On Thursday, 20 July 2023 at 06:41:41 UTC+1, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> On 19/07/2023 23:25, Theo wrote:
> > Animal <tabb...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> I am also tasked with getting an old xp laptop going. Fast cpu but single
> >> core. A miserable 192M ram. It's going, but slow as a snail. According
> >> to win there's no 3rd party apps to uninstall. What can I do to sort it?
> >> And what flavour of linux is good for that? I'll keep xp if it works ok,
> >> but it's far too slow now.
> >
> > I used to have one of those - Compaq N200 ultra-lightweight with 192MB of
> > soldered RAM. Windows 2000 was better than XP, but even that struggled. (I
> > think it may have originally come with WinME but the less said about
> > that...)
> >
> > Putting Linux on that today, RAM is going to be a problem, but also the 32
> > bit Pentium 3 CPU. No mainstream Linux is going to run - you may get a
> > basic Debian running but would need to pick your desktop environment very
> > carefully.
> >
> > https://itsfoss.com/lightweight-linux-beginners/
> > has some suggestions, although most are beyond your RAM budget.
> >
> > Putting an SSD in it (via a SATA to IDE adapter if necessary) will help a
> > great deal.
> >
> > I'm not sure what you can do with it today - modern web browsing is going to
> > be beyond it. Unless you have some very limited app to use it for, probably
> > best case is to use it for remote desktop to another machine with more RAM.
> >
> > Theo
> > (who got back in the day got Netscape running in X+Linux on a 386 with
> > floppies and 4MB RAM...)
> Essentially to run a browser in a linux setup needs around 1GB RAM
> minimum and 2GB for choice.
>
> Machines with less that are not upgradeable are really beyond gainful
> employment
>
> I have run on 512M RAM but it was emergency use only

Years ago I used a very old backup machine occasionally, while waiting for pc repair. 486 with 24M RAM. Even that got online, with dotty 256 colour graphics. Machines with a few hundred MHz can behave acceptably.

On Thursday, 20 July 2023 at 11:10:30 UTC+1, Tricky Dicky wrote:
> Clive Arthur <cl...@nowaytoday.co.uk> wrote:
> > On 19/07/2023 11:48, Tricky Dicky wrote:
> >> I have a Toshiba 775 laptop which came originally with Windows 7 installed
> >> but has been upgraded to Windows 10. It has been running very slow for
> >> sometime taking ages to open apps and there seems constant HD activity
> >> which I think is the real problem having tried all the usual attempts to
> >> improve running. We have replaced it with a Dell G5 running Windows 11
> >> having taken off everything of use off the old Toshiba I am looking at
> >> trying to revive it for use in a computer control situation.
> >>
> >> The question is how? My first thought is to replace the HD with a SSD. Of
> >> course this means how do I reinstall Windows 10.
> >
> > <snip>
> >
> > I did this on a couple of PCs recently and it was easy to clone the HDD
> > to an SSD plugged via an adaptor into a USB slot and then install the
> > cloned SSD.
> >
> > I can't remember the software used, I uninstalled it afterwards, but
> > loads of stuff on the web about doing it. No need for any
> > reinstallation of anything, the PCs appear just the same with everything
> > just how it was only quicker.
> >
> I have decided to go the clone route which seems the the most straight
> forward and the only additional cost being. £7 cable. if it fails then I
> still have the HDD to try alternative methods.
>
> I have ordered a USB to SATA cable and a 1Tb drive which should be more
> than adequate for my intentions. It will be £50 well spent if it revives
> the laptop. Incidentally the current Windows 10 version is 22H2.
>
> Richard

fwiw I've found discs on usb to be very unreliable.

On 7/20/2023 7:26 PM, Animal wrote:
> On Thursday, 20 July 2023 at 11:10:30 UTC+1, Tricky Dicky wrote:
>> Clive Arthur <cl...@nowaytoday.co.uk> wrote:
>>> On 19/07/2023 11:48, Tricky Dicky wrote:
>>>> I have a Toshiba 775 laptop which came originally with Windows 7 installed
>>>> but has been upgraded to Windows 10. It has been running very slow for
>>>> sometime taking ages to open apps and there seems constant HD activity
>>>> which I think is the real problem having tried all the usual attempts to
>>>> improve running. We have replaced it with a Dell G5 running Windows 11
>>>> having taken off everything of use off the old Toshiba I am looking at
>>>> trying to revive it for use in a computer control situation.
>>>>
>>>> The question is how? My first thought is to replace the HD with a SSD. Of
>>>> course this means how do I reinstall Windows 10.
>>>
>>> <snip>
>>>
>>> I did this on a couple of PCs recently and it was easy to clone the HDD
>>> to an SSD plugged via an adaptor into a USB slot and then install the
>>> cloned SSD.
>>>
>>> I can't remember the software used, I uninstalled it afterwards, but
>>> loads of stuff on the web about doing it. No need for any
>>> reinstallation of anything, the PCs appear just the same with everything
>>> just how it was only quicker.
>>>
>> I have decided to go the clone route which seems the the most straight
>> forward and the only additional cost being. £7 cable. if it fails then I
>> still have the HDD to try alternative methods.
>>
>> I have ordered a USB to SATA cable and a 1Tb drive which should be more
>> than adequate for my intentions. It will be £50 well spent if it revives
>> the laptop. Incidentally the current Windows 10 version is 22H2.
>>
>> Richard
>
> fwiw I've found discs on usb to be very unreliable.
>

But this would presumably only be connected during cloning,
and would go back to native interface when used inside the machine.

And that would be smart cloning, where only the clusters with
user data get transferred, and the white space on the disk drive
is not cloned. If you have a 1TB partition with 20GB of data,
the smart cloning operation will do 20GB of writes. Which makes
the cloning seem considerably faster. It's not like using "dd"
to clone, which would suck (as it transfers the entire 1TB). While
you can make up a script, and many invocations of dd to copy a drive,
you have to be a level 39 wizard to do that correctly.

The secret sauce in whole disk cloning, is not the cloning of
partitions, but the reproduction of MBR, boot track, 2xGPT tables
and so on. Occasionally a method is not capable of copying the
backup GPT table, which is very annoying.

This is how you put back the duplicate GPT table, once you
discover you didn't manage to capture that part. If the duplicate
GPT table is missing, the error messages that result, make no
sense at all. At first. If the software you're using is "weak sauce",
and you attempt to change the size of the disk, this is a time
where the duplicate GPT goes missing (oops). I learned about this,
just the other day, while doing a P2V clone (making a virtualbox
out of a physical disk on the other machine).

sudo gdisk /dev/sda
r recovery menu
d duplicate primary GPT to backup GPT
w do the writes to the end of the disk then quit

Paul

On 7/20/2023 5:48 AM, wasbit wrote:
> On 19/07/2023 11:48, Tricky Dicky wrote:
>> I have a Toshiba 775 laptop which came originally with Windows 7 installed
>> but has been upgraded to Windows 10. It has been running very slow for
>> sometime taking ages to open apps and there seems constant HD activity
>> which I think is the real problem having tried all the usual attempts to
>> improve running. We have replaced it with a Dell G5 running Windows 11
>> having taken off everything of use off the old Toshiba I am looking at
>> trying to revive it for use in a computer control situation.
>>
>> The question is how? My first thought is to replace the HD with a SSD. Of
>> course this means how do I reinstall Windows 10. Incidentally the Windows
>> 10 installation was an OEM upgrade and I think I have a memory stick with a
>> backup of the download. The last time I ever installed an OS from scratch
>> we were still using floppy disks. The PC is not compatible for a Windows 11
>> Installation which I had considered.
>>
>> Looking into the issue of reviving the Toshiba which has an Core i5 - 2410M
>>   2.3Ghz processor and 6GB RAM which when I did the upgrade fell well in to
>> the specifications for Windows 10. Since then I have come across a more
>> comprehensive list of compatible processors and mine is not listed.
>> Bizarrely it is not even listed as Windows 7 compatible!
>>
>> So the question is am I wasting my time? Is there going to be licensing
>> issues installing the OEM version on another HD? What is going to be the
>> best way to do the installation?
>>
>> I know we have a lot of Linux fans on here but that is not going to happen.
>>
>>
> Cloning your current hard drive to an SSD is one choice but that will depend on your capability.
> I would suggest the safer route is to download the Windows 10 media tool to a usb drive
>  - https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10
> Buy an SSD drive & swap it for the current hard drive.
> Install Windows (which should self activate).
> If things do go wrong (highly unlikely) you have your original hard drive with a working Windows to fall back on.
> You will probably find that Windows with a clean install will feel a lot faster (once it has updated itself).

You could clone with this. I did a quick check with wget.exe and it is still there.
It started to download.

https://download.macrium.com/reflect/v7/v7.3.6284/reflect_setup_free_x64.exe

Name: reflect_setup_free_x64.exe
Size: 115,719,576 bytes (110 MiB)
SHA1: B6724C7B6F5AF146406FAAA78F845A6C281D67D8

You can also make media (USB stick or CD or ISOfile) for offline cloning (Win not running).
Since running it the "normal" way uses VSS, it's every bit as good. You make emergency media
for... emergencies.

[Picture] "Download original" for best resolution.
If frame is blank, right-click and select "Reload"

https://i.postimg.cc/054trNDv/make-rescue-cd-via-win-vm.gif

Some of the SSD companies, also provide cloning software. This
could be Acronis TIH used for cloning and brand-locked to a
particular brand of drive. This can be a rather large package.
Even Macrium is large, if you make emergency media a certain way.
The smallest download for Macrium, is to just install something
like the above in Win10, not make emergency media, then clone to the
externally-supported disk drive.

*******

Installing Win10 fresh, means re-installing whatever software
you had in the original setup. You also have to move your email
database over and so on.

Paul

On 21/07/2023 05:13, Paul wrote:

<snip>

> You could clone with this. I did a quick check with wget.exe and it is still there.
> It started to download.
>
> https://download.macrium.com/reflect/v7/v7.3.6284/reflect_setup_free_x64.exe

Ah yes, that rang a bell, I used Macrium Reflect for two PCs with
success. It was a recent version, but did allow disk cloning for free.

--
Cheers
Clive

On 21/07/2023 10:23, Clive Arthur wrote:
> On 21/07/2023 05:13, Paul wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>> You could clone with this. I did a quick check with wget.exe and it is
>> still there.
>> It started to download.
>>
>>
>> https://download.macrium.com/reflect/v7/v7.3.6284/reflect_setup_free_x64.exe
>
> Ah yes, that rang a bell, I used Macrium Reflect for two PCs with
> success.  It was a recent version, but did allow disk cloning for free.

One slight limitation is that it does not allow resizing on the fly
during the clone, but other than that works well. It can also image
drives or partitions to a file, which can be handy.

--
Cheers,

John.

/=================================================================\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\=================================================================/

Tricky Dicky <tricky.dicky@sky.com> wrote:
> Clive Arthur <clive@nowaytoday.co.uk> wrote:
>> On 19/07/2023 11:48, Tricky Dicky wrote:

>
> I have decided to go the clone route which seems the the most straight
> forward and the only additional cost being. £7 cable. if it fails then I
> still have the HDD to try alternative methods.
>
> I have ordered a USB to SATA cable and a 1Tb drive which should be more
> than adequate for my intentions. It will be £50 well spent if it revives
> the laptop. Incidentally the current Windows 10 version is 22H2.
>
> Richard
>

Update:

Managed to complete the update but what a PITA it was. I bought a Crucial
SSD and went with their version of Acronis to do the upgrade. Several times
the cloning fell over and the process stalled. On one occasion when I did
get the cloning to complete Windows would open only as far as the blue
screen for the recovery process but each time it was incapable of
completing a repair and at one point looked like I would have to do a
Windows reinstall. At one point I got to a stage where plugging the SSD
into the USB 3 port gave the bing bong on connection but the drive never
appeared in file manager.

Finally decided to try alternative cloning software, Macrium but it could
not see the SSD drive. Went back to Acronis and it could see the drive.
Decided to wipe the drive and see if I could start from new despite Acronis
stalling at the end it seemed to be wiped. Macrium could see the drive but
I was unable to allocate it as the destination drive. Back to Acronis
started the cloning and this time it completed and then Eureka swapped out
the drive and everything was working again but this time much faster.
Yippee!

I may be wrong but I suspect the original drive was so clapped out that it
may have been the problem for all the failures but I would be interested in
any theories about why. There is only one minor issue which if push comes
to shove I can live with. Previously after the Toshiba splash screen
Windows started to load slowly but immediately. After all the disk swapping
I seem to be getting a BIOS message something about PXE-ROM, finally DHCP
with a rotating curser for a few moments before loading Windows. It is not
a long delay but if I could get it back to how Windows opened before I
would be pleased.

Richard

On 8/4/2023 12:35 PM, Tricky Dicky wrote:
> Tricky Dicky <tricky.dicky@sky.com> wrote:
>> Clive Arthur <clive@nowaytoday.co.uk> wrote:
>>> On 19/07/2023 11:48, Tricky Dicky wrote:
>
>>
>> I have decided to go the clone route which seems the the most straight
>> forward and the only additional cost being. £7 cable. if it fails then I
>> still have the HDD to try alternative methods.
>>
>> I have ordered a USB to SATA cable and a 1Tb drive which should be more
>> than adequate for my intentions. It will be £50 well spent if it revives
>> the laptop. Incidentally the current Windows 10 version is 22H2.
>>
>> Richard
>>
>
> Update:
>
> Managed to complete the update but what a PITA it was. I bought a Crucial
> SSD and went with their version of Acronis to do the upgrade. Several times
> the cloning fell over and the process stalled. On one occasion when I did
> get the cloning to complete Windows would open only as far as the blue
> screen for the recovery process but each time it was incapable of
> completing a repair and at one point looked like I would have to do a
> Windows reinstall. At one point I got to a stage where plugging the SSD
> into the USB 3 port gave the bing bong on connection but the drive never
> appeared in file manager.
>
> Finally decided to try alternative cloning software, Macrium but it could
> not see the SSD drive. Went back to Acronis and it could see the drive.
> Decided to wipe the drive and see if I could start from new despite Acronis
> stalling at the end it seemed to be wiped. Macrium could see the drive but
> I was unable to allocate it as the destination drive. Back to Acronis
> started the cloning and this time it completed and then Eureka swapped out
> the drive and everything was working again but this time much faster.
> Yippee!
>
> I may be wrong but I suspect the original drive was so clapped out that it
> may have been the problem for all the failures but I would be interested in
> any theories about why. There is only one minor issue which if push comes
> to shove I can live with. Previously after the Toshiba splash screen
> Windows started to load slowly but immediately. After all the disk swapping
> I seem to be getting a BIOS message something about PXE-ROM, finally DHCP
> with a rotating curser for a few moments before loading Windows. It is not
> a long delay but if I could get it back to how Windows opened before I
> would be pleased.
>
> Richard
>

On Windows, this is pretty handy for non-destructive testing.
The paid version supports both read and write.

hdtune 2.55

https://www.hdtune.com/files/hdtune_255.exe

[ Picture ]

https://i.postimg.cc/br6YkVSv/hdtune-error-scan.gif

*******

Western Digital Data LifeGuard (DLGDIAG) -- Allows running Smart Short test of drive health
-- Some companies provide such tools for their drives.
-- This particular one may be out-of-support, but still downloadable.

SeatoolsWindowsInstaller.exe -- Seagate offers Seatools. www.seagate.com/ca/en/support/downloads/seatools

Toshiba ??? -- Some companies have a tradition of "thin support", but you can Google for it.

One of the purposes of these vendor-specific tests, is for the generation
of "magical RMA return codes". When a drive is within the warranty period,
one of these utilities may deliver a hex code, which can be submitted with
a request for RMA authorization. And this "proves" to the company, that
you have an action-able warranty claim.

*******

On Linux

bullwinkle@CRUISE:~$ sudo smartctl -a /dev/sdb
[sudo] password for bullwinkle:

smartctl 7.2 2020-12-30 r5155 [x86_64-linux-5.15.0-76-generic] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-20, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family: Seagate Barracuda 7200.12
Device Model: ST3500418AS
Serial Number: 9VMXTYXZ
LU WWN Device Id: 5 000c50 02da64ae5
Firmware Version: CC46
User Capacity: 500,107,862,016 bytes [500 GB]
Sector Size: 512 bytes logical/physical
Rotation Rate: 7200 rpm
Device is: In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is: ATA8-ACS T13/1699-D revision 4
SATA Version is: SATA 2.6, 3.0 Gb/s
Local Time is: Sat Aug 5 13:12:45 2023 EDT
....

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

It tends to pass drives, that aren't in the best of shape,
but that is the nature of SMART short and long tests.

The HDTune benchmark curve (look for "flat spots") is one of
the more sensitive tests of overall health.

Even though the above drive has 400 listed reallocations
out of maybe 3500, it is not showing appreciably in the transfer
curve. I've had other drives, where the smart table showed
nothing at all of concern, where there was a 50GB wide, 5MB/sec
section in the benchmark curve, which is "guaranteed drive retirement".
Because death/dataloss is imminent. When all the errors are concentrated
in one "wear patch", this is a damage pattern that SMART is not
good at. It can entirely miss the 50GB section and the impact
it is having.

The all-green bad block scan in HDTune, tells me a clone operation
should proceed OK, even if a bit slowly.

*******

Linux gddrescue can be used to clone sick drives.
You can use multiple passes of gddrescue, trying and trying
to copy "bad bits".

Whereas a lot of Windows utilities, only attempt to copy the
occupied clusters, and if there are errors in "white space",
they don't matter. But the problem with the Windows utilities,
if there is even one "CRC error" during cloning, the damn
software stops and will not continue.

Then, the less desirable "total surface copy" must be done,
with the likes of gddrescue package.

Paul

On 04/08/2023 17:35, Tricky Dicky wrote:
> Tricky Dicky <tricky.dicky@sky.com> wrote:
>> Clive Arthur <clive@nowaytoday.co.uk> wrote:
>>> On 19/07/2023 11:48, Tricky Dicky wrote:
>
>>
>> I have decided to go the clone route which seems the the most straight
>> forward and the only additional cost being. £7 cable. if it fails then I
>> still have the HDD to try alternative methods.
>>
>> I have ordered a USB to SATA cable and a 1Tb drive which should be more
>> than adequate for my intentions. It will be £50 well spent if it revives
>> the laptop. Incidentally the current Windows 10 version is 22H2.
>>
>> Richard
>>
>
> Update:
>
> Managed to complete the update but what a PITA it was. I bought a Crucial
> SSD and went with their version of Acronis to do the upgrade. Several times
> the cloning fell over and the process stalled. On one occasion when I did
> get the cloning to complete Windows would open only as far as the blue
> screen for the recovery process but each time it was incapable of
> completing a repair and at one point looked like I would have to do a
> Windows reinstall. At one point I got to a stage where plugging the SSD
> into the USB 3 port gave the bing bong on connection but the drive never
> appeared in file manager.
>
> Finally decided to try alternative cloning software, Macrium but it could
> not see the SSD drive. Went back to Acronis and it could see the drive.
> Decided to wipe the drive and see if I could start from new despite Acronis
> stalling at the end it seemed to be wiped. Macrium could see the drive but
> I was unable to allocate it as the destination drive. Back to Acronis
> started the cloning and this time it completed and then Eureka swapped out
> the drive and everything was working again but this time much faster.
> Yippee!
>
> I may be wrong but I suspect the original drive was so clapped out that it
> may have been the problem for all the failures but I would be interested in
> any theories about why.

Yup if the HDD was on its last legs you may have trouble cloning it.
Alternatively your USB adaptor may not have been totally happy on your
USB chipset - or any number of other possibilities. Using different
ports etc can sometimes help.

> There is only one minor issue which if push comes
> to shove I can live with. Previously after the Toshiba splash screen
> Windows started to load slowly but immediately. After all the disk swapping
> I seem to be getting a BIOS message something about PXE-ROM, finally DHCP
> with a rotating curser for a few moments before loading Windows. It is not
> a long delay but if I could get it back to how Windows opened before I
> would be pleased.

It sounds like while messing about with the BIOS settings you have
managed to turn on the option to boot from LAN - it may have been on
before but so low down the boot priority that you never saw it because
it always found the bootable HDD before it got that far. So check the
boot order in the BIOS.

--
Cheers,

John.

/=================================================================\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\=================================================================/

John Rumm <see.my.signature@nowhere.null> wrote:
> On 04/08/2023 17:35, Tricky Dicky wrote:
>> Tricky Dicky <tricky.dicky@sky.com> wrote:
>>> Clive Arthur <clive@nowaytoday.co.uk> wrote:
>>>> On 19/07/2023 11:48, Tricky Dicky wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> I have decided to go the clone route which seems the the most straight
>>> forward and the only additional cost being. £7 cable. if it fails then I
>>> still have the HDD to try alternative methods.
>>>
>>> I have ordered a USB to SATA cable and a 1Tb drive which should be more
>>> than adequate for my intentions. It will be £50 well spent if it revives
>>> the laptop. Incidentally the current Windows 10 version is 22H2.
>>>
>>> Richard
>>>
>>
>> Update:
>>
>> Managed to complete the update but what a PITA it was. I bought a Crucial
>> SSD and went with their version of Acronis to do the upgrade. Several times
>> the cloning fell over and the process stalled. On one occasion when I did
>> get the cloning to complete Windows would open only as far as the blue
>> screen for the recovery process but each time it was incapable of
>> completing a repair and at one point looked like I would have to do a
>> Windows reinstall. At one point I got to a stage where plugging the SSD
>> into the USB 3 port gave the bing bong on connection but the drive never
>> appeared in file manager.
>>
>> Finally decided to try alternative cloning software, Macrium but it could
>> not see the SSD drive. Went back to Acronis and it could see the drive.
>> Decided to wipe the drive and see if I could start from new despite Acronis
>> stalling at the end it seemed to be wiped. Macrium could see the drive but
>> I was unable to allocate it as the destination drive. Back to Acronis
>> started the cloning and this time it completed and then Eureka swapped out
>> the drive and everything was working again but this time much faster.
>> Yippee!
>>
>> I may be wrong but I suspect the original drive was so clapped out that it
>> may have been the problem for all the failures but I would be interested in
>> any theories about why.
>
> Yup if the HDD was on its last legs you may have trouble cloning it.
> Alternatively your USB adaptor may not have been totally happy on your
> USB chipset - or any number of other possibilities. Using different
> ports etc can sometimes help.
>
>> There is only one minor issue which if push comes
>> to shove I can live with. Previously after the Toshiba splash screen
>> Windows started to load slowly but immediately. After all the disk swapping
>> I seem to be getting a BIOS message something about PXE-ROM, finally DHCP
>> with a rotating curser for a few moments before loading Windows. It is not
>> a long delay but if I could get it back to how Windows opened before I
>> would be pleased.
>
> It sounds like while messing about with the BIOS settings you have
> managed to turn on the option to boot from LAN - it may have been on
> before but so low down the boot priority that you never saw it because
> it always found the bootable HDD before it got that far. So check the
> boot order in the BIOS.
>
>

Thanks John, I kind of came to the same conclusion as messages popped up
saying network boot file not found. I only went into BIOS once and as far
as I was concerned I never altered anything but I suppose it can
accidentally be done. I did manage to get into the Boot Order menu but it
was showing the SSD drive as the primary drive. I will look again,
carefully, in BIOS to see if network boot has been enabled but once again I
am having trouble getting into BIOS as the message is not appearing with
the splash screen and without it furious pressing of F1 does nothing.

Richard

On 16/08/2023 12:15, Tricky Dicky wrote:
> I will look again,
> carefully, in BIOS to see if network boot has been enabled but once again I
> am having trouble getting into BIOS as the message is not appearing with
> the splash screen and without it furious pressing of F1 does nothing.

Getting into the Bios on many consumer class devices is deliberately
obfuscated to prevent this sort of thing happening :-(

I wish you luck. I have had to randomly change BIOS things in order to
get a particular machine to run Linux.

'Secure boot' and UEFI.. who knows WTF they are?

--
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's
too dark to read.

Groucho Marx

The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> On 16/08/2023 12:15, Tricky Dicky wrote:
>> I will look again,
>> carefully, in BIOS to see if network boot has been enabled but once again I
>> am having trouble getting into BIOS as the message is not appearing with
>> the splash screen and without it furious pressing of F1 does nothing.
>
> Getting into the Bios on many consumer class devices is deliberately
> obfuscated to prevent this sort of thing happening :-(
>
> I wish you luck. I have had to randomly change BIOS things in order to
> get a particular machine to run Linux.
>
> 'Secure boot' and UEFI.. who knows WTF they are?
>

TNP, as a Linux user you are probably not interested in Windows but for the
benefit of other users I have found if you go into windows settings and
into the repair menu and then shut down on restart when the Toshiba splash
screen comes up so does the menu for BIOS and Boot Menu. Do not why it only
happens shutting down this way but every time I did it the menu came up.

Anyway as John said it was trying a network boot prioritising the SSD drive
solved the issue. Oddly in the boot menu it was already set to the SSD and
when I was in BIOS previously I never changed any settings at least not to
my knowledge. I am pleased that everything is back to normal but soooooo
much faster. Thanks all for help suggestions and solutions.

Richard

On 16/08/2023 15:25, Tricky Dicky wrote:
> The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>> On 16/08/2023 12:15, Tricky Dicky wrote:
>>> I will look again,
>>> carefully, in BIOS to see if network boot has been enabled but once again I
>>> am having trouble getting into BIOS as the message is not appearing with
>>> the splash screen and without it furious pressing of F1 does nothing.
>>
>> Getting into the Bios on many consumer class devices is deliberately
>> obfuscated to prevent this sort of thing happening :-(
>>
>> I wish you luck. I have had to randomly change BIOS things in order to
>> get a particular machine to run Linux.
>>
>> 'Secure boot' and UEFI.. who knows WTF they are?
>>
>
> TNP, as a Linux user you are probably not interested in Windows but for the
> benefit of other users I have found if you go into windows settings and
> into the repair menu and then shut down on restart when the Toshiba splash
> screen comes up so does the menu for BIOS and Boot Menu. Do not why it only
> happens shutting down this way but every time I did it the menu came up.
>
> Anyway as John said it was trying a network boot prioritising the SSD drive
> solved the issue. Oddly in the boot menu it was already set to the SSD and
> when I was in BIOS previously I never changed any settings at least not to
> my knowledge. I am pleased that everything is back to normal but soooooo
> much faster. Thanks all for help suggestions and solutions.
>
> Richard
It is not unknown for random bits in silicon to change under fiddling. A
transient can erase a flash cell. As can a thunderstorm. DAMHIKT. And
random bits can cause strange results. Once in the days of floppy disks
I wrote some medical software. To reduce storage each bit had a meaning.

To test it I used a random number generator and was delighted when it
reported that I had a dislocation of the testicles...

--
A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on
its shoes.

On 16/08/2023 in message <ubj00c$3cicu$3@dont-email.me> The Natural
Philosopher wrote:

>t is not unknown for random bits in silicon to change under fiddling. A
>transient can erase a flash cell. As can a thunderstorm. DAMHIKT. And
>random bits can cause strange results. Once in the days of floppy disks I
>wrote some medical software. To reduce storage each bit had a meaning.
>
>To test it I used a random number generator and was delighted when it
>reported that I had a dislocation of the testicles...

Did you take something for that?

--
Jeff Gaines Dorset UK
We chose to do this not because it is easy but because we thought it would
be easy.

On 8/16/2023 10:25 AM, Tricky Dicky wrote:
> The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>> On 16/08/2023 12:15, Tricky Dicky wrote:
>>> I will look again,
>>> carefully, in BIOS to see if network boot has been enabled but once again I
>>> am having trouble getting into BIOS as the message is not appearing with
>>> the splash screen and without it furious pressing of F1 does nothing.
>>
>> Getting into the Bios on many consumer class devices is deliberately
>> obfuscated to prevent this sort of thing happening :-(
>>
>> I wish you luck. I have had to randomly change BIOS things in order to
>> get a particular machine to run Linux.
>>
>> 'Secure boot' and UEFI.. who knows WTF they are?
>>
>
> TNP, as a Linux user you are probably not interested in Windows but for the
> benefit of other users I have found if you go into windows settings and
> into the repair menu and then shut down on restart when the Toshiba splash
> screen comes up so does the menu for BIOS and Boot Menu. Do not why it only
> happens shutting down this way but every time I did it the menu came up.
>
> Anyway as John said it was trying a network boot prioritising the SSD drive
> solved the issue. Oddly in the boot menu it was already set to the SSD and
> when I was in BIOS previously I never changed any settings at least not to
> my knowledge. I am pleased that everything is back to normal but soooooo
> much faster. Thanks all for help suggestions and solutions.
>
> Richard
>

Before declaring the invention of a magnetic monopole in your
computer room, verify that you tried F2 and also <fn> F2. On some
machines, they do things differently, and the colours
of the keyboard may be indicating that <fn> or FunctionKey must
be pressed down, while you repeatedly hammer the F-key desired.

Something else, is on Dells, the BIOS will appear "mad/crazy"
because what Dell did was they made their desktops "RAID Ready".
This means the disk drive can be declared to be part of a RAID
pair. They only want the user to enable enough SATA ports to
prepare for RAID-ready, as if all the users are salivating at
the prospect of a RAID mirror. Yet the machines don't ship with
the extra drive, to clone and make the mirror. This means the
machine preferences, is silently tuned for a kind of user
that simply does not use the computer.

You can be sitting there, changing settings on the bloody machine,
and "nothing makes sense". Yet, unknown to you, the machine has
a plan, and even if the second drive never makes an appearance
inside the machine, the machine is restricting what you can do,
as if "RAID config" is going to happen "any minute now".

They don't even provide the second plastic tray, for the drive
that would make the RAID-pair !!!

So when a machine appears to "be bananas", that is actually
"expected behavior" by the BIOS designer. Rather than a random
number generator, the behaviors are actually traceable to
"design intent". And they're so thick, all the models they
make have carefully been coded to exactly the same "intent".
So even if the BIOS needs to be custom coded, the "bananas behavior"
is carefully copied into each model.

It's possible they've stopped doing this... :-/
But I'm not going back to check.

Sometimes, if you Google the model number, you can pick up
traces of people all fighting with the BIOS in the same way,
and wishing to smash something with a brick. That's when it
starts to occur to you "hmmm, there IS an evil plan here". The
behavior is not random, and there is a plan.

This is one reason I build my own computers from parts, because retail
motherboards are hardly ever bios-coded in such a stupid manner.

Paul

On 17/08/2023 14:41, Paul wrote:
> This is one reason I build my own computers from parts, because retail
> motherboards are hardly ever bios-coded in such a stupid manner.

The worst bios I have is from a parts supplier.

My pre loved HP machines are just complex enough, not too complex

--
There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale
returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.

Mark Twain