Well as usual I got distracted again and didn't get the OS cloned over to my M.2 drive, but not to worry, I had a slight change of plans.

The distraction was fishing my Thermaltake Chaser AMD rig out of storage to retrieve important data stored on its SSDs.  That took me half the day, and by the time I'd gone down town to fill a couple of prescriptions the day was pretty much spent, so messing with the Level 10 Intel rig to clone an OS just wasn't going to happen. A simple enough job without expending too much energy, yes, but I just couldn't be stuffed after a somewhat long and energy intensive day sorting shit out.

Anyway, I got to thinking overnight and the change of plan was hatched to install the M.2 in the AMD machine instead.  While it is lightning fast already, possibly even faster than my Intel rig, I just want to see how much difference the M.2 would make, speed and performance-wise.  Besides, it currently doesn't have an OS installed, and the Intel one does, so I figured it'd make better sense to do a clean install of a previously unused copy of Win 8 Pro on it.. 

Hehe, I knew it was a good investment to pick myself up and extra copy while they were still going for 40 bucks.  Now it's just a matter of getting the AMD rig out of it's box, connecting a few things here and there, and away I go.

Last two days have been 'interesting'....

Define 'interesting'....

Oh god, we're all going to die?

Something fragged my registry.

Might have been 'advanced system care' by iobit ... but equally might have been an ill-advised game/demo install [I did several].

Either way, firstly I couldn't boot...then once I'd got around that I got as far as a 'blank' login...ie no user input.

Part of the solution was to manually restore hive backups...

Got into Windows again....only to have that side by side failure of all-things Office [and cleverly True Image too].

Chased my tail reloading dot net and vis studio ... got me nowhere slowly...

Booted into old OS ... burnt recovery disk for Acronis....

Restored to Saturday.

Did I mention Sys Restore got me back to the no login....where I'd been 24 hours earlier?

Acronis came through for me....

...only to discover something [still] had fragged MS update.... it refused to be an option in Win Update... so no dotnet or Office, etc updates were coming...

More research....

Solved.

couple of hundred meg of updates later....and I think I might be getting there.

First I'd noticed the error was Monday...about 10 am....

...it's now 3.20 PM Tuesday.....

Good thing I like alcohol.....;p

Depends on when you started drinking I guess.

If it was A LOT on Sunday, then there's yer answer.

If it was SOME to calm the nerves on Monday AFTER the discovery, then the problem was/is real.

Seriously, though, I do recall you having a similar issue with Windows/MS updates and sys restore some time ago.  When it was tracked down as to why, your BITS [Background Intelligent Transfer Service] was missing.  Don't know if it's relevant in this case or not, but I seem to recall yrag suggesting a repair install from the Win 7 disc when sfc /scannow didn't restore it.  It's something to think about should the problem persist, cos it seems like some system files may either be corrupted or missing.

Anyway, . I am still no closer to getting my AMD machine back online because I am missing some parts to complete rebuilding it.  I have them but it's a right royal pain in the arse locating them when all that kind of stuff is packed up and in storage. 

While I can access the crates/boxes alright, I've just not been up for any heavy-ish lifting of late with arthritic and lower back pain.  Most people with arthritis will say that cold aggravates it for them, but I find that I suffer more with the Summer heat, and just recently we've been going through a bit of a heat wave up here, with temps in the high 30s to low 40s....  it's just not the kind of weather to be trying to exert myself in.

Oh well, it's not like I need it that urgently.  I've got my big beastie so a couple more days won't hurt any.

Oh yeah, and I like alcohol, too... though I don't know that it likes me too much.  It is said that alcohol is not good for bones/bone conditions, not that I let that stop me having the odd beer or 6 now and then.  In fact, it's 4,13pm and I'm on my 3rd of the day... and after an 11 year abstinence from hard liquor, I'll  occasionally have a couple of bourbon and cokes of an evening before bed.. not to get pissed or anything, just to help me wind down a bit.

Anyhow, it's refill time.

Nope....curiously sfc says all is well....although that is now....not last week....go figure...;)

The issue with bits was thanks to Norton AV ....that'll never grace a machine of mine ever again.

This time the issue was a quite extensive 'glitch' in the registry that probably would have had me rewriting every line of it.

No thanks.  That's what images are for...;)

I've had sfc return an AOK result when in fact it wasn't, thus requiring a repair install from disc to remedy the issue.  In my case, sys restore, updates and other services were on the blink... like I couldn't call up Wordpad or other Windows Accessories.

Ditto!  I will never use anything Norton again.  Besides being too resource intensive, it takes up a lot of HDD space and tends to choke performance.  Well that was my experience and I have no desire to revisit it.  I've been quite happy with Avast over the years and see no reason to change at this time.

Well I managed to retrieve the parts I need to finish rebuillding the AMD rig, so will complete that sometime this evening.  I wouldn't have had to do so if I hadn't taken the parts for the Level 10 rig, but at the time I wanted to put all the higher-end stuff in it and use leftovers from previous upgrades to rebuild the cannibalised AMD rig. Oh well, it's the price I pay for constant tinkering to make each new rig the best I can and not have to buy all new to do it, though I shan't be compromising with this next build.

The next build will likely be my last major upgrade as it will be as high-end as I'll ever need or want.  Then maybe I can concentrate more on a few household items to help make life a little more comfortable.

To be fair, it's claimed that the modern Norton has cleaned up its act...but...once bitten....;)

Finally running a 'modern' game...Alien Isolation ...and it's 'nice' when one auto-configures everything to the max....

....looks pretty darn good too. [though I haven't yet crossed paths with the alien - and don't really want to]...;)

System's behaving [if you ignore the 1 or 2 goes at each boot] and images are being done daily....until I'm sure it's safe...;)

Turning it off tomorrow...for 3 days....off to Phillip Island for the historic Bikes - so it can have a rest....

....and me too...;)

I couldn't care less what Norton has supposedly done to convince users it is better, I have no intention whatsoever of doing 'that' to any machine I own/use/fix.

Yup, it took a huge bite out of my trust and respect.

Now that'd be my kind of long weekend away, I absolutely love the old style bikes and would feel right at home among them.... not that I ride anymore.  Sadly, too many past injuries put an end to that, but there's nothing to say I can't admire the hell out of 'em.  Modern bikes may have the edge in some respects [speed and high tech engineering] but they so lack the character and individuality of the bikes of yesteryear..

Hehe, I might be green with envy, but hey, have a good trip/time.

you two seem to have had a reletively positive experience with norton/symantec virus 'products'.

I have seen several cases (on customer computers) of norton LETTING virii into the computers (and norton claimed to know the virii) and having the computer actually infected with the virii and I had to manually remove said virii AND norton.

from these experiences I have chosen to call the VIRUSes  not anti-virus

harpo, the NON-subscriber

Yeah, I had a positively rotten experience with Norton..  Not only did it miss an infection, my PC [before I got into higher-end rigs] froze solid during its attempt to expunge it from my machine.  Even a 'hard shut down' wouldn't happen... the only way I could close the machine down was pull the plug from the wall.  And the only way I could restart without Norton wanting to take up where it [was forcibly] left off was in Safe Mode.  Once that was achieved I uninstalled Norton and swore never ever to use it again... and I haven't.

As for the infection - no, not Norton, I'd gotten rid of that - Avast found and dealt with it quietly and efficiently without hogging all the system resources [as Norton does] so I've stayed with Avast ever since.

harpo, the NON-subscriber