Windows 10 made a brick out of my laptop

[fluidistic]

Bad news for me. The store where I sent the laptop told me they don't know what's wrong with the laptop and that they would change the motherboard + hard disk if I pay about 250 dollars, without any guarantee that this would fix the problem.
I decided not to do anything, of course. I paid the minimum fee and went to another store. I explained during 20 minutes the whole story. The guy said he will try to retrieve the data on my hard disk during the next week while the laptop would be sent to a specialized place where technicians will try to fix any problem related to video card/motherboard and power button. If I understood him well, they will run some software that analyze deeply whether the hardware is behaving normally, and that they will try 3 times at most. If this doesn't fix anything I'll have to pay the minimum fee. If this fixes things out, I'd have to pay a bit less than 100 dollars. But I have to wait about 3 weeks.
I'll keep you guys updated...

 

[jim hardy]

I really enjoyed this rant of yours from post #1 :

I must say that I truly believe that Windows is a cheap-toy OS not serious enough to be trusted for serious matters. I can't count on it... . I feel like Windows should disappear from being sold by default in most places, and should be replaced by other more serious and solid OS'es .

Boring Anecdote Alert :

I had opportunity to vent in a similar vein before some company VIP's ... a Windows update erased an important Powerpoint slideshow i'd prepared for the meeting . In fact all my files disappeared.

I said , when asked why we had no presentation :
" Gentlemen,
Last night's Windows update completely destroyed everything i have ever done on that computer ,
it is all 'Gone With the E-Wind'
including today's presentation and its backup.
I can have it for you by this time next week. It will be on 35mm slides and my 1960 Kodak Carousel projector."
Then i looked the IT guy right in the eye and continued:
"Windows is simply not suitable for a serious industrial environment."
Pulling a compact slide rule from my shirt pocket and waving it over my head i went on , still looking IT in the eye:
"I intend never again to log on to the company system and request that you delete my account. I have kept this slide rule which does all the computing i need to do and is reliable. "

The poor IT guy turned red and stomped out of the room.

I rather expected to be in trouble
but right as the meeting adjourned our top manager walked up, shook my hand & said "That was Great - Thanks !"

Maybe i wasn't the only one frustrated.
old jim

 

[jim hardy]

Hmmm

maybe Microsoft overheard my last post

Windows Security Essentials now refuses to update
gives the
OX80004004
error


oh well.

 

[3WWW]

I vote possible virus, and would pursue removal programs, or a "factory reset"... Do you have a backup file?

Otherwise I've decided to trust MS computer scientists; that their best efforts are focused on their latest platform... Their income depends on customer's satisfaction!... They are profoundly more knowledgeable than myself in fixing OS problems.

I also think they may announce a date after which older windows OS won't be updated by them!

 

[dlgoff]

Hmmm

maybe Microsoft overheard my last post

Windows Security Essentials now refuses to update
gives the
OX80004004
erroroh well.

Same here. After reinstalling Windows 7, I disabled Windows Update, returned to Windows Defender (can be updated without Windows Update), and just for good measures, installed GWX Control Panel.

 

[jim hardy]

It's very curious...

if i start Security Essentials first thing after restarting the computer without opening a browser,
it will update once, and i can run a scan, and it reports itself up-to-date.
But once i open the browser, a bit someplace gets set that blocks update.
My guess is two different programmers used the same name in two different programs for two different somethings, and first program to execute changes that something for the second .

Just one more Windows quirk to live with.

About same time a hitherto unseen sound manager appeared

and it's unpredictable which one appears when i click the speaker icon.
"I dream of Linux ..."

not going to fight it. When this one dies i'll have more time to fix outboard motors.

old jim

 

[Bystander]

I have been "assimilated."

 

[1oldman2]

I have been "assimilated."

Grin and bear it.

 

[Eimacman]

Way back fluidistic said:

Linux can do it with a single command (see http://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/...-permanently-brick-laptops-from-inside-linux/), that command would break laptops and make them unrecoverable. But at least it's under the user's hands, unlike Windows OS which is in both the users and Microsoft's heavy hands.

It looks like Extensible Firmware Interface is located on the hard drive and takes up where BIOS firmware leaves off between the firmware (BIOS) and OS (Windows, Mac, Lunix, Solstice, etc) and if this is so any OS that has a tendency to overwrite the directory that contains the EFI could 'brick' a laptop. The thing that cheeses me off is why they can't put this on the mother board as a EPROM instead of on the hard drive where it can't be messed up by stupidity.

If this is the case, replace the deleted EFI directory on the hard drive and the 'bricked' laptop should come back to life, one would have to replace the MBR and OS as well. Now I haven't got a foggiest idea how to replace the EFI so your are on your own there.

 

[fluidistic]

"Good news", they fixed my laptop. Though they didn't tell me what they've done. I notice that it doesn't have uefi support anymore. It seems to have the same specs as before, so I won't complain.
I've installed linux as only OS for the first time in my life.
Never Windows again.

 

[jim hardy]

I've installed linux as only OS for the first time in my life.

how hard is that ? I soooooo want shed of Microshaft...

 

[fluidistic]

how hard is that ? I soooooo want shed of Microshaft...

It depends on how much you use Windows. I was forced to use it for 1 program only so I didn't use it for months and quitting Windows is a breeze for me.

 

[jim hardy]

well i tried to download Ubuntu with something named Rufus,
it said plug in a 32gigabyte all i had was a 16 so of course it didnt go

will be back for advice

 

[ebos]

Win 7 and XP were not bad. I really like Win 2000 when it first came out. I believe it was a mutant NT but it was actually very very stable. However, nothing beats Linux especially these days with all the choices of GUI's available. Ubuntu being my favourite.

 

[Svein]

"Good news", they fixed my laptop. Though they didn't tell me what they've done. I notice that it doesn't have uefi support anymore. It seems to have the same specs as before, so I won't complain.
I've installed linux as only OS for the first time in my life.
Never Windows again.

So - an obvious bug in the firmware of your laptop ("I notice that it doesn't have uefi support anymore") made you decide to stay away from Windows?

 

[Svein]

well i tried to download Ubuntu with something named Rufus,
it said plug in a 32gigabyte all i had was a 16 so of course it didnt go

will be back for advice

Check out https://distrowatch.com/. There are a ton of Linux distributions that do not require that much space. Observe that Linux Mint is on the top of the "popular" list.

 

[fluidistic]

So - an obvious bug in the firmware of your laptop ("I notice that it doesn't have uefi support anymore") made you decide to stay away from Windows?

Not really. When it worked, I had a triple dual boot windows 10 and 2 other linux distros, in uefi mode. Now I cannot install Linux in uefi mode and some command of efibootmgr (if I remember well) tells me my computer does not support uefi. So I don't know how they fixed the hardware but it seems they removed uefi mode (I don't see any switch in the BIOS about uefi alghouth I see "uefi" as possible 1st option to boot from). Maybe they installed a new firmware, I have no idea. The options in the BIOS are slightly different than what they used to be, I believe.
The guy in the store doesn't know the details either because he just sent the computer to another place, so he didn't tell me anything about what they've done to fix it. And it took them more than 2 months...
The thing is that I got my degree and right now I am not forced anymore to use any Windows-only software. As that OS broke my laptop, I have decided to stay away from it. I have 0 reason to use Windows.

 

[fluidistic]

Check out https://distrowatch.com/. There are a ton of Linux distributions that do not require that much space. Observe that Linux Mint is on the top of the "popular" list.

Distrowatch is nice to get an idea about different linux distros but the rankings are not representative at all about the number of people using the distros. For example, everybody knows Ubuntu is more popular than Mint. Everybody knows Arch is way more popular than Manjaro (which is based on Arch). Just check the activity in their forums and IRC channels. It is much more reliable (albeit not entirely of course) than what distrowatch displays.

 

[Svein]

Heinlein quotes (http://www.aeriagloris.com/Resources/quotes/heinleinquotes.htm):

If "everybody knows" such-and-such, then it ain't so, by at least ten thousand to one.
-Lazarus Long

The phrase "we (I) (you) simply must --" designates something that need not be done. "That goes without saying" is a red warning. "Of course" means you had best check it yourself. These small-change cliches and others like them, when read correctly, are reliable channel markers.
-Lazarus Long

Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors -- and miss.
-Lazarus Long

 

[fluidistic]

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/2t5us7/why_is_there_such_a_huge_difference_between_the/

From distrowatch itself:

The DistroWatch Page Hit Ranking statistics are a light-hearted way of measuring the popularity of Linux distributions and other free operating systems among the visitors of this website. They correlate neither to usage nor to quality and should not be used to measure the market share of distributions. They simply show the number of times a distribution page on DistroWatch.com was accessed each day, nothing more.

. I would not pay any attention that Mint is on the top. It is not the most popular distro. What I would pay attention to, are the names of the distros and I'd google them to see if they could suit me.

 

[jim hardy]

Well Rufus has been formatting that USB stick for 24 hours now and reports 77% .

It is discouraging fiddling with pc's hardly anything works as described

 

[fluidistic]

Well Rufus has been formatting that USB stick for 24 hours now and reports 77% .

It is discouraging fiddling with pc's hardly anything works as described

If it takes more than a few minutes, something is very wrong. Hmm I don't see why it would need to format the USB stick.
Did you follow these steps? http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/create-a-usb-stick-on-windows ?
Anyway, it would be better if you started a new thread in case you're having problems putting the ISO onto the USB stick. You'd get better help.

 

[jim hardy]

Did you follow these steps? http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/create-a-usb-stick-on-windows ?

I thought i had. Downloaded and ran Rufus
it said "Scan the USB (forget exact noun)

so i scanned it and it reported zero errors
then i clicked 'make a bootable disk' because that's what i though was the objective and it's been formatting ever since, at 81% doing 2% per hour.
About 27 hours so far. First few % went quickly.

will start new thread later today.

 

[Bystander]

I have been "assimilated."

... and to top it all off? It appears to have given the damned thing narcolepsy ... it goes to sleep in the middle of anything requiring more than a couple minutes typing.

 

[ebos]

Check out https://distrowatch.com/. There are a ton of Linux distributions that do not require that much space. Observe that Linux Mint is on the top of the "popular" list.

OK, you're trying to put an Ubuntu on a USB stick so you need Rufus or the like. I don't know why this is because when you DL the CD/DVD version it's easy as pie. I did the Rufus thing once as well and had trouble. I got my 23 year old son to show me (when did he get better than me?) and the next time I loaded Ubuntu to a USB it worked OK. I can't remember what I screwed up the first time but it is very unforgiving if you don't do it perfectly the first time. You'll need to reformat the USB if you screwed Rufus up and need to do it again. Don't know if that will help but it is more complicated with a USB boot.

 

[jim hardy]

@Svein ,@jim mcnamara , @ anybody who's done it ---

so if i go to Linux Mint
can i put all my saved pdf's and pictures on a USB stick and reload them ? Will Mint recognize them ?
Is there a "Paint" clone for Cinnamon ?
I see there's a Firefox for Linux

It'll be a lot of work i have tons of Fukushima stuff
I would buy a new hard drive for Linux if it can read files on the other two in this machine rather than wipe them.
??

old jim

 

[Svein]

so if i go to Linux Mint
can i put all my saved pdf's and pictures on a USB stick and reload them ? Will Mint recognize them ?

I am fairly sure that you can mount a USB stick in Mint. I am also sure that Acrobat (.pdf) readers exist in the Linux world.

It'll be a lot of work i have tons of Fukushima stuff
I would buy a new hard drive for Linux if it can read files on the other two in this machine rather than wipe them.

It should be possible, see https://community.linuxmint.com/software/view/ntfs-config.

 

[Bystander]

5/21/18/: Just got a notification of an "update" that may require "extra" time to download and install; I chose "remind me later." Heads up.

 

[jim hardy]

Time to try stuffing a Raspberry Pi into a junkshop Imac G4 for that retro look.
R2D2 anyone?

old jim

 

[Bystander]

"extra"

Hour and thirty for a four year old Toshiba C55-A.

 

[CWatters]

Caution: there are reports that the April 18 update of win 10 can cause issues if you are running Avast antiviris. Think the solution is to uninstall Avast, do the update and reinstall.

 

[jim hardy]

i took mine to the shop and told them "I cannot abide another minute of Windows 10 , put it back to 7."
Very glad i did.

 

[OCR]

Caution: there are reports that the April 18 update of win 10 can cause issues if you are running Avast antiviris.

I use Avast...

The issue involved a registry REG_-DWORD key that Avast had to set... it was.

I had zero problems with the update...

.

 

[nikkkom]

Way back fluidistic said:

It looks like Extensible Firmware Interface is located on the hard drive and takes up where BIOS firmware leaves off between the firmware (BIOS) and OS (Windows, Mac, Lunix, Solstice, etc) and if this is so any OS that has a tendency to overwrite the directory that contains the EFI could 'brick' a laptop.

EFI/UEFI is an abomination. Everything I read about its design is awful. I wonder how on Earth supposedly experienced software developers could design a replacement for old crufty 16-bit BIOS *this* poorly.

I always enable "old BIOS compatibility" mode first thing when I buy a new machine, and disable all "secure boot", "trusted computing" options etc.

 

[CWatters]

Anyone else having issues with notifications after the update? Mine now has a permanent "2" (telling me there are 2 new notifications) when there aren't any.

Clicking on "Don't show number of new notifications" has no effect.