Wisdom comes with experiences that result from unwise choices. Unfortunately, experience can be like cheap tape-it might take a while to get it to stick.
Over the years I have learned the wisdom of not tinkering with my computer when it is working, mainly because one way to make it stop working is to tinker with it. As might be guessed I learned this by tinkering with many a computer. On the plus side, I know a lot about computers. On the minus side, this knowledge cost me a great deal of time and those nasty cuts you get from sharp PC components.
Today, my wisdom failed me. I decided to revitalize my 2009 PC by adding a SSD. It seemed simple enough: attach the SSD to the SATA card, plug the card into a PCI-E slot, clone and then reboot after adjusting the BIOS.
If you are a tinkerer, you know what happened next: blue screens. Not only did the clone SSD not boot, my original drive got whacked. I got that fixed and called it a day. But, I’ll get that drive to work…
There’s an economic metaphor here. I’ll leave it to TJ to ‘splain, if he’s so inclined.
Sure. It is usually better if the government does nothing to “fix” the economy.
True. Best not to tamper if things are going well. As a general rule, change should be imposed by the state when doing so addresses a legitimate problem that requires the power of the state (such as slavery).
I like that approach ” But, I’ll get that drive to work” !!
are you setting the SSD drive as a “slave” ?
I would never enslave my drives. 🙂 Ah, you reminded me of the days of messing with jumpers on the hard drives to get all the setting right. The most fun was an drive without any label showing how to set them. Guessing always worked eventually.
I had set it as the boot drive, but it blue screened over and over.
Better to back up all your important files to Dropbox, install SSD, then do a clean re-install of Windows.
I’ve got all the important stuff in Dropbox and Google Drive, plus backed up on multiple hard drives and DVDs. My dissertation got whacked by a Mac back in 1992-so I have been super paranoid ever since.
I also have rescue disks, disk images and even a VM of my sytsem saved on an external drive.
Plus, you know, Democrat Death Drones overhead. DDDs to protect my SSDs…
You might also want to check out Macrium Reflect for cloning and backup:
http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx
Have you used it? Acronis used to be the best, but the latest version got mixed reviews.
you definitely seem to tinker a lot with technology – you even have a VM of your current system just in case!!! most people don’t do that!!
out of curiosity, what operating system are you using on the machine?
Windows 7 Premium. I bought the upgrade to 8 in January but didn’t want to break my PC. 🙂 The VM is an emergency backup- so if my PC dies I can use it to deactivate my Adobe and other software.
Update: got the SSD working properly. Re-cloned the drive and it boots perfectly. Was it worth it? Well, it boots much faster, programs open almost instantly, and the Windows experience rating for my drive went from 5.9 to 7.8 (the max is 7.9). So, yeah. 🙂