[AT] slightly off topic, computer related

[Chuck Bealke]

Charlie,

Am suspecting your long in the tooth computer might be better replaced than patched - at least if it's old, you value your time and it never thrived with Win 10. If I did not have the friend that helps keep me up with the constant changes to MS, security threats, and creeping privacy invasions by MS, browser and other software etc., I would find a HS student with good refs through church youth group or local HS to visit a while for an hourly charge to help me. As a rule, new hard drives are getting cheaper per TB and you might want to get a 3 TB or bigger for backup. There are some (one in three sales guys perhaps) part time techie college students working at Frys here that know their stuff and will tell you what gear gets returned and what gear does not. Just got rid of a still running PC that was less than 5 years old that my wife was using, but not quietly. Moved what she wanted to keep from it to a new one I bought her for Christmas + birthday and got some of my life back, as it runs fast and almost problem free day after day. (Got her a Mac as she spends hours on her iPad and iPhone, but am not suggesting that would fit you.)  I made my old PC (with early i7 processor) run way faster by installing a solid state hard drive on top of the old one, but it ate a ton of time and I don't recommend that for your situation. Have been tempted to do cloud backup as Cecil suggested for a short book I'm working on with editing help from Colorado, as it is easy to access from anywhere and won't get wiped out by lightning strike, fire, theft, etc.

Good luck.

Chuck Bealke 
Dallas (actually Plano) TX


> On Feb 13, 2017, at 4:45 PM, charlie hill <charliehill at embarqmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I don't want to loose all of my tractor information and
> years worth of ATIS e-mails, etc.  My computer is getting long
> in the tooth and will soon need to be replaced but the main problem
> with it right now is there is just too much stuff stored on it.
> 
> I have a 1.5 TB external drive that I'm currently only using for backup.
> I'd like to partition that drive so that I can still back up to it but also
> create a file location for photos and archived e-mails, etc.  I'd also
> like to set the computer up to dual boot from either drive.  I'm trying to
> prepare for the certainty that this machine is going to crash relatively 
> soon.
> 
> If I can get all of that done I can accomplish a couple of things.
> 1, I can then clean up the drive on the computer and see if that helps the 
> problem.
> 2, I won't have to worry about loosing data when it crashes.
> 
> The problem is that ever since about windows XL I haven't known how to do 
> any of this stuff.
> This machine is running Windows 10 and it's really ill prepared for it.
> 
> Does anyone know of a utility, preferably free, that will help me do all 
> this stuff?
> I have literally 20 years worth of book marks carefully sorted into files by 
> subject and I would
> surely hate to loose all of that not to mention the pictures that can never 
> be replaced.
> 
> I'm not sure I am willing to slog through the process myself without the 
> help of some sort of
> utility.  Even if I knew how.
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Charlie 
> 
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