Desk top problems

[Dod101]

I have a desktop which is still running on Windows 7. It is totally unreliable and I have tried all the usual methods for upgrading to Windows 10 but as it seems to be reaching the end it always tells me that it cannot proceed for some reason or another. What should I do? The hardware is adequate.

I have a laptop which came with Windows 10 which is fast and reliable but does not hold all the data that is on my desktop. I simply do not have the knowledge about how to upgrade the desktop without losing my data or indeed in transferring it to the Windows 10 laptop.

Can anyone help please?

Dod

[Gerry557]

Transfer the data to another hard drive or stick. It sound like it time for a new box if win 7.

Some might say a box is outdated anyway these days. Do you have back ups of data?

You should be able to put the hard drive into the new pc also. Dont bin it as it gives you options.

The best way might be to fit an ssd, install win 10 depending on how old the hardware actually is. You might want to check that it is win 10 compactable before deciding to update the old pc.

[Urbandreamer]

I simply do not have the knowledge about how to upgrade the desktop without losing my data or indeed in transferring it to the Windows 10 laptop.

Can anyone help please?

Dod

I'm afraid that is the real problem.

If you could copy your data then all sorts of posibility's open up. But if you feel that you can't actually copy the data, or learn how, then the only solution is to find a charity, charitable person or pay to get someone else to do it for you.

I would STRONGLY recommend learning how to copy the data and do simple hardware stuff yourself. You could lose your data tomorrow through a hard disk failyer. Backing up regularly reduces that risk.

Start by getting a USB hard drive or making one from a USB hard drive caddy and SSD. Then find out where your data is and copy it to that drive.
You can then try accessing it on your Win 10 laptop.
This will also help if your laptop has limited space for your old data.

Once your data is safe you can think about what to do about the desktop and how to regularly backup your data.

If you do actually want to keep this desktop then I would recomend replacing the hard disk, so that you can keep the original, and installing some form of linux on the new hard disk. You can then cheaply see if you could be happy with linux. Copy some of your data to the linux machine, so the original is untouched, then see if you can access it.

Alternatively you could buy a new windows 10 desktop and fit/add the hard disk from the old machine. That would quickly and easily enable you to copy the data to the new machine. If going this route you will need to find out about TPM and how to enable it in bios. It's not needed fro windows 10, but will be a requirement if/when you upgrade to windows 11.

[GrahamPlatt]

Buy an external hard drive that’s of greater capacity than the one in your desktop. Attach same to desktop via USB, then copy all the data across. There are various means of doing this, e.g. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/top ... 6fcca76c7e - and there are some third-party apps that will also do the job, e.g. https://techjury.net/best/windows-backup-software/

Then dismount the external drive and attach it to your laptop.

[Dod101]

Well I have a Seagate portable drive which I imagine can take all the data I have on my desktop. I also Can do a complete image using Macrium. Does any of tat help? What I had in mind was somehow clearingthe desktop of all it data and then starting again. I think my desktop is adequate for Windows 10. Or am I better just to buy a new machine preloaded with Windows 10 (and capable of ungrading to W11 in due course)?

Dod

[monabri]

Step 1
First, I think it would be an idea to establish just how much data is on the old desktop - Use file manager, go to the directories where your data (photos, share dealing info, important documents you've created or received) is stored and "right click" on the mouse and select "properties".

(I've just done this, it's quite quick to do - 29000+ files and ~60GB...a lot of mp3 music files and photos, hence 29k files !!).

I wouldn't rush out to buy a relatively expensive (£100) backup hard drive or solid state drive until you have done some relatively cheap basic things first which might cost less than £20 (two £10 USBs) and might be overkill.

Do this for all the directories where you have important files. Tot up the amount of space your important files are taking up. Then directories can be copied from the old desktop and pasted onto a USB memory stick.

The data can then be copied from the USB memory stick and copied onto the newer laptop...once again using file manager.

Step 2
Buy another USB memory stick of at least 8GB and create a Windows 10 USB recovery drive on the laptop. I bought a 64GB Kingston make USB stick for just under 6 quid from Amazon this weekend. You can use an existing USB stick but the process of creating a recovery disc will wipe any existing data from the USB first.


I think Steps 1 and 2 are important - to have a backup of all your important files on the desktop, be able to copy them onto your laptop and also to have a recovery path if/when your newer laptop falls over

Step 3
Step 3 ... Having carried out Step 2 (mandatory) you have a USB memory stick which can be used to install W10 onto your older desktop.

Step 3 - For discussion at a later date

edit:
(see Urbandreamers comment "Once your data is safe you can think about what to do about the desktop and how to regularly backup your data.").

(I would go onto to suggest using the W10 recovery disc created using the laptop to create a W10 installation on the W7 desktop)

[Infrasonic]

Post the specifications of the W7 desktop an then we can see what it might be capable of. Sometimes just adding an SSD as a boot drive and/or a bit more RAM can work wonders.

If it's salvageable you could do a full backup with Macrium and then try to clean it up and ready it for the free W7 to W10 upgrade.
I'd do that via the Media Creation Tool route using a USB flash drive myself rather than online, as from experience that has tended to succeed more frequently with older hardware upgrades that are proving troublesome.

Or as suggested up thread put Linux on it. There are several versions of Linux that have a similar look and feel to Windows to minimise the operational learning curve. As many services are online these days then there aren't really any major issues doing basic Microsoft things on Linux - there's also Wine which will let you run installed Windows apps on Linux.

[mc2fool]

I have a desktop which is still running on Windows 7. It is totally unreliable and I have tried all the usual methods for upgrading to Windows 10 but as it seems to be reaching the end it always tells me that it cannot proceed for some reason or another.

Can you be more specific on those two points? In what exact ways is the desktop unreliable? And what are the "some reason or another" that it gives for not being able to proceed?

Well I have a Seagate portable drive which I imagine can take all the data I have on my desktop. I also Can do a complete image using Macrium.

If you don't have a very recent one, do one now!

BTW, just how much (GB) personal data do you have on the desktop?

[jfgw]

If you don't have a very recent one, do one now!

Just to emphasise, DO ONE NOW!

Your problems with unreliability and the failure of Windows 10 to install could be due to a failing hard drive.


Julian F. G. W.

[servodude]

If you don't have a very recent one, do one now!

Just to emphasise, DO ONE NOW!

Your problems with unreliability and the failure of Windows 10 to install could be due to a failing hard drive.


Julian F. G. W.

And also make sure you can get the data you need from somewhere if you can't make use of the macrium image
- it's your information that is important NOT the operating system

-sd

[88V8]

I make a full weekly backup to a hard drive using Norton Ghost... yes, I'm sure Macrium is better than Ghost but it works and I'm a creature of habit...
The backup drive is only switched on for the backup, so it should outlast me

I've needed the whole backup twice, plus once for an email crash.
Dicing with death otherwise.

V8

[Dod101]

Post the specifications of the W7 desktop an then we can see what it might be capable of. Sometimes just adding an SSD as a boot drive and/or a bit more RAM can work wonders.

If it's salvageable you could do a full backup with Macrium and then try to clean it up and ready it for the free W7 to W10 upgrade.
I'd do that via the Media Creation Tool route using a USB flash drive myself rather than online, as from experience that has tended to succeed more frequently with older hardware upgrades that are proving troublesome.

Or as suggested up thread put Linux on it. There are several versions of Linux that have a similar look and feel to Windows to minimise the operational learning curve. As many services are online these days then there aren't really any major issues doing basic Microsoft things on Linux - there's also Wine which will let you run installed Windows apps on Linux.

I am hugely grateful for all these suggestions and so on. To answer infrasonic now. I have an i3 - 4150 processor @3.5GHz, 4 GB of Ram and a hard disc of 450 GB. I do wonder about the hard dirc because I have had instability problems for a long while including occasional BSODs. Some say that the BSOD can be caused by a faulty driver but I have no idea nor do I know how to fix that.

It is only when I use my W10 laptop that I realise how hopeless and unreliable is my desktop.

Dod

[Dod101]

I have a desktop which is still running on Windows 7. It is totally unreliable and I have tried all the usual methods for upgrading to Windows 10 but as it seems to be reaching the end it always tells me that it cannot proceed for some reason or another.

Can you be more specific on those two points? In what exact ways is the desktop unreliable? And what are the "some reason or another" that it gives for not being able to proceed?

Well I have a Seagate portable drive which I imagine can take all the data I have on my desktop. I also Can do a complete image using Macrium.

If you don't have a very recent one, do one now!

BTW, just how much (GB) personal data do you have on the desktop?

Some of the unreliability problems I have covered in my response to infrasonic. Very very slow to even open a browser, BSODs from time to time, Thunderbird mail crashing regularly.

I got the length of getting the Windows 10 installation data onto a USB stick and all seemed to be going well but then for some reason it told me that it could not proceed. That was some time ago now and I gave up. I forget the actual message wording.

I have checked the personal data on the desktop. Not much is the answer. Following Monabri's comments I think no more than 2.5GB, much of that photos.

Does any of that help?

Dod

[mc2fool]

I do wonder about the hard dirc because I have had instability problems for a long while including occasional BSODs. Some say that the BSOD can be caused by a faulty driver but I have no idea nor do I know how to fix that.

Ugh, that does sound like your hard drive could be on its way out.

Open My Computer (or whatever it's called on your desktop) and right-click on the C drive and select Properties. Then choose the Tools tab and check for errors. Do it now!

[mc2fool]

Some of the unreliability problems I have covered in my response to infrasonic. Very very slow to even open a browser, BSODs from time to time, Thunderbird mail crashing regularly.

That all makes it sound even more like a failing disk. Either that or memory errors being the next most likely cause, but the failing disk is the more likely.

I very strongly recommend you do a Macrium backup straight away! Then do the errors check I described previously to confirm or otherwise that the disk is the problem. If so then I think we'll be guiding you on an SSD upgrade next. How much space are you actually using on your 450GB disk?

I have checked the personal data on the desktop. Not much is the answer. Following Monabri's comments I think no more than 2.5GB, much of that photos.

If that's all then I'd recommend syncing it up to a "cloud" service, like OneDrive, Google Drive or Sync.com ... but before the thread gets diverted into backup systems and cloud storage, let's first make sure you've got your data saved. Do that backup now!

[Infrasonic]

I'd echo the above advice, get a full backup done asap.
If it is just a HDD issue and nothing else then...

I've just had a quick look at... https://www.hotukdeals.com/tag/ssd and there are some deals on the 1TB Samsung QVO 870 2.5" SATA SSD at the moment. If you have a Curry's PC World near by you could click and collect from them or Scan have a similar deal on too.

https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/computing ... 3-pdt.html

Or a 480 GB Kingston A400 SSD here on Amazon for £35.99... https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01N0TQPQB? ... ROKL5A1OLE
I'd prefer a Samsung but on a low use machine the Kingston would be fine. I've put those A400's in a few PC's.

Two ways of making the SSD a bootable copy of your current C drive - restore from the Macrium backup or clone the old drive to the new one using Macrium. Restore is quicker and easier. As long as there aren't any major data corruption issues with the W7 Macrium backup or W7 C drive that should work fine.

Edit: Just to add the basic specs of the W7 PC aren't too bad, so barring any major hardware faults you should be able to run W10 on it.

[Howard]

Dod

You are a wealthy man. You've written about your investing success and recent purchase of a fancy Audi. I'm guessing you are a millionaire!

You are realistic in suggesting that you know little about computers. This is borne out by your not upgrading to Windows 10 years ago!

In this situation, surely it's worth investing a few pounds in calling in a local IT expert who specialises in helping people like you. Make sure you check his/her credentials by looking at customer reviews or talking to local customers.

Recently I had an SSD hard disk failure in my desktop. (No problem with lost files as I regularly back up). Here in the expensive South, I called Gerry our local expert, who fixed my ethernet card back in 2007 after it had been knocked out by a lightning strike. He replace the SSD disk and recovere the files in a couple of days and charged me just under £90. The desktop is now back to lightning speed (faster than the modern Apple and W10 laptops that I use as a volunteer in a couple of local organisations).

There is a time to admit that one is never going to be an IT expert and waffle on about Linux .

Spend a few pounds on an expert, he/she will advise you if your machine is suitable for an upgrade or, if not what to buy.

Good luck!

Howard

[monabri]

I have checked the personal data on the desktop. Not much is the answer. Following Monabri's comments I think no more than 2.5GB, much of that photos.

Does any of that help?

Dod

You may find that it is cheaper to buy a 64Gb USB stick than one with lower storage ...I did. I was looking for an 8Gb stick and I found that the 64Gb was actually cheaper ( same make of USB memory stick and supplier). With 2.5GB of personal data, I'd copy it to a new stick and then copy onto your laptop. Thus your info is stored in 3 locations.

I like these USB drives, they sit almost unobtrusively in a USB port. The link is to a 128GB USB thumb drive but the 32GB drive is £7.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07 ... UTF8&psc=1


Out of curiosity, on your old desktop, if you go into task manager ( cntl-alt-del ) , is the disc running at 100% ?

[Dod101]

I do wonder about the hard dirc because I have had instability problems for a long while including occasional BSODs. Some say that the BSOD can be caused by a faulty driver but I have no idea nor do I know how to fix that.

Ugh, that does sound like your hard drive could be on its way out.

Open My Computer (or whatever it's called on your desktop) and right-click on the C drive and select Properties. Then choose the Tools tab and check for errors. Do it now!

Done that but it will not do a back up and asks me to schedule it for the next time my PC reboots.Then the whole thing disappears. It was at about this level of frustration that I gave up last time.

Dod

[servodude]

I like these USB drives, they sit almost unobtrusively in a USB port. The link is to a 128GB USB thumb drive but the 32GB drive is £7.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07 ... UTF8&psc=1

I lost one of those exact ones a couple of weeks back
- just too small for carrying about

I'd had it on a keyring but I had to remove that because the port on my oscilloscope was recessed and the drive was so short I couldn't insert it
- otherwise excellent and quick drive (I expect to find it in the washing machine eventually)

-sd