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It is being an "interesting" few days, as in the old saying "May you live in interesting times".

Joe had an ultrasound yesterday, came back with (slightly) enlarged prostate, no bladder stones, no sign of bladder cancer. I will be scheduling him for a neuter, which is a worry in itself with an older dog. Oh well. It is what it is. While he was having the procedure, I had to wait in my car. The temps yesterday were near to 95 degrees. I very nearly passed out, before finally deciding to go inside to the totally-jammed-with-people-and-dogs waiting room. Sacramento is in an area of high Covid transmission - there was not a mask in sight.

Better to get Covid, I guess, than to die out in the parking lot from heat stroke.

During this, I am having major computer problems like I haven't had in years. I won't go over the cascade of problems I am having - would take too long to write everything out. One part of the problem is Norton AntiTrack, which I cannot uninstall (even after an hour on the phone with Norton India - Shirl, I feel your pain). Norton is to call me back today. We'll see if they do.

My son-in-law, who is employed at a high level in computer security, and my daughter, both warned me NOT to use Norton - EVER - because in many aspects the versions of Norton published and sold over the last few years acts like malware.

I didn't listen to them, having had various versions of Norton for probably thirty years. I found out the hard way that they are correct.

After spending at least 40 hours trying to get this computer to work over the last several days (this in addition to caring for my ailing Joe, taking him to the vet for the ultrasound 100 miles round trip, and trying to keep my jewelry website up to snuff), I have determined that probably the only solution for these cascading problems is to reformat my hard drive (if I took my computer to a computer repair place, this is what they would do anyway).

I am semi-computer literate, I have reformatted my hard drive in the past, although not for several years. It is a Major Pain.

Add to this, my modem went out, and along with the modem my Roku also died. Went out and bought one of each - spent ten hours trying to get these new devices to work. Didn't happen. It may be related to my computer problems. Unable to watch tv - which is my relaxing mechanism - for a week now. I will return both items to Staples.

Anyway, in order to get a reformat done I need to buy an external hard drive to store my data while I am doing the reformatting (reformatting a hard drive removes all files from the computer, then all of one's programs need to be re-installed. After the programs are re-installed, then I can transfer my files from the external hard drive back to my "clean" computer.

So. I know Judy has experience with external hard drives, Judy, I would appreciate your suggestions as to what kind (brand) I should get (one time I transferred all of my files to an external hard drive, and then wiped my computer's internal hard drive, only to have the external hard drive refuse to boot - so ALL of my files, including old photos of beloved dogs, were permanently lost).

Anyone that has had a good experience with an external hard drive, PLEASE let me know your recommendations.

I need to get this ##@@!! process started asap.

To add icing to the cake, I woke up this morning to a kitchen totally infested with tiny black ants.

Thanks to all.

Anne

Anne you have had quite a week. I have never had ALL my devices die in a week. I NEVER install the bloatware that comes with a new computer. AND never Norton or McAfee you just have a hard time getting rid of either of them. And they are such memory hogs.

I haven't used Norton or McAfee for years either. But I have, I think, 3 external hard drives from when it would be critical if I lost anything and used to save everything to two of them at least monthly. I don't know what brand as I never even get my computer out (it's been at least a couple years now). Some day I hope if I do get it out the external drive I put all my pictures on works and I can a trip down memory lane.

I think a couple of mine were WD. All always worked for me.

I actually have several external hard drives! I keep one in the safety deposit box in Ohio, one in the safety deposit dox in Napa, and one in a drawer in my RV. Once a year I take the ones out of safety deposit boxes and replace them with the newly updated one I keep in my motorhome. Just remember that you really need to store your backup hard drive in a different place than where your computer is located, just in case of a fire or flood or hurricane or who knows what!

Mostly, I have used Seagate and have never had any problems. But any of the major brands like WD or Toshiba would be fine. I normally pay about $60-$80 for my external hard drives, but I know I have bought other major brands like Toshiba. There are some with security functions, but I don't bother with those because they are a bit complicated, and I keep one in a safety deposit box anyway. (Note: I once left one with Napa son and he lost it. My Ohio son has a gun case, and I have put stuff in there safely. He is a little less fuzzy headed than the son who thinks I need to plan better!)

First, you need to right click on your documents file and see how big it is. Ditto for photos or any other main libraries. Then add them and double the number. Right now I have one that is 2 terabytes. It looks like this one, but I don't think I paid that much: https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Portable ... r=1-4&th=1

What I would do, if I were you, is to set up a folder on the new hard drive with the current date, and then just manually, a few folders at a time, just copy stuff. And after every copy, compare where you moved stuff from with where it went to make sure you got it all and that the originals are in the same place. And take your time.

Some will give you the option to automatically update your files, and it will go in and by date pick out the ones that need updating. I don't trust that, and just recopy whole folders, like "Documents" every once in a while. Just get a basic one and keep it simple.

And I use the basic Norton, but get really irritated when they constantly are trying to sell me upgrades like child protection or a virtual private network. I use only my own password-protected mobile hotspots, so do not need all the VPN stuff they try to sell me.

I would like to dump Norton, but what does your son-in-law recommend instead! I just want something simple to keep viruses and tracking things off my computer.

Sorry for all your issues! Rotten timing, for sure.
Discussed with my son, my computer guy. He said Norton is the first thing you should dump when you get a new computer because their reputation has gone way down hill.
Backup drive, he likes Seagate or Western Digital. Check deals, his last one came with free data recovery if needed ever.
Unless you are in love with that computer, you might consider a new one, but spend first days deleting bloat ware.
Sacramento is NOT at high CoVid transmission rate! I just checked data at several places and the country is medium at most. Wear a mask if you want, but they are nowhere even close to 100% effective and many have had from 1-3 variants, so it's safer than one might think. Placer County, where you went to Loomos, is quite low, about 1/3 the medium rate of cases in Sacramento.
Velda

JudyJB wrote:And I use the basic Norton, but get really irritated when they constantly are trying to sell me upgrades like child protection or a virtual private network. I use only my own password-protected mobile hotspots, so do not need all the VPN stuff they try to sell me.

I would like to dump Norton, but what does your son-in-law recommend instead! I just want something simple to keep viruses and tracking things off my computer.

Have you looked into Bitdefender?
Sandi

We use the highly rated Malwarebytes on all devices.
Velda

JudyJB wrote:And I use the basic Norton, but get really irritated when they constantly are trying to sell me upgrades like child protection or a virtual private network. I use only my own password-protected mobile hotspots, so do not need all the VPN stuff they try to sell me.

I would like to dump Norton, but what does your son-in-law recommend instead! I just want something simple to keep viruses and tracking things off my computer.

Hi Judy.

My advice to you: Ditch Norton before Norton ditches you. As Shirl correctly pointed out in a previous post: Corporate America doesn't care about the Little Guy anymore.

My daughter and son in law both recommend the virus protection that comes with the Windows operating system - and it is free. Years ago (when Norton was king) Microsoft did not have such a great reputation in the virus-protection department. These days it seems Norton is on the skids (I also despise the constant fear tactics Norton now uses to induce one to purchase ever more add-ons, which is what got me into trouble with Norton AntiTrack) and it seems that Microsoft is virus protection king of Windows machines.

As I expected, no one from Norton called me back the following day (I wasn't at all surprised) to assist me in removing Norton AntiTrack from my computer, as they had promised to do so, and even said that they would telephone at a specific time. (AntiTrack is still on my computer, reformatting the hard drive will finally get rid of it).

So, in effect, I had an appointment, an appointment made by the Norton rep. Didn't happen. Big surprise (not).

All during my original hour phone call with Norton, every few minutes the technician would say "if you would just let me remotely log into your computer, I could have this fixed instantly".

Yeah, right.

FIRSTLY, I NEVER EVER let anyone totally unknown to me remotely log into my computer - and not even close friends - for any reason whatsoever.

SECONDLY, the one time I let someone log into my computer, the computer was brand new, it refused to run correctly and since I hadn't yet installed anything on it, I allowed the technician to log in. He couldn't figure out what was wrong with it, either. I ended up returning it for a full refund.

THIRDLY (and I didn't say this to the 'technician): Why on EARTH would I let a representative from a company that had intentionally sold me DEFECTIVE software that they KNEW to be defective, log in to my computer to "fix" said DEFECTIVE software? Does this sound like a scam-o-rama to anyone? It certainly does to me.

FOURTHLY India is well known to be one of the foremost computer scam capitols of the world - this guy appeared to be a Norton rep (after all, I called Norton and got him on the line), but who knows what kind of side gig he might have going? And if this WASN'T some kind of scam - why no call-back from this famous company?

So, ya wanna log into my computer, do you, Mr. Norton Tech Guy? NEVER GONNA HAPPEN.

Velda, I don't want to ditch this computer, although it is a good and logical suggestion - the machine is only eight months old, and it cost me a bundle to purchase. Yesterday I ordered an external hard drive, a new modem, and a new top-of-the-line Roku from Amazon, hopefully everything will arrive tomorrow and I can spend the day (and probably the next) reformatting.

And, no, (if anyone is wondering) I didn't use my compromised computer to do the ordering. I have an old Dell laptop with a broken screen (my new computer replaced this broken one). In saying "broken screen", what I mean is that the screen/lid came off the computer, making the screen non-operational - the computer itself, so far as I could tell without a screen to look at, seemed to work fine.

About 12 years ago, my Dad was having monitor problems, so I went out and bought a nice Samsung flat-screen monitor for him (his previous monitor was one of those huge boat-anchor things).

Dad only used this monitor for about 3 - 4 months before he passed. Since I am a packrat/hoarder type I kept the monitor for "someday just in case". For a couple of years it lived in a plastic bag out in an old wooden barn at my place in the Sierra foothills (100-degree summers, well below freezing winters), since I moved to the valley it has basically lived in my garage for 12 years (only without the plastic bag covering it) where temps (in the garage) can get in excess of 120 degrees on a nice summer day.

I needed to power up this old computer to do the aforementioned ordering, and needed a screen (obviously). I thought my chances of finding this old monitor out in my disaster of a garage (let alone having it work if I could find it out in the rubble) were probably slim to none, emphasis on none.

I found the thing the very first place that I looked, brought it inside, wiped off 12 years worth of garage dust. . . and the dang thing powered right up. I connected it to my computer (it even had the correct plug for my computer!) and I was off to the races.

I am extremely thankful for small miracles.

Amen.

Anne