• We are now running on a new, and hopefully much-improved, server. In addition we are also on new forum software. Any move entails a lot of technical details and I suspect we will encounter a few issues as the new server goes live. Please be patient with us. It will be worth it! :) Please help by posting all issues here.
  • The forum will be down for about an hour this weekend for maintenance. I apologize for the inconvenience.
  • If you are having trouble seeing the forum then you may need to clear your browser's DNS cache. Click here for instructions on how to do that
  • Please review the Forum Rules frequently as we are constantly trying to improve the forum for our members and visitors.

Computers!?!?!? ARGH !!!!!!!!!!

JTHunter2

Regular Member
Joined
Jul 11, 2017
Messages
431
Location
Planet Earth
Have any of you ever gotten a "corrupted profile" on your computers?
Thursday, 8/30, worked fine. Friday, couldn't log in to EITHER profile. Called shop that built computer on Sat., left voicemail. Tried again last Tuesday - mailbox full. Ended up having to take it to a specialty shop way out in Maryland Heights, MO. Left it last Friday, picked it up on Monday. They saved my data but NOT my "bookmarks". Do you realize how much "fun" it is trying to reconstruct those from memory and a laptop that hasn't been online in 4 years?!?
:cuss: :banghead:
 

CitizenJohn

Regular Member
Joined
Sep 22, 2013
Messages
77
Location
Clark County, WA
Have any of you ever gotten a "corrupted profile" on your computers?
Thursday, 8/30, worked fine. Friday, couldn't log in to EITHER profile. Called shop that built computer on Sat., left voicemail. Tried again last Tuesday - mailbox full. Ended up having to take it to a specialty shop way out in Maryland Heights, MO. Left it last Friday, picked it up on Monday. They saved my data but NOT my "bookmarks". Do you realize how much "fun" it is trying to reconstruct those from memory and a laptop that hasn't been online in 4 years?!?
:cuss: :banghead:

Re. "bookmarks" : What type of browser do you use? I use IE and the bookmarks are easily backed up. I accomplish it once a month for "just in case."
 

357SigFan

Regular Member
Joined
Jan 17, 2007
Messages
150
Location
STL MO, USA
While I've seen plenty of times where a users profile on a terminal server is not usable and they get a temporary profile (usually the result of someone with permission deleting the local copy of their profile incorrectly or messing with permissions), but I can't say I've ever had a local, stand alone profile go corrupt.

Re. "bookmarks" : What type of browser do you use? I use IE and the bookmarks are easily backed up. I accomplish it once a month for "just in case."

Firefox is also easy if you do it proactively, and even reactively, like in the case of something like this, if you know where to look and how to move the files around. Not quite as simple as IE, but not that hard. It would sure be nice if ALL of the browsers made use of the handy-dandy, simple to find, understand and back up 'Favorites' folder :rolleyes:

Back in the day, when IE8 was current, provided you didn't have junk toolbars, ESPECIALLY the Google toolbar, IE was the best browser out there. Rock solid, wasn't a resource hog. Now, though, let's be honest - they ALL suck, INCLUDING IE. Of course all the extra fluff on websites these days doesn't help.
 
Last edited:

since9

Campaign Veteran
Joined
Jan 14, 2010
Messages
6,964
Location
Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA
While I've seen plenty of times where a users profile on a terminal server is not usable and they get a temporary profile (usually the result of someone with permission deleting the local copy of their profile incorrectly or messing with permissions), but I can't say I've ever had a local, stand alone profile go corrupt.

Happened to my son's Windows 10 laptop last summer. Happened to my Windows Vista laptop back around 2008.

While hard drives are much more reliable than they used to be, heat, shock, and just plain old time can result in an imperceptible surface defect becoming perceptible, which usually means either unreadable or corrupted.

Windows NTFS, found from around NT 3.51 through 10, employs a variety of data protective measures, including journaling, to "ensure that its complex internal data structures will remain consistent in case of system crashes or data moves performed by the defragmentation API, and allow easy rollback of uncommitted changes to these critical data structures when the volume is remounted."

If you want bulletproof hardware, however, you'll have to employ a two mirrored bootable, hardware-based RAID arrays.

That's expensive. For most of us, routine backups are good enough.

Firefox is also easy if you do it proactively, and even reactively, like in the case of something like this, if you know where to look and how to move the files around. Not quite as simple as IE, but not that hard. It would sure be nice if ALL of the browsers made use of the handy-dandy, simple to find, understand and back up 'Favorites' folder :rolleyes:

I'm still waiting for the day when I can log onto any device and 100% of everything is stored in a secure, robust cloud with a bootable local backup in case the Internet goes down.

Back in the day, when IE8 was current, provided you didn't have junk toolbars, ESPECIALLY the Google toolbar, IE was the best browser out there. Rock solid, wasn't a resource hog. Now, though, let's be honest - they ALL suck, INCLUDING IE. Of course all the extra fluff on websites these days doesn't help.

No, I'm very happy with Google Chrome. :)

But I use Firefox on my left screen to watch Hulu and movies while surfing the net on my center screen through Chrome. Both work better when I split multi-media and surfing tasks between them. My right screen is reserved for Explorer, the file manager, not the browser. I haven't liked IE since, well, forever.
 

JTHunter2

Regular Member
Joined
Jul 11, 2017
Messages
431
Location
Planet Earth
I'm using Firefox and I THOUGHT the bookmarks had been backed up to the external hard drive but the only one on there was from that laptop and dated 8/31/2010. For some reason, the more recent bookmarks saved to this Win. 7 "My Documents" failed to be pulled over with the rest of the My Docs folders from the corrupted profile.
Using that old list, I'm finding a ton of dead links (not surprising considering it age) as well as leftovers from web design classes I was taking 15 years ago. Some. like "Dreamweaver", no longer exist having been "absorbed" by Adobe.

Thanks for your help and suggestions.
 

since9

Campaign Veteran
Joined
Jan 14, 2010
Messages
6,964
Location
Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA
I'm using Firefox and I THOUGHT the bookmarks had been backed up to the external hard drive but the only one on there was from that laptop and dated 8/31/2010. For some reason, the more recent bookmarks saved to this Win. 7 "My Documents" failed to be pulled over with the rest of the My Docs folders from the corrupted profile.
Using that old list, I'm finding a ton of dead links (not surprising considering it age) as well as leftovers from web design classes I was taking 15 years ago. Some. like "Dreamweaver", no longer exist having been "absorbed" by Adobe.

Thanks for your help and suggestions.

Good, old, Macromedia Dreamweaver...

I never did like that one, though it was better than Microsoft's piece of junk.

Here's hoping the rest of your recovery goes well. :)
 

Jimsouth

Regular Member
Joined
Sep 29, 2018
Messages
84
Location
Pa
I have such little need for a PC; I simply scrub it & reload if it gets wonky. Email, some searches, and occasionally some eBay. About it. I have a beat to Hell HP, missing keys, not very clean; but it does the job. Also have an old Gateway, about he size of a Buick Park Avenue. Still works, but slow.
 
Last edited:

since9

Campaign Veteran
Joined
Jan 14, 2010
Messages
6,964
Location
Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA
I have such little need for a PC; I simply scrub it & reload if it gets wonky. Email, some searches, and occasionally some eBay. About it. I have a beat to Hell HP, missing keys, not very clean; but it does the job. Also have an old Gateway, about he size of a Buick Park Avenue. Still works, but slow.

Really... And what OS and browser are you using such that a processor 100 times slower and a hard drive a thousand times smaller can still surf the Internet?
 

Jimsouth

Regular Member
Joined
Sep 29, 2018
Messages
84
Location
Pa
Really... And what OS and browser are you using such that a processor 100 times slower and a hard drive a thousand times smaller can still surf the Internet?

My laptop is an older HP Pavilion. Works OK. The Monster Gateway is so old, it has parts made of stone. K 6 processor. I actually had to find the USB connection on the motherboard & hook up a terminal. I don't use it; but it still fires up.
 
Last edited:

since9

Campaign Veteran
Joined
Jan 14, 2010
Messages
6,964
Location
Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA
My laptop is an older HP Pavilion. Works OK. The Monster Gateway is so old, it has parts made of stone. K 6 processor. I actually had to find the USB connection on the motherboard & hook up a terminal. I don't use it; but it still fires up.

An HP. Oh, well, then... You're off the hook. :)

My HP Envy laptop is now six years old and chugs along very well. I clean it thoroughly four times a year and never feed it anything but well-conditioned power.

I have a friend who might have you beat. He still runs Windows XP as factory installed on a machine he bought for Christmas shortly after the 9/11 attacks in 2001. He upgraded his memory to 4 GB years ago, surfs the Internet, and claims Firefox "runs well enough, if a bit slow."
 

Jimsouth

Regular Member
Joined
Sep 29, 2018
Messages
84
Location
Pa
An HP. Oh, well, then... You're off the hook. :)

My HP Envy laptop is now six years old and chugs along very well. I clean it thoroughly four times a year and never feed it anything but well-conditioned power.

I have a friend who might have you beat. He still runs Windows XP as factory installed on a machine he bought for Christmas shortly after the 9/11 attacks in 2001. He upgraded his memory to 4 GB years ago, surfs the Internet, and claims Firefox "runs well enough, if a bit slow."

My first HP fried about 3 weeks past warranty. Well, ya know, more flies with honey than vinegar. I contacted HP, told them I was disappointed over a company with such a good reputation producing a laptop that was not dependable. I did not cry the blues; and ( what a surprise ) they replaced it. The new one works ( knock on wood ) well. I'm guessing the layer of dirt, cigarette ashes, & crud offers protection. Anyway, it works well.
 
Last edited:
Top