)?

 thisbody wrote:

There are several discrete networks flying around here and one of them has a little repeater booster thing but not on this network. Note that everyone involved has previously connected to the same network on their same devices without a problem.

 ScottFromWyoming wrote:


Sounds like yer missing something. Is there a potential second modem/ router involved? Sometimes Wifi repeaters may be mistaken for routers or (cable-) modems from an outside look.

I'm sitting here on the internets doing my thing when the boss comes around the corner and says he's on wifi but "No Internet Connection." I rebooted his laptop, clicked some things (Windows machine I don't know), restarted the router, nothing. 

Customer comes in and tries to connect to the guest wifi, MAC laptop, also no internet connection. They can all get on the WiFi though. 

I restarted everything in the closet (switches, etc.) which caused mayhem but the TV in the guest lounge eventually reconnected to the internet. Restarted the wifi just for good measure. My TWO Apple laptops connect, the boss and the customer (windows and apple) both nothing.

What wires should I jiggle next?

 rgio wrote:

Wasn’t there in text replacement. Turned off predictive. Thanks

 Steely_D wrote:
Settings / General / Keyboard / Text replacement - we = wendy should be there... which you can select edit and then delete.

If that doesn't work... on the keyboard menu try turning off the Predictive Text.

If that doesn't work...  ¯_(ツ)_/¯  

 Steely_D wrote: 

 Coaxial wrote:
Marie LaVeau? Personal friend of mine….

 Steely_D wrote: 
Gris gris!

I have no idea how it happened, but now when typing on the iPad, autocorrect changes “we” to “Wendy” every single freaking time unless I manually intervene. The little autocorrect options show on the bottom with Wendy in the middle and “we” on the left so I can manually override.

I went to settings and reset and then reset the keyboard dictionary, and then I set up a phrase autocorrect that isn’t doing anything.

Online, everything suggests turning autocorrect completely off, which is nuclear and I’m looking for a better surgical strike.

 rgio wrote:

rgio - thank you for the advice. I looked at those and they are a bit pricey but I'm sure they are worth it!

I talked to the IT specialist at my university (I'm emeritus so still connected there). He reminded me that I need a graphics card (NVIDIA or AMD). So, I went off on a search and found something that I think will work, essentially a gaming computer.

HP Victus Gaming Laptop, 15.6" FHD 144Hz IPS Display, Intel Core i5-13420H, 32GB RAM, 1TB PCIe SSD, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050, Backlit Keyboard, Wi-Fi 6, Win 11 Pro, Blue, 32GB Hotface USB Card

So, I'll let you all know how it goes.

 geoff_morphini wrote:
Similar specs...I always like Lenovo's/Thinkpads.  Their site runs some deals...like this....30% off (whether that's real or not I can't comment).

Lenovo

EDIT - a larger one...with similar specs at half the price.

Hi all, I'm about to purchase a Windows laptop (my first in many years). I need it to run some GIS software and my wife is going to be using it for some microscope camera proprietary software. I'm quite familiar with Windows, having used it in my work, just haven't bought one myself. I thought some of you might have some advice.

Here's what I'd like - 32GB ram, 1TB SSD, i7 Intel (could go with equivalent AMD), 15" or less (touchscreen not important), relatively lightweight

Here's one I'm looking at 

HP Pavilion 15 Laptop, 12th Generation Intel Core i7-1255U Processor, 32 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD, 15.6" Full HD Display, Fingerprint Reader, Wi-Fi & Bluetooth, HD Webcam,Backlit Keyboard,Windows 11 Pro


I appreciate your input. I don't want to spend an arm and a leg on it, just want a good functioning laptop for limited use. Our everyday computers will still be Macs.

Thanks

 kurtster wrote:
If you're using SSDs on XP, then you're very likely missing out on the firmware upgrades, almost always highly recommended.  Samsung Magician (and other SSD fw update utils, AFAIR) doesn't support XP, which means to upgrade the drive firmware, you'll need to pull the drive out and stuff it into something, like your SATA dock, and get it to talk to a newer OS.

 kurtster wrote:
Good lord man!  Why aren't you deploying a 4 bay NAS?  It's doable, even with an outdated and insecure OS like XP.
Offload the storage hosting to a more reliable device, compatible with anything.  Then your XP box is easier to maintain, which I assume you are using due to an obsolete version of some app managing your data/music.  NAS config isn't very hard.  Setting up a simple network with a NAS as a file server isn't hard, and costs are trivial, other than the acquisition cost of a suitable NAS.  On the cheap - buy a name brand used NAS and start there.

 kurtster wrote:
Having a NAS holding your data will greatly simplify your life.  And a four bay NAS can be easily configured for RAID 1 mirroring (up to 2 sets of 2 HDDS) or RAID6.  Data protection built in - plus the ability to use the largest drives on the market.  With your NAS up and running, then you could focus on simplifying the XP box, and even cloning the XP box to a spare if/when the XP box decides to die.

 Beaker wrote: 
Thanks.  The OS drives are Samsung 500 GB SSD 870 EVO's. One has been in service for a few years and the other that I just cloned it to is a brand new spare that has been sitting around for moments like this.  Been using SSD's for the OS for nearly 10 years even though XP is not really set up for them.  Made it very much faster though.  I know about not defragging them and turning off the indexing function and some other adjustments for using SSD's.  All my HDD's are WD Blacks.  There are 4 / 2TB drives with about 4 partitions on each of them.  I never did get the alleged XP fix to see drives bigger than 2TB running though.  That alone would simplify my life cuz even with 8TB's I'm running low on space.  I would love to put in 4 / 4TB drives.  I just got done replacing 3 of the 2TB drives as a couple of them were 10 years old.  Got one more to do that was installed in 12 / 2018.

The fix MBR I see a warning about deleting all of the partitions on the drive.  That would be a problem since all of the add on program software is on the other partition.  That way if I needed to do a reimage, it would be the OS only and the programs remain intact and fully functional without reinstalling them on the other partition.  It works as I have had to do this several times over the years.  In fact having the OS only on a separate partition is how the rest of my newer computers are set up, again for the same reason.

I believe that when the USB crashed, I went and dug up the old master SSD which was only a 128 GB Samsung 850 Pro and the BOIS read it as a new drive and that is how it got reset.  Hopefully with now having a matched set of OS SSD drives this will no longer be a problem.

Your advice on unplugging all USB devices for a restore is good advice and I saw that elsewhere during looking up stuff during this adventure.

When I have some spare time, I'll break out the OS disc and try and run the Repair function and see what happens.  I will have the working back up clone in case it takes out the other partition.  My cloning capable SATA dock has been a life saver.

Cheers !

Upon further thought ... when I initially got things somewhat up and running, I had disconnected the other 4 HDD's so that the only thing the BIOS could see was the OS drive.  When I reconnected the 4 HDD's is likely when the BIOS boot order got reset

 kurtster wrote:

Unplug all USB stuff when reloading an image or reverting to a system restore point.  Reset bios to defaults.  Ensure your boot order in the bios is correct. Use minimal hardware config, until the OS is up and running. 

It's important that you determine how this happened.  Accidental deletion of boot files, or a hard drive that is starting to fail - and can no longer see the boot sector.  You may wish to switch to a known good HDD before reloading the image.  Ensure your boot HDD is detecting properly in the bios.  Your MBR may be corrupt (poss HDD failing)  Fix your MBR.

Reference link

 R_P wrote: 
Egads.  So here I am a two days later getting what I thought was things settled down.  Cloned back up and put in new optical drives.

So put the OS drive back in and back to ntdlr.  Restart, enter bios again, find the right drive to boot and in.  Restart, back to ntdlr.  Restart into bios and look at boot settings find the boot OS is not an option for power 1 or 2.  Ok now what.  Never had this problem before.  Kept looking and found the power option settings and made the OS drive power 1 boot permanent.  Fixed. (I hope)  Never went that deep into the BIOS before.  Never had to.  How the BIOS got altered, I have no clue.

The other problem with the USB plug and play drivers was the Error message, "This device cannot start. (Code 10)"  Common for USB and especially audio functions.  Some how it affected all kinds of things and was not resolved until I tried to reset the driver.

So I then remember that XP still had the good old System Restore ability, and made a restore point for this happy time.  Sigh.  So clone the OS again and I think I'm done (in) and for now.

Cheers !

 pete_shakey wrote: 
Thanks.  Already tried several methods similar to this.  The repair gets stuck at a certain point and will not move on.  I've got to look at the boot drive and see what letter it is assigned and if it is not C for some reason, reassign it somehow and try again, otherwise its going to be a total reinstall.  It is not a total loss as the only thing on the C partition is the XP OS, everything else is on other partitions and other drives. 

Just got the clone to light up and C is C as it should be.  Still ain't right yet though.

Update :  Fixed.  Not quite sure how.  Overcame the NTLDR with the clone and having the XP OS disc for boot from and it kept going.  The original problem was the USB phono preamp ADC quit working properly.  It was there, but the signal wasn't coming into the PC.  Even pulled out my back up ADC never used, same problem. Then the ADC was not even listed. Tried driver updates.  The last one was the USB Plug and Play driver.   That seemed to be the one.  The mouse has quit working a lot lately and had to get out a spare, then had to switch ports and reboot to get the old one working again.  Been lots of static and the power has been dicey with surges and stuff.  USB 2.0 audio is touchy all by itself.  So 7 hours later.  Yay.  Playing with OS discs the old fashioned way.  Time to retire the two opticals and replace them and clone the C drive that's working for the next time.  This has happened a couple of other times over the years but it is so long in between I forget how I fix it.  That's why I have a safety clone on standby.  But it didn't work this time.  Getting too old for this stuff.

 kurtster wrote:

This link may help avoid full recovery.
https://www.lifewire.com/resto...

 R_P wrote: 
Been thru that.   Same message on 2 copies on separate SDDs.  Cloned one again on a brand new SDD and attempting a repair.  Got the clone to open up to normal, after getting no devices found at boot up which is most disturbing.   Should have gone into disk management and checked to see what the drives were assigned.  Ooops.

Either the motherboard is flaking out or I don't know what else yet.  Last resort is another fresh SDD and try to do a total install from scratch.

Gonna be a long (er) night.