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= January 8 =
= January 8 =

== Formatting HDD ==

How do I completely clean a disk, if formatting the disk (apparently, well many say) still leaves recoverable datas? [[Special:Contributions/103.230.104.24|103.230.104.24]] ([[User talk:103.230.104.24|talk]]) 07:08, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Revision as of 07:08, 8 January 2017


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January 3

Chrome bookmark retrieval

My employer's IT deleted all my Chrome bookmarks when they installed Office 2016 just a bit ago. I found a file that appears to have them all but it's in what appears to be XML format. Chrome's import utility wants an HTML file. Any ideas on how I can import the sites in the XML file? The XML seems to have the folder structure that I had all the bookmarks in. Thanks, †dismas†|(talk) 18:03, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You might try copying that file to the Chrome settings folder, per this comment. The file should be called Bookmarks (no file extension). The settings folder can be found by typing chrome://version/ into the Chrome address bar and looking for Profile Path. Be sure to back up the existing bookmarks file (if it exists). clpo13(talk) 19:29, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Resolved

Google Chrome

When I sign in and out of the browser, my saved data stays no matter how many times I delete them. How do I delete all completely from the server web browser, where it is primarily saved, so that it never re-appears whenever I sign in and out of Chrome? 103.230.105.8 (talk) 19:12, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think this help page has what you're looking for. Hope it helps. clpo13(talk) 19:20, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Cut, copy and paste or migrating software

1) Say I ‘cut’ and ‘paste’ a ‘folder’ with a bunch of ‘files’ and ‘folders’ in it, from one RHDD to another, suddenly I ‘click’ the ‘Cancel’ button while moving, what will happen? E.g., lose any bytes/files/folders/information…?

2) Looking for a software that will make this process fast without loosing any valuable information, with a pause button if possible (in order to continue the migration thereafter whenever wished)

103.230.104.12 (talk) 20:07, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

In most operating systems, you can re-paste either to a new location or back to the original without losing data. I prefer to use the "move" command because then I know the files will remain in the original location until written to the new, though there is probably not much difference as far as the operating system is concerned. If I have only one copy of the files, I tend to copy, check, then delete the old files. Perhaps someone else can suggest more secure software with a failproof pause and resume. Dbfirs 20:50, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) When canceling a cut and paste job, the operating system will stop the process gracefully, meaning that, barring power loss or hardware failure, no data will be lost. Any files not yet transferred will be untouched and files already moved will still be at the destination (see here).
As to the second part of your question, TeraCopy ([1]) on Windows has served me well before. It offers the ability to pause and resume the process as well as error-checking (comparing the moved file to the original before removing the original). There's also a list of various tools for this purpose at List of file copying software. clpo13(talk) 20:52, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Battery charging

I realize that this question has probably been asked any number of times before, but how do I charge the battery on my Asus laptop? Currently, the battery light is flashing, and my laptop is telling me that I have 95% battery power and the battery is not charging. How big a problem is this, and can I expect my computer to stop working any time soon? You will forgive me for asking all this, as I am not particularly technically proficient. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 21:03, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have the power cable for the laptop? That would be how the battery is charged. †dismas†|(talk) 22:10, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I have the power cable. The power cable is plugged in, and the element is switched on. The battery is still not charging. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 23:29, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
My computer (IBM thinkpad) is currently plugged in and sitting at 97% and "not charging", I think this is normal. It's probably to prevent very shallow cycling of the battery, it might wait until it's at 90% or 80% or whatever, I wouldn't worry. If it was at 50% and still not charging I would worry. Vespine (talk) 01:35, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
You could be right, but I've had my current laptop for years and it's never done this before. I wonder whether a return to default settings would help? FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 02:09, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Recent operating systems like Windows 10 have this as a feature to prolong battery life, not a bug. In your case it might be due to an update.John Z (talk) 04:09, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I'm running Windows 10, so that looks likely to be the explanation. Thanks all. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 04:26, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

January 4

DNS Jumper?

What is it and its purpose? How it will help me if I install? 103.230.105.18 (talk) 18:40, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The purpose of such applications is to allow you to use different DNS servers than your ISP provides. I don't think most people would find it useful, but it might be useful if you've got unreliable DNS lookups, or you want to use a DNS service which provides (or removes) filtering, or you think there's some other problem with using your usual DNS. -- zzuuzz (talk) 20:08, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • One of the purposes is to evade light government censorship, for which DNS blocking is a cheap option (government demands internet service providers stop giving correct DNS lookups for ungood domains, average Joe trying to access badsite.com fails because ISP resolves it to an incorrect IP (e.g. 23.4.6.249), though typing directly the correct IP in the URL bar would work). The idea is that ISPs are bound by local law, and can fairly easily implement such a request, so it is a good tradeoff between efficiency and technical and political feasibility, even if efficiency is rather low. TigraanClick here to contact me 12:03, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Address hider/skipper

Which opensource software will give me the ability to hide/block giving away or give wrong address of my PC and Internet address to other users or websites, regardless of whether they are monitoring me or not? 103.230.105.18 (talk) 18:40, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You want a proxy server. You can't simply change the IP address you report. When you send out a request, you have to include where the response will go. If you fake that and give someone else's address, the response will go there - not back to you. A proxy server acts as an in-between. The other end sees the address of the proxy server, which knows who you are and knows to forward responses back to you. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 19:46, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Category:Anonymity networks - some are opensource. But beware because of what the IP above said, the proxies might be monitoring you instead. -- zzuuzz (talk) 20:26, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Are you claiming that some person or organization or government might set up a free open proxy for people to use so they can track what is likely illegal activity? That is crazy talk! 209.149.113.5 (talk) 20:35, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
As if they would do such a preposterous thing. Category:Virtual private networks is another useful category, with the same cavets. The problem with any kind of proxying is that while some of the software might be open source, not all the processes will be. -- zzuuzz (talk) 20:51, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
See The Onion Router. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 07:50, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Bytes monitoring software

Require an opensource software that will play, pause, stop and reset the ‘bytes’ ‘downloading’ and ‘uploading’ information. 103.230.105.18 (talk) 18:40, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Firefox is open source and the file transfer part of it has stop, pause, and restart capability. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 19:47, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, that message came out wrong... 103.230.106.16 (talk) 07:37, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Require an opensource software that will play, pause, stop and reset the ‘bytes’ ‘downloading’ and ‘uploading’ information, something like the DU metre... 103.230.106.16 (talk) 07:37, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Password protecting software

Require a fantastic password protecting software that will allow files and folders to be password protected including the RHDD drive itself that I possess. “Folder Lock” software disallows RHDD mitigation, and “BitLocker” software can’t even pass the ‘initialising’ stage because of the volume of the RHDD… 103.230.105.18 (talk) 18:40, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Encrypting large drives can take time. A few weeks ago, I took an unencrypted computer and encrypted the drives. It took about 6 hours. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 19:43, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

January 5

psychology/malignant hypertension

how can we prevent malignant hypertension — Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.221.163.222 (talk) 13:12, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure why you'd post this on a computing desk, but see hypertensive emergency for our article on the subject. Matt Deres (talk) 14:58, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Medical advice deleted. We are not allowed to give medical advice on the RDs. --69.159.60.210 (talk) 00:09, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

January 7

Symbols or Signs

1) I wish to enter the ‘tick’ and ‘cross’ sign on MS Excel. I can use the “Symbol” option for the ‘cross’ sign but I can’t find the ‘tick’. What do I do?

2) I wish to press “I” or “1” five times (11111) in order to receive a tally sign on an MS Excel field. What do I do?

103.230.104.29 (talk) 10:26, 7 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

For the tick mark, the easiest thing to do is just copy it from here : ✓ . It's possible to enter it using the ALT key, but that requires making changes to the registry and rebooting - see Alt code for details if you want to go that way. The tally marks will be a bit more tricky - you'll need a function or a macro, and possibly to install a suitable font. This forum thread may be useful. Tevildo (talk) 22:24, 7 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Passpord Protecting Software

1) What is the estimate time for the 'Bitlocker' software to accomplish its task in a 4TB (3.63TB)? My PC/Laptop seems to slow down when making it work too much, e.g., I was migrating files and folders from one RHDD to another and the transfering speed slowed down, the fan started making louder noise, and so on...

Also, during the initialising period it states, “Do not remove your drive during BitLocker setup”. I wonder if it’s a good idea to ‘pause’ when the actual progression start, thereafter password creation phase. Reason for asking is, electric outage is quite common in the country I’m in, I would have to switch off PC if faced with the situation, will it create any problem, say if I restart the PC than retry from where I left…?

2) What other software could be use to protect an RHDD?

103.230.104.29 (talk) 10:26, 7 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

(2) What other software ...?
Comparison of disk encryption software lists a few possibilities. Mitch Ames (talk) 12:26, 7 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The difficulty rests on selection (as usual), a specific, reliable one that is trusted by many would be of help, which takes less time to accomplish its task... Its been 7 to 8 hours and its still initialising my drive...103.230.104.12 (talk) 18:43, 7 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Clarification, do you mean "password" or "passport" ? StuRat (talk) 18:55, 7 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note that there is no magic. A 4TB HD could easily take 6 hours or more to write the entire disk sequentially even with USB 3 or eSATA because of the limitations of the disk itself. If you are encrypting a hard disk which is mostly full, the only way you can do so is by reading and re-writing all the data, no matter what tool you use (well presuming it properly encrypts the whole disk) which will likely mean 12 hours or longer.

If you're encrypting a whole empty or new partition, theoretically a tool only has to re-write small portions since it doesn't actually matter in most circumstances whether the extraneous empty space is nonsense or zeroes. However most tools are likely to avoid this, for numerous reasons including the fact that users may not realise that any data which they've previously stored is still recoverable without worrying about the encryption until it's overwritten.

So even with a new empty partition, you can expect the majority of tools are going to take at least 6 hours. It may be longer depending on the disk, your AES encryption speed etc. In particular, I do hope you're using USB3 as USB2 is going to be very, very slow. You may be able to find a tool which can recover from power outages while creating a partition but I expect that'll be rare since it's a feature which adds complication but won't be used much.

Since the hard disk is 4TB, I'm assuming it's a 3.5" with external power supply rather than a 2.5" which only uses USB power? (4TB 2.5" portables exist but they are much rare.) In that case, probably your best bet is to invest in a UPS of some sort. Since you're able to afford a laptop and 4TB hard disk, a low end UPS should be within what you can afford. Especially since if you have one 4TB removable, I guess this means you have at least one other hard disk or other form of backup as keeping a single copy of the data is a sure way to lose it all especially with unreliable power. (Or even two copies is one is on the laptop and one is on the removable and they're often connected.)

When you have your UPS, plug the hard disk into the UPS and nothing else. (Well if the UPS has USB for monitoring then you could plug USB into the laptop to more easily monitor the UPS.) Then use the laptop to create a new empty encrypted partition. If the power goes off, keep going until either the laptop or UPS has ~10% power left then hibernate the laptop. Probably the creation will survive hibernation provided you don't remove the hard disk. If it doesn't, try again next time and hope for the best your power will last long enough you don't need to hibernate. The alternative to a UPS would be to get a portable hard disk which doesn't need an external power supply, then you only need the laptop. Of course it would be better to invest in something able to power the laptop and hard disk for 15+ hours.

Nil Einne (talk) 05:18, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

January 8

Formatting HDD

How do I completely clean a disk, if formatting the disk (apparently, well many say) still leaves recoverable datas? 103.230.104.24 (talk) 07:08, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]