Windows 10 update broke my pc

[plantman]

exactly - cant do anything


Cheers Andy - the boot cd looks a good option but I'll leave it to my mate as I'm not the greatest with technology

honestly mate download hirens boot cd and choose mini xp, you can then browse your hard drive and copy it all off

but if your mate is doing it for free (or a pint) then no big deal

might give it a go anyway - I've got an external hard drive will I need a laptop or once the boot cd is running will I have access to my PC?

once the boot cd has loaded up the "mini xp" software you will have full access to the files on the system itself, it loads a temporary operating system so you can browse your files and drag them across to the USB hard drive you plugged in

Andy

 

[StarWarsFan]

Another way to boot into the system to save the data, download Ubuntu. Boot to the disk and select trail Ubuntu rather then install once its loaded will give you access to the accounts on the HDD and will have access to the files to save on a External HDD or USB stick.

 

[shawn_k]

With Apple to work with USB pens and and External HDD they need to formatted as FAT32 rather then NTFS.

A limited file system cant remember the file size limits on maybe 4gb, if apple were not so anal and proprietary they would take the business markets

To be fair the issue you are referring to is entirely in Microsofts hands - OS X has its own file system, just like Windows does. OS X can read NTFS, but Windows cannot read the OS X file system without special software. The old FAT you refer to is the only one both can read out of the box, but like you say is limited to 4GB file sizes. So both formats are guitly of having their own file system, but OS X can read all of the Windows ones without additional software. Windows cannot.

Thought I'd add a little bit to this part of the conversation. If you format a USB drive exFAT, then both Windows and OS X can read them without the 4gb file size imitation. The department I work in is half Windows and half OS X, so I use this all the time to transfer files. Disk Utility on the mac can format the drives no problem. However, there are also tools you can install to make NTFS writeable.

If you want to talk proprietary, Windows is a lot more that way OS wise over OS X. Quite a bit of OS X is actually open source and Apple contributes to many open source projects as compared to Microsoft. It's just the fact that Microsoft has the market dominance. Really the proprietary part is needing Mac hardware to officially install OS X, but it can unofficially be done on PCs.

Anyway, sorry to hear about the Windows 10 upgrade problems. I've upgraded a few machines now without any issue. Hopefully you can get it sorted. However, I won't argue the switch to Mac as I personally made the switch about 13 years ago and don't miss Windows one bit. The only use case that I wouldn't recommend it is if you're a heavy gamer. I'd just make a list of all the major programs you need and see if they're available on the Mac or a good equivalent. I'd be happy to help to if you want.

 

[spoons]

Thanks again chaps

Shawn, my son plays mine craft but that's about it gaming wise on the pc

Either way I won't be getting a Mac anytime soon - I'll see out Windows 7 and then take a view on my next upgrade when my PC gets old

 

[naughtyjedi]

Spoons, if you need to access your old files, buy an enclosure (get one with a power supply), take out your hard drive and plug it in. In your shiny new mac you can then access your files without any need for software. If you have a shiny mac you can use software called vmware fusion and install win7 etc on it.

I advise any non technical savvy persons to avoid upgrading to w10 unless you are win8. Theres a load of wifi cards still not updated and will cause major issues. Stick with win7. Its decent enough, or buy a mac.

 

[edd_jedi]

This is an interesting read - IBM move over to Mac hardware, IT support drops from 40% of users to 5% of users:

http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/10/15/only-5-of-mac-users-at-ibm-need-help-desk-support-compared-to-40-of-pc-users

No denying Apple stuff is expensive, but as with most things in life you get what you pay for. It's not just the cost of the components, it's the R&D, manufacturing, and of course the brand (nobody complains that Ferrari's are expensive.) A lot of people write off Macs and have never even used one. I use both every day, would never choose Windows if given the choice.

 

[Mr-shifter]

Just an opinion here from your average joe computer user. I went from Windows to a Mac 7 or so years ago. Never looked back. Wouldn't entertain having a Windows of now and I use them at work all the time.

i think its just horses for courses really, anything you pick up in the high street works on windows, any hardware, software, full domain functionality with complete granular control over users, apple doesnt offer this kind of scope as far as i know but i plainly refuse to pay their premiums for similar systems, i purchased a 3D Revit machine from dell for just under £900, the same spec system for a mac that couldnt integrate into our domain was triple the price and for what?

its nice stuff but its got nothing over windows, or windows based hardware manufacturers, i love our synology servers, based on linux they are superb bits of kit so im not focused on microsoft, i think they twat around a lot for no reason, but since windows 7 ive had little or no issues at all, my helpdesk requests have dropped by about 80% too

For me it's what I use it for. I have a catalogue of photos, music and film on there. I do a bit of browsing, use the office suite occasionally and use it for email applications. I will have a crack at video and photo editing but only at a very basic level.

I was buying laptop PCs as bank holiday specials. £350 for a laptop that was struggling to do what I needed it to do because of the constant upgrades 12 - 18 months after purchase. Operating systems that will work with some hardware and not very well with others. I paid £800 for my MacBook. It's struggling a bit now but for the first 5 - 6 years I guess it was fast, stable and reliable. I would have probably gone through at least 3 Windows machines in that time.

We now have an iMac. I got a good discount as I was doing a work sponsored HNC at the time and qualified for the educational discount. It looks good, does exactly what I want it to do, I can walk into any apple shop and get good support from the staff there and it works brilliantly with our iPads and iPhones.

I am a fanboy. Why? Because I wanted a bit of kit that does certain things with an amount of reliability and longevity. Apple was the first for a long time to deliver this. I was pleased with what I got and with that, they had one a new customer.

 

[edd_jedi]

I paid £800 for my MacBook. It's struggling a bit now but for the first 5 - 6 years I guess it was fast, stable and reliable. I would have probably gone through at least 3 Windows machines in that time.

I bet putting an SSD drive in your old Macbook would give it a new lease of life. They are the single best contributor to improved speed. My Lenovo work laptop has a far better spec than my Macbook Air, but because it has an old mechanical hard drive, it is far slower at everything.