Re: [tlug] Windows and motherboards

[Raymond Wan <rwan.kyoto@example.com>]

Hi Steve,


On Sat, Oct 26, 2024 at 9:04 PM steve <sjs@example.com> wrote:
> On 10/26/24 10:39, Raymond Wan wrote:
> Why I thought of this while reading Steve's message is that booting
> off a USB drive and/or swapping hard disks with another computer were
> "standard" troubleshooting steps that we would do with a broken
> [desktop] computer.  So infuriating that this no longer works.  🙁
> Thanks, Microsoft...
>
> I'm surprised that usually worked for you.  Usually machines of different ages and OS versions will have different hardware and therefore different hardware drivers.


I suppose I was a bit hopeful because all 3 computers (the two with
the broken hardware and the still working PC) were from "the same
era".  Well, +/- a couple of years.

Indeed, a Win95 computer to a Win10 computer would be a big jump and
perhaps that wouldn't have worked.  In this case, the jump wasn't as
big, so I was a tad hopeful...

> You could probably get a USB adapter for the drives in question (assuming the newer machine has USB) and mount the disks on the newer machines and copy the user files on to the newer system.  Another possibility is finding an identical model PC and installing your drives on it -- if they aren't corrupted.
>
> Were you trying to recover the data or re-use the hard drives?


I was trying a few things...

I think I went down a rabbit hole because I was worried that the
software would not be available from the vendor any more.  I wrote to
the vendor to ask for the software.  While I was waiting for their
reply, I was looking at the computers.

1.  I plugged them into another computer; that didn't work...BSOD.

2.  So, I plugged them into a USB adapter and I could mount them in
Ubuntu and copy files from it.  But there was no data, so this was ok.
The computers' purposes are really to control the instruments.  But
when I booted from them via the USB adapter on the third computer, not
surprisingly, BSOD.

3.  I then tried cloning the drives, converting them into QEMU and
Virtualbox's formats.  Then I tried to start up the virtual machines.
Nope...BSOD again.

At this point, the vendors got back to me and confirmed that the
software was available for free, so I stopped what I was doing.  My
aim was to bring up a computer or a VM that could control the
instruments again.  But the only option now is to buy new computers
and re-install the software.

Good learning experience...what I learned is, when it comes to
Windows, it's probably not worth trying.  :-)  I wonder if someone who
is a Windows' expert (Windows certified engineer, or whatever it's
called) could have done better...

I wished instrument vendors would use more open-source options...  But
I've seen both ATMs and ticket turnstiles (not those in Japan) crash,
showing the Microsoft logo instead.  Guess it's everywhere and
unavoidable...

Ray