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Thursday, 16 July 2020

Laptop woes

I own an HP Stream laptop that I have recently been using for Zoom sessions and Skype calls. It is not a particularly new computer, and its inbuilt RAM memory is quite small. As a result, I had expanded it using a 128Gb SD card, and this enabled me to show PowerPoint slides online and to store other files that I might need during a talk or discussion. This was working well ... until Monday.

I am not quite sure what happened, but when I tried to access some files on the SD card on Monday afternoon, the computer did not seem to ‘recognise’ the SD card. I thought that it might have come loose ... but when I checked, it was still firmly in place. I removed the SD card, and tried it in the card slot on my PC ... and it also failed to ‘recognise’ the card.

It appears that at some point between me switching the laptop off after VCOW ended and switching it on again on Monday, the SD card seems to have failed. I have tried to reformat it, but as the PC refuses to acknowledge that there is a card in the SD card slot, I cannot even do that.

An online search did not reveal any obvious cause for the SD card to suddenly failed, although other users seem to have experienced similar problems as a result of a Windows 10 upgrade. As I had turned off the automatic software upgrades, this should not be the cause of my card to fail.

I have temporarily replaced the original SD card with a 16Gb one, and that seems to be working without any problems. A replacement 128Gb SD card has been ordered from Amazon, and I hope to install it tomorrow. Once I have done that, I should be able to use the laptop again without any concerns that it will run out of memory.

20 comments:

  1. It's really not a good idea to turn off the automatic monthly updates on a Windows 10 machine.

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    Replies
    1. Mike,

      Re-reading what I wrote, I did not make it clear that I’d turned off the automatic updates after the problems with the SD card started. Without the SD card, there was insufficient space to allow the installation of any updates, and the laptop kept trying to access them.

      All the best,

      Bob

      Delete
  2. Oh how I now despise the Microsoft product.

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    Replies
    1. Simon,

      I’ve looked at alternatives, but I’m not really ‘tech savvy’ enough to instal a new operating system.

      All the best,

      Bob

      Delete
  3. It’s just one woe after another for you this week. Hope things get better.

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    Replies
    1. Steve8,

      The laptop problem is annoying, but should be fixable. As to COVID ... well that is something that we are just having to learn to live with.

      All the best,

      Bob

      Delete
  4. Ah, the dreaded Windows update:(. I've just had this on my laptop and so far so good...

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    Replies
    1. Steve J.,

      I suspect that the Windows update and failure of the SD card may well not be linked, especially as more online research indicates that SD cards can be prone to sudden and unexplained failure.

      All the best,

      Bob

      Delete
  5. I feel your pain .. but sadly can offer no solutions
    Brilliant WD40 talk by the way inspiring!

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    Replies
    1. Geordie an Exiled FoG,

      Cheers ... and thanks for you kind comments about my talk.

      All the best,

      Bob

      Delete
  6. Unfortunately SD cards do just fail sometimes. Bad luck.

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    Replies
    1. Martin Rapier,

      It appears that it happens far more frequently than I had realised.

      All the best,

      Bob

      Delete
  7. Good luck with the replacement. At least it should be a lot cheaper than the old card (assuming that the latter is a few years old - one of my old 128Gb cards cost nearly as much as the phone in which it now lives).

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    Replies
    1. Mike Hall,

      I have yet to use the new SD card, but it was certainly cheaper (about 50% cheaper) than the one it is replacing.

      All the best,

      Bob

      Delete
  8. I have had an SD card fail on me out of about a dozen I have bought which is reasonable since I bought the cheapest available at the times(s).

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    Replies
    1. Jim Duncan,

      Looking at it from that perspective, we own at least twenty SD cards, so a single failure isn’t really that bad.

      All the best,

      Bob

      Delete
  9. Hi Bob. Although this is a bit late (given you've already ought a replacement card), you might have been better buying an external USB hard drive; particularly if you're copying stuff to/from the flash card a lot. They're a lot more reliable than SD cards (which are not really designed for large amounts of file tranfers). You can get a 250gb USB hard drive for about £25 or something as large as 2tb for about £60. Just a thought.

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    Replies
    1. Red_Cardinal,

      Thanks for the suggestion.

      The SD card had several programs on it that would not fit on the installed memory, hence my annoyance when it failed. I do use an external hard drive for backups and for duplicate storage of files that I want to keep.

      All the best,

      Bob

      Delete
  10. Bob,
    When mechanical or electronic devices fail me, I resort to the following procedure: I carefully clear a nice area on my desk, place the device in the middle, well away from any intrusive or distracting objects, and carefully assemble the tools I will need, including a small sledgehammer, which I use to smash the bloody thing to smithereens, before throwing the remains into the middle of the street outside my house.

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    Replies
    1. Chris Johnson,

      Although I have been tempted to do something similar in the past, I have eventually taken the position that I will in no circumstances be beaten by a dumb piece of machinery!

      Possibly not as satisfying as your method ... but it has its merits.

      All the best,

      Bob

      Delete

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