Hi Windows Gurus,
My laptop crapped itself after a windows update, after a whole day of uninstalling, dism, puputil and whatnot, it appears I have to make a bootable usb disk to move the data out and do a reset or reinstall. I’ve not have to do this for a decade methinks, what is everyone using for the usb bootable disk nowadays? I looked at usb flash drives at OW, they look rather… sad? Found these on Amazon, would need to buy a card too, but they seem less aged.
Any suggestions?
True, but it does cost more to make the round trip than the cost of the flash drive itself, so I might as well get something decent.
I use a $6 USB2 drive, or a 99c SD card reader with whatever so card I have lying around.
Will cost more to think about than could ever be saved!
I gave away most of those little things when I went with Apple years back (because you can’t use them with Apple products). It feels silly now to buy back ancient stuff.
Can you network boot from another device? Install AIO boot on another computer and boot from the PXE server
I only have another Mac mini and a couple iPads. The Mac mini is also inaccessible, either all my hdmi cables died at the same time, all my monitors died at the same time, or all my devices output through hdmi decided to go on strike. My electric oven has fixed itself though, after a month of feign death? Not sure what’s going on in this house.
It seemed like a good idea at the time to get a SanDisk microSD card adapter for USB3, and some microSD cards for storing various stuff and for use as boot disks. The problem with microSD cards turned out to be that they are so small you can't label them for what's on them. If you don't want to lose what's on them you have to store them in little plastic ziploc bags with a label on the bag.
Then I saw you can get new M.2 gen 4 256GB drives on ebay for $21. So I got a Simplecom SA506 M.2 to 10 GB/s USB3 adapter. Because you just plug the M.2 drive into the slot on the back of it, no opening it up and fitting. And it'll take both NVMe and SATA M.2 drives. You just plug any spare M.2 drive you've got into it, then plug it into the USB on the PC and you've got an incredibly fast super reliable USB drive you can use for any purpose. And if you want to keep what's on the M.2 drive, its big enough to put a label on the back with what's on it, so you don't use it for something else and lose it.
MicroSD cards are faster than any but the best USB drives, but M.2 drives are way faster still. And name brand M.2 drives are way more reliable than USB drives. The data on them can be relied on to be there years later. And what else can you use older smaller M.2 drives for when you replace them with newer faster ones. Shurely everyone's got some old spare ones by now.
The practicality of labelling tiny cards is interesting, never thought of that. When I had to store SIM cards in the past, I’ve always put them on a piece of sticky tape and stuck them onto a surface — usually inside a pocket in my suit case or wallet. If you did it the same way with microSD cards, you can write on the sticky tape with an oil-based marker and stick them onto a say used gift card that can fit in whatever organiser/organisation system.
Yes, I do have spare ssds somewhere, the enclosure is a good idea, I might just have to find them and get one that works. Thanks for the input 🙏
the enclosure is a good idea
I tried "enclosures". They were really annoying. Every time you had to disassemble then reassemble them with a screwdriver, and not lose any screws, or they were tool-less and you had to not lose the little rubber bizzo that held the other end of the SSD down. Or you had to buy one for every spare SSD, and leave that SSD in that enclosure and label the enclosure with what was in it because you couldn't see what was without disassembling it.
What makes the particular adapter I mentioned most useful is that it isn't an enclosure. Its just a little black box with a USB cable coming out of one side going to a type C plug, and a slot on the other side to plug the SSD into. The only thing I had to do was buy a USB A to C adapter so I could plug it in anywhere.
I think I understand what you are saying, something like this https://www.amazon.com.au/WAVLINK-External-Converter-Transfe…
@GordonD: Beyond ghetto and minus SATA https://vi.aliexpress.com/item/1005005953823626.html?srcSns=… 🤣
I use the samsung bar ones https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/816289
Mostly because I got a bunch from the goodguys using the $20 credit. Go for the 128gb though, the 64 uses slower memory
Thanks, that’s back to normal price tho and ‘old tech’.
Any USB that is more than 4 or 8GB will do. Better with Linux if you know how to drive it for data recovery and repairing Windows.
Use any usb flash drive that has enough space for the operating system and your old files
Make a live bootable disc (usb) using Rufus https://rufus.ie/en/
Recover the important files to the usb
Then do a fresh install of window
Its that simple and you could even try a flavour of linux for the hell of it
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Linux_Di…
The point of having windows is so I can play games. Wine is for drinking, not hassle-free gaming ;) I only torrent distros, don’t personally use them 😉
i once deleted the windows 10 boot partition(by accident), got a USB flash drive and downloaded windows creation tool and follows these instructions and got the computer working again
Why does it matter? it just needs to be a cheap-ass USB drive. It's not like you need to regularly use it.