[Discuss] delete windows user data from dead laptop

[John Hall]

Steve good ideas even though it's a bit different than imagined.
1) Not nvidia. It's AMD Ryzen 9 and AMD Raedon. Both have GPUs and the
Raedon has separate RAM. I believe getting these to dance together causes
timing issues and the MB falw is related to some frackery here. It's long
been a problem to run the overclocking / tweaking app that came with the
laptop. I am using Windows with ubuntu in WSLv2.
But yes scores of proprietary drivers, and helper processes with multiple
versions. It's a minor miracle every minute that windows systems don't
self-destruct.
2) No I have not run memtests. It's a laptop with no CD but USB key or
rescue partitions could have the same options. I wonder if uefi bios
might have mem test. hum.
3) It's a laptop and that is an interesting idea but without the same
access I'm reluctant to do it. It quits with a windows stop code of 21x
which is a crash in the startup process. I should research if this is the
same as pressing the reset button. Getting to the power button would
require extensive disassembly of the laptop. I'm not prepared to do that
but since Geeksquad is a send off for just about any service *it may be
worth paying a local repair shop before going to bestbuy* if that is what
the code is for the reset (holding power button down).
If I could get Debian to boot from the key, maybe I could see a signal or
even maybe it is a soft reset in windows.... or bios/ufei that could be
disabled.
Imaging update:
I have increased throughput from 11MiB to 80MiB ! Whoo Hoo! and I am pretty
confident in my command to continue my dd image where I left off but with a
larger block size. I also got the usb hard drive attached to the 3.0
bus but still not getting maximum usb2.0 speed. There is a 3.2 hub added
that is shared by both drives and is attached to the linux 3.0 bus. There
may be two 3.0 buses. I have not tried one other usb port. I should have
tested that before restarting the dd. It's fast enough to go to sleep.


On Mon, Feb 26, 2024 at 1:40 AM Steve Litt <slitt at troubleshooters.com>
wrote:

> John Hall said on Mon, 26 Feb 2024 01:18:51 -0500
>
> >Update:
> >I believe the best thing I can do from linux is to just format C as
> >ntfs then booting will fail and go to recovery. Seeing the system
> >reboot randomly in recovery or factory reset mode seems convincing to
> >me. Maybe I could print my windows error log from linux if i figure
> >out how to hack that.
>
> I think I came in in the middle of this and don't understand the
> symptom, but it sounds to me like your computer is intermittently
> rebooting itself. I'm going to ask you some questions. If you top post
> your answers, please include the question numbers.
>
> 1) Do you have nVidea video? This is known to do stuff like you
>    describe. This is because nVidea won't share their API. There's a
>    reason Linus gave nVidea the finger. I've cured problems like this
>    by replacing nVidea with Radeon, most of whose drivers are already
>    in the Kernel.
>
> 2) Have you performed the memtest86+ memory tester that's a boot option
>    of System Rescue CD? If you have bad RAM, all bets are off.
>
> 3) Dirty reboot switches and power switches are known to cause
>    spontaneous reboots and hangs. As a diagnostic test, remove the
>    leads for these switches from the motherboard, and turn the machine
>    on and off using a screwdriver to (carefully) short the power switch
>    pins. If it works for several days without rebooting, it was
>    probably those switches. In that case, replace the power switch with
>    a no-light, no-frills $1.99 doorbell switch, and leave the reboot
>    switch disconnected.
>
>
> I've had intermittent problems caused by all three of the preceding.
>
>
> SteveT
>
> Steve Litt
>
> Autumn 2023 featured book: Rapid Learning for the 21st Century
> http://www.troubleshooters.com/rl21
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