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Topic: Need help |
Richard Sinkler
From:
aka: Rusty Strings -- Missoula, Montana
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Posted 9 May 2016 9:35 am |
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Fairly new Laptop with Win 10.
This morning I was alerted that there was an update to one of the programs I have. When I started the update, the computer rebooted as part of the update. When I would log in, I just get a black screen. After several manual reboots, it finally came up. Not positive, but there may have been a Windows update installed when computer rebooted.
BUT: Many of my desktop icons are gone. The Start menu reset itself to the default. All of my bookmarks in Chrome and Firefox are gone (that's a big problem for me). In Windows explorer, the documents, downloads, etc have no files in them. When I try to open an MS Word recently used document, there are none listed. How can I get back my bookmarks in Chrome. When I try to import my bookmarks from Firefox or Safari, the bookmarks for those browsers are gone. Everything is OK in my other computer. Is there a way to import the bookmarks from one computer to the laptop? Both are hooked up to my home network. Why did all this stuff disappear?
In previous versions of Windows, you used to be able to restore you system to a last know date where everything was fine. I don't find that in Win 10. How can I do that. I have a Macrium backup, but don't know how far back it goes.
_________________
Carter D10 8p/8k, Dekley S10 3p/4k C6 setup,Regal RD40 Dobro, Recording King Professional Dobro, NV400, NV112,Ibanez Gio guitar, Epiphone SG Special (open D slide guitar) . Playing for 55 years and still counting. |
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Dave Potter
From:
Texas
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Posted 9 May 2016 10:51 am Re: Need help
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| Richard Sinkler wrote: |
| Is there a way to import the bookmarks from one computer to the laptop? Both are hooked up to my home network. |
One approach might be to try to find out which files/folders those bookmarks are in, on the good computer (IOW, Google it), then "Share" those folders on your network. If you get that far, you could just copy/paste them to the Win10 computer. I don't do this, but I think Google has a system that permits sharing bookmarks "across all your devices", essentially, uploading them to Google's servers. If you have a Chrome browser on your good computer, with intact bookmarks, that might be something to consider.
| Quote: |
| Why did all this stuff disappear? |
You weren't holding your jaw right when you ran the update.  I wonder why too. Our Win10 laptop hasn't had those issues. Until things stabilize, though, I'd be making Macrium images of that drive DAILY. If there are files missing besides the bookmarks, e.g., doc files, etc, the only place I'd know to get them back would be the Macrium backup.
| Quote: |
| In previous versions of Windows, you used to be able to restore you system to a last know date where everything was fine. I don't find that in Win 10. How can I do that. I have a Macrium backup, but don't know how far back it goes. |
In Settings/System Properties, the System Protection tab is where your restore points will be, if there are any. Some are created automatically, so you might try there. There are also options in Settings/Update and Security for "Recovery/Reset this PC" you could look at, if all else fails. That wouldn't restore any missing personal data files, however.
And, as always, I'd try chkdsk C: /f and sfc /scannow prior to doing anything drastic, just to see what they turn up. It's conceivable that your missing data files might be on disk locations Windows has mis-identified - they may still be there, just not being read. One never knows.... |
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Richard Sinkler
From:
aka: Rusty Strings -- Missoula, Montana
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Posted 10 May 2016 12:44 pm It Be Fixed
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It's fixed. I found the revert to a previous good setup. Everything seems to be OK. I couldn't tell you how I found it, but it was in some settings page.
Not sure if I lost files made after the older setup. It doesn't seem so.
Dave... I think you are right about not holding my jaw right. I can't think of another situation that would have caused this.
_________________
Carter D10 8p/8k, Dekley S10 3p/4k C6 setup,Regal RD40 Dobro, Recording King Professional Dobro, NV400, NV112,Ibanez Gio guitar, Epiphone SG Special (open D slide guitar) . Playing for 55 years and still counting. |
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Wiz Feinberg
From:
Mid-Michigan, USA
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Posted 10 May 2016 1:30 pm
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When one upgrades a previous operating system to Windows 10, one needs to pay close attention to the option about logging in with the previous account, or with your Microsoft account. If you choose the second option, it creates a new fresh default desktop and documents/settings environment. Your previous identity still exists in the bitisphere and can be recovered and re-used.
_________________
"Wiz" Feinberg, Moderator SGF Computers Forum
Security Consultant
Twitter: @Wizcrafts
Main web pages: Wiztunes Steel Guitar website | Wiz's Security Blog | My Webmaster Services | Wiz's Security Blog |
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Dave Potter
From:
Texas
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Posted 10 May 2016 2:00 pm Re: It Be Fixed
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| Richard Sinkler wrote: |
| It's fixed.... I think you are right about not holding my jaw right. I can't think of another situation that would have caused this. |
Dunno. But now that it's running again, I'd be backing up everything I could, just in case. There's the stock, built-in Windows backup utility (external drive), you can "export" your entire registry to a place you choose, you can create a new restore point, you can backup your critical files to your external drive, and you can do Macrium drive images, which I'd do often. Obviously, you can pick and choose which of those you want to do, but, IMO, the more of them you do, the more options you have available when things go south, operative word being, "when", not "if".
And of course, to be able to actually USE a Macrium drive image, one needs to have already made a bootable and tested Macrium Rescue Media Disk - I assume you've already done that. Also, since I'm not running Win10 yet (shudder), does it offer the capability to create a "Repair Disk", ala Windows 7? I honestly don't know, but I'd look into that, as well. Good luck.
As I said before, one never knows... Better to be safe than sorry. Glad you got it going again. |
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Richard Sinkler
From:
aka: Rusty Strings -- Missoula, Montana
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Posted 10 May 2016 5:53 pm
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Wiz... I never saw any sign that I was getting an update installed. Not sure it did.
Dave... I am going to use Macrium more often. I did make the repair disk, and have done backup to an external drive devoted for backups of both computers. I just need to schedule them more often
_________________
Carter D10 8p/8k, Dekley S10 3p/4k C6 setup,Regal RD40 Dobro, Recording King Professional Dobro, NV400, NV112,Ibanez Gio guitar, Epiphone SG Special (open D slide guitar) . Playing for 55 years and still counting. |
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Mitch Drumm
From:
Frostbite Falls, hard by Veronica Lake
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Posted 10 May 2016 8:42 pm
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| Richard Sinkler wrote: |
Dave... I am going to use Macrium more often. I did make the repair disk, and have done backup to an external drive devoted for backups of both computers. I just need to schedule them more often |
Richard:
I'd advise you to do a few things:
1: Confirm that your Macrium recovery disk will in fact boot your PC.
2: Pretend it was an emergency and walk part way through the image restoration process to make sure you know what to expect and what menu choices you will face.
3: Confirm that you are making an image of ALL partitions necessary to restore Windows. That might be C alone or it might be C plus some other partition, depending on how your PC is configured. If you have an image of C alone, that may not be enough and your restoration attempt would fail completely. |
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Dave Potter
From:
Texas
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Posted 11 May 2016 6:08 am
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| Mitch Drumm wrote: |
| Confirm that you are making an image of ALL partitions necessary to restore Windows...If you have an image of C alone, that may not be enough and your restoration attempt would fail completely. |
True enough, but selecting the Macrium option "Image This Disk" automatically images all partitions. |
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Richard Sinkler
From:
aka: Rusty Strings -- Missoula, Montana
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Posted 11 May 2016 9:31 am
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Does the image include all files on my hard drive?
_________________
Carter D10 8p/8k, Dekley S10 3p/4k C6 setup,Regal RD40 Dobro, Recording King Professional Dobro, NV400, NV112,Ibanez Gio guitar, Epiphone SG Special (open D slide guitar) . Playing for 55 years and still counting. |
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Dave Potter
From:
Texas
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Posted 11 May 2016 9:48 am
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| Richard Sinkler wrote: |
| Does the image include all files on my hard drive? |
Yep. An image of a drive is exactly what it implies. It will restore the drive to exactly what it contained when the image was made. All files, partitions, and free space will be restored to their original locations and sizes. Of course, any new data, changes, etc you did after that image was made will be lost permanently, hence the recommendation to image frequently, to minimize data loss.
My system drive (C) is a 221GB SSD drive, with 136GB used right now. I had to restore it using a Macrium image a couple of weeks ago, and the process took about 20 minutes, using a bootable Macrium Rescue Disk.
If all you need to do is recover files you've lost, Macrium can do that too. That process won't destroy other data created since the image was made.
But it does bear repeating - you really do need to try booting with the Macrium rescue disk you made, into the Windows PE environment it uses, and make sure it can access your external drive and your drive images. They're no help if Macrium can't access and read them.
I ran into this issue recently. I discovered that the updated version of the paid Macrium app I was using was NOT backwards compatible with images made with the previous version I had used to create the images, which surprised me. Macrium just flat didn't even see the images I was interested in, although they existed on the drive.
Using the Macrium Rescue Disk, boot into Windows PE and go through all the steps to "Restore" an image you've made, all the way up to the click to execute the restore operation; just don't execute it - cancel out at that point. You just need to verify things are working, before the time comes (and it will ) when you actually need to do it. |
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