General Chat

has given up the ghost. :-(

Our friendly geek guy came this afternoon and said it really was kaput.

I've asked him to go out with my OH to buy a new one, set it up, and then see what he can save from the dead one ............... hopefully more than what I'm afraid of.

I've had it since 2003, put loads on there, still using the Microsoft Word that came with it, and despite all the advice I've given to others over the years ................ I have not been at all good about backing up and making copies.

I just might have lost all my genealogy work :-(


Definitely a case of telling others to do what I say (said) rather than wat I do (did)!

Your geek guy will probably be able to save your stuff Sylvia - don't worry.

You will be amazed by how much things have improved since 2003.....there are such interesting things you can do.....and the speed is good.

Enjoy your experience! Cx

Oh Sylvia,you are silly not having back ups .My previous laptop totally died, but a computer man was able to copy the whole hard drive over to the new one, so I didn’t need the backups.

That taught me a lesson though and I have everything automatically backed up in cloud storage these days

Oh dear Sylvia, I do hope that you can or he can retrieve the important stuff.

Mine too crashed recently

Has loads of photos on it and most importantly my FTM 2007 program

Ancestry stopped syncing with it as they sold to mcvie


Was just going to print off a genealogy report for relation in Canada for my mums Half sister who was a bhc in 1909

Fortunately I had done some updates and was able to do a gedcom from ancestry back to my laptop which has newer version of ftm ,and then do some more updates

Been a long slog getting back to where i was

Have now sent two genealogy reports for both sides of aunts parents which have been received with wow we so wanted to know our English side of the family

Oh dear Sylvia, I hope you can get your data back. It would be heartbreaking to lose all your genealogy stuff and anything else important to you.

Three or four years ago our computer wasn’t running well and needed some adjusting. OH was short of time so took it to a local expert. Everything seemed fine until after a week or two I wanted to use my Family Historian program. It was nowhere to be found. The “expert” had somehow deleted it entirely. I had a few moments of feeling sick before I realised I had all the data backed up but I thought I would have to pay out for a new Family Historian. However, after a good hunt through some old files I found my original registration number and was able to use that to download the program again for free.

That experience made me even more careful about backing up regularly.

One day I am going to take the trouble to find out what the cloud is.

.......... and now our geek guy has pneumonia!

Had a bit of an issue this morning, Lappie had rebooted overnight,
and Chrome wouldn't open...
eventually found it collapsed behind the clock, on the taskbar........

also had a note about flashplayer, support is finishing soon....

*quickly looks at the many memory sticks in the drawer*

Phew, most of my genealogy stuff is on them.
No particular order - but is there.
I also email stuff to my sister.
She's not interested, but I know it will be retrievable!

I have a lot of my genealogy on paper , some filed some not ............... but would take a lot of inputting!

Geek was pretty confident, but of course I don't know when now that the poor guy is sick.

Rollo ..............

PLEASE stop giving me links and advice.

I do NOT EVER follow your links, and almost never follow links given by anyone else on this or any other site..

I have a computer geek I trust, unlike you who I do not know.

My computer is deader than a doornail, and I do not yet have a new desktop.

I have no intention of trying to load anything on this laptop.

I don't do anything that I can have done by someone else when they are an expert and I am not.

Sylvia are you speaking to yourself again...no comment from Rollo :-D :-D

I know!!

Not one, but TWO postings deleted ;-) :-D :-D

Even better :-D

You'll be in demand as a troll scarer Sylvia :-D
Made me laugh :-D :-D

Sylvia know Rollo can be a bit over the top but your comments are really harsh he has helped people on here Barbara

Over the top is not a description I would personally use :-|

Barbra .................

"Sylvia know Rollo can be a bit over the top but your comments are really harsh he has helped people on here Barbara"

I really don't care that you think my comments were "really harsh".

The remarks were exactly what I was feeling when he twice posted YouTube links on how to find out if a computer was dead and then how to reclaim data from it myself when I had already declared that my computer geek had seen it and declared it dead, and had intimated that he would be able to save at least some of it.

It showed that Rollo, as so often, had not properly read my posts, just gone ahead and posted unwanted information.

If I had wanted information from posters, then I would have said that I needed help, and could anyone suggest what I might do.

Then I would have expected Rollo to post what he did.

The fact that I do not and will not use YouTube would then have meant that I would have thanked him but said sorry that I would not follow his suggestion.

As it is, I know what I can and cannot do on a computer, and get expert help from someone that will do what I cannot do or do not understand, and that I can talk to face to face.

I have my new computer :-D

My geek guy managed to download ..........

ALL my family history files
ALL my photographs
about 115 of my emails
lots and lots of other files, both essential and should have been deleted years ago!!


But NOT my email address book ................ and the reason for that is that the information in the email address book is not stored on Microsoft ................. at least, that is what he said!

Now all I have to do is get used to Windows 10, and the fancy bells and whistles :-D ;-)