Rebuilding my lappy.
missing apps
Saturday, September 17, 2011 by Uvah | Discussion: Personal Computing
So I got my brand new used laptop and I'm missing some apps whose install packs are on the other drive, the old one. Bins for one. I can't find the installer, I had the beta version and Winstep. I have the dock only but not the shelf. Also photoshop doesn't work so good nor does cfx.. On CFX the cursor is invisible when I apply one. I had to uninstall CFX because I had no cursor at all. Its there but I can't see it except when I mouse over something. As for photoshop, when I open a new window its gets stuck up top and I can't move it at all and none of the drop down menus work. Any thoughts on how I can solve these things?
Reply #2 Saturday, September 17, 2011 8:47 PM
And how about some info on the laptop? Specs.
Reply #3 Saturday, September 17, 2011 10:50 PM
I'm not getting this. I thought you bought "a screamer" and were asking about switching an hdd out just the other day.
I don't think we ever found out if your hdd was the problem the other time...
Uvah, tell us what's up.
Reply #4 Sunday, September 18, 2011 12:39 AM
That's a point! If your second-hand lappy still has the original OS installation, there could be remnants left behind by the previous user and you may need to reformat to clean up any bugs/anomalies. Being a HP, there should be a recovery function/partition built in... all you'd need to do is save anything you want/need to keep to an external drive beforehand.
Reply #5 Sunday, September 18, 2011 5:43 AM
Okay folks...here's the deal. The laptop is a refurbished Compac 8510w. Centrino vPro dual-core cpu @ 2.2gHz 2 gigs DDR2 ram, 150 gig HDD with the Enterprise Edition Win 7. The OS had only the basics you get with any new purchase, nothing extra. The old one's mobo burnt out, most likely the video chip from overheating. First thing I did was run CCleaner and there were very few remnants, mostly temp files from IE8.
Security on this one is way up there, IMO. Has a credentials manager, a fingerprint sensor (disabled until I figure out how to go super slow to get it to register my fingerprint). Already installed was CCleaner, MalwareBytes and MSE, which btw has already stopped and deleted four threats ID'd as malware.
Anyway...Doc was right when he said the old one might not work so that one's been put to the side (not throwing it away because of what's on the HDD) until I can replace the mobo. So...i've got CFX waiting patiently for a solution as to why the cursor becomes invisible after install and stays that way. Objectdock is working fine and Nexus is without the shelf, not a big deal. What I would like is a way to recover Bins. I understand the RC was a paid for app but the beta worked very well on the old one. SMX is working fine too, I just need to rebuild the library. Actually more than one as WB is seriously skinny. Photoshop I uninstalled because, for some reason, its a bit querky. Why that is I don't know, it worked fine on the other one. That's about it...for now anyway. If I think of anything else I'll add to this thread. Oh...and I have DX installed too.
Reply #6 Sunday, September 18, 2011 1:35 PM
So, is it bad or just won't work with this lappy?
If the latter is the case, you can get a HDD enclosure and make an external/portable drive from it. Enclosures are cheap and easy.
Reply #7 Sunday, September 18, 2011 6:08 PM
Hard drive is good. It just isn't compatible. Gonna check out the enclosures. If I do that I'll have two externals drives. A whopping 1.15 tb. Pretty cool huh.
Reply #8 Sunday, September 18, 2011 6:34 PM
I have two 1 TB drives inside my 7 rig. One is storage only, the other houses Win 7 and Ubuntu. (and more storage...lol)
1.15 TB is cool for a lappy!
I also keep a couple externals I made with enclosures containing laptop drives. They make handy portable drives.
Reply #9 Sunday, September 18, 2011 6:56 PM
Trying to figure out why people need so much storage. My notebook has a 250 GB drive and even with all of my data I have yet to use half of that. With all my programs and data I'm only using 72 GB of storage. A 1 TB drive would be overkill for me.
Reply #11 Sunday, September 18, 2011 7:23 PM
My storage drive is full of skins from WC, backed up programs, about 50 gigs music (I'm in the business), labels and such from the business, etc.
Totaling about 630 GB.
Reply #12 Sunday, September 18, 2011 8:05 PM
I backup my data. Takes up less than the external hard drive's size. I don't have any skins and only about 14 GB of music. Maybe that's why.
Reply #13 Sunday, September 18, 2011 8:36 PM
Only 50 gigs of music...I've got you beat, 150 GB for me and climbing. I been converting all of my LPs and CDs to MP3s for the past few years and only have about a couple hundred left to go. I've been using 320 bitrate which tends use a good bit of hard disk space but has no quality loss.
When I was younger, I dated a DJ when the radio station closed down and then converted to christian broadcasting. The new owners were happy when I volunteered to dispose of all that heathen rock and roll for them.
The only bad thing is, back in those days they used a nasty station logo sticker over the front side and spine of the album. It was used in their cataloging system and as they aged, it ruined most of the artwork on the covers.
Reply #15 Sunday, September 18, 2011 9:02 PM
When I was younger, I dated a DJ when the radio station closed down and then converted to christian broadcasting. The new owners were happy when I volunteered to dispose of all that heathen rock and roll for them.
The only bad thing is, back in those days they used a nasty station logo sticker over the front side and spine of the album. It was used in their cataloging system and as they aged, it ruined most of the artwork on the covers.
Dang CG, we need to dropbox together....lol.
Reply #16 Sunday, September 18, 2011 10:08 PM
I hate to tell you Uvah, but the first thing you should have done with the system you just purchased was do a clean install of the operating system and then started installing the software you want. I have a feeling you may have some messed up files somewhere.
Reply #17 Monday, September 19, 2011 2:09 AM
Hehe, I've been converting all my old tapes, singles, LP's and CD's to MP3's since first getting a computer about 8 - 9 years ago. All up I have 346 gigs of music on a dedicated media drive. Shoot, that's music I've been collecting since the 70's, and while I replaced many LP's with CD's [of which I have 2012.. counting box sets as individuals], I still have 232 LP's, all of which are rarities and/or collectors editions. Yeah, it's good to hear music on vinyl, with all the pops and cracks, etc... so much more character than the digital stuff.
My mother always wondered why I needed so much music [while still living with the oldies I'd buy 2 - 3, sometimes 4 or 5 albums a week] and I'd say that I'd rather have the dilemma of having to choose from a large selection than being bored shitless with a small one.
As usual, I get carried away and digress.... [as my father used to say, I'd talk under water with duct tape gag and a mouthful of marbles]
Yeah, I think many of your ills would be cured with a reformat and clean install of the OS. Yeah, I know it's a pain in the arse and time consuming [getting all the updates and service packs, reinstalling ally your proggies] but at the end of the day you'd have a more stable/reliable system.
A friend of mine bought a 'refurbished' laptop and discovered that not only had it NOT been refurbished, but that it still had the previous owner's files stored in the 'My Documents' folder. I knew bugger all about computers back then - even less about laptops - so I advised her to take it to my trusted techie, who in turn advised her that the machine had some dodgey RAM and needed a new HDD... which suited her perfectly.
Instead of getting the OS with all the 3rd party proprietary crap restored from the recovery partition, she got a neat, no bones clean install of XP with a disc. That's one thing I never liked about laptops... the recovery partition instead of a disc. Call me too fussy or over particular, and maybe they do the same thing [install the OS] but I like a clutter free installation, which proprietary brands never are, and an installation disc that can't/doesn't suffer hardware failure.
My mother's first laptop suffered the fate of the HDD dying after about 2 1/2 years. It was a case of either replacing the drive or going new... she opted to trade it in for a better model.
Anyway, Uvah, me old cobber, you'd probably be better off biting the bullet and reformatting. I mean, if the hardware's all good, why fuzz it up with ify software!
Reply #18 Monday, September 19, 2011 7:59 AM
4.5 Tb currently plugged in....not counting the OS driive....overall a bit over 55% full.......![]()
Reply #19 Monday, September 19, 2011 8:13 AM
Well..........looks like I'm gonna be a busy camper today. Really didn't like this edition of W7 anyway.
Reply #20 Monday, September 19, 2011 10:22 AM
That is the standard for any mass produced computer these days be it a notebook or desktop.
By the way did you get a OS disk with the sale?
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Reply #1 Saturday, September 17, 2011 8:10 PM
Did you start with a clean operating system install on the laptop you just purchased?