Long gone, but now back… sort of. :)
A reader* asks: “Is it OK to use NTFS on a SSD? Why or why not?” With any reasonably current SSD and operating system, it’s perfectly fine. An SSD (or any disk, for that matter) really doesn’t care what’s in the bits it stores. The formatting of the disk itself — as well as user…
Q: “How do I recover data from an undetectable Seagate external hard drive? Is it possible through some software, or is it advisable to get it done through professionals?” (via Quora) A: It depends on what you mean by “undetectable.” For example, there’s physical/electrical undetectability; and undetectability due to logical or software issues. You’ll need…
Q: Why do I see 1TB of storage on my hard drive label but only 930-960GB when it’s plugged to my computer? (via Quora) A: The drive is sold by raw capacity; but must first be partitioned and formatted before use, and that process consumes some space. An analogy: Think of an empty filing cabinet…
Q: How much RAM do I need for my laptop? I mostly use it for word documents, Internet browsing with multiple tabs, and, occasionally, light video editing. I currently have 4GB but I’m considering going up to 8GB. (via Quora) A: Here’s an easy way to see if you have enough RAM in any PC,…
Q: “Why does tech support think that formatting your hard drive is the only solution for all your PC problems?” (via Quora) A. Holy smokes! Who told you that? If that’s your experience with tech support, you really should change techs, brands, stores — or wherever it is you’re getting that advice. Formatting a drive…
Reader Jacob Leeds asks: “How do I automatically track my resource usage stats on Windows 10?” That’s easy, Jacob: Win10’s built-in Performance Monitor does exactly what you want! It lets you produce and save graphs, charts, and text-based output that tracks any of Windows’ thousands of performance metrics over time. You can access the tool…
Windows 1.0 was released 33 years ago, in November 1985. It wasn’t much: Just a standard DOS setup (on a single 5.25″ floppy disk) wrapped in a simple point-and-click interface and displayed in CGA 640×200px resolution or Hercules monochrome green or amber. This combination of OS and “shell” was primitive, but it could run and display…
Reader John used the Contact link to ask: “Hi Fred! My problem isn’t with Registry per se, but rather MS’s confused muddling (mangling?) of OS vs apps & user data. Please tell me why MS chooses to store my Internet Explorer bookmark order (i.e., my arranged bookmark order – in other words, the order I…
Reader Aaron used the Contact link to ask: “How can I reset my smartphone without losing data? It keeps restarting.” You’ll have to temporarily move the data to another device (eg your PC; or a cloud-based file storage service like Drive, OneDrive, DropBox; etc.) How you do this depends on where the data is, on…
Q: My new keyboard keeps on typing the same letter. I tried it on another PC, but there, it worked fine. I also tried formatting my PC, but it’s still an issue. How can I fix this? (via Quora) A: I assume you mean it’s doing something like thisssssssssssssss? I think we can fix that! …