On 27/02/2025 18:50, ajh wrote:

On 27/02/2025 17:06, David Wade wrote:

Why is it slow. Have you run taskmanger to see what is using CPU cycles?
Is it CPU cycles or a Disk bottle neck?
.. go to the details TAB and sort by CPU. Have the games loaded
background tasks...

I cannot see any . In fact once the thing has booted up none of the
processes seem to be using much resource and I can see no games running

For the slow startup go into the "settings" app, "Apps", "Startup" see
if you can turn things ohh...

I have removed Roblox and Discord from the start up menu.

pointless. you need to un-install...

I'm thinking a back up of files and re install is called for but need
advice, I haven't used windows for 20 years and am used to just
backing up Home in Linux.

Ah letting Linux admins loose on Windows is even worse than a 12 year
old....

Just a user

OK, but is it Spinning rust or SSD. After a Windows update Windows
spends a lot of time indexing. On spinning rust its slow...

Sata HDD Seagate barracuda 1TB

Multi minute boots are not uncommon with HDDs - you tend to forget once
you have used SSDs for a while!

However listening carefully can also give some clues on a HDD. One that
is having difficulty reading sectors, but is managing to recover with
multiple retries will be very slow.

Task manager also has a tap that lets you disable some startup programs.
Teams seems to be one the pops up and takes quite a bit of time to load
at book, so knobbing that can help.


--
Cheers,

John.

/=================================================================\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk | |-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk | \=================================================================/

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 27/02/2025 17:06, David Wade wrote:

On 27/02/2025 15:50, ajh wrote:

An old primary school friend has asked me to look at a 2021 desktop PC
with a 4 minute boot up time. There are no saved restore points. The
problem was first noticed after the 12 year old grandson had
downloaded some games.

I used to make money from fixing PCs that had been used by
grandchildren. They are dangerous....

But Win 7 onwards allows such evil users to be ringfenced
in such a way that downloads, format and other ill-thoughtout
behaviour can only be done by someone with admin privilege

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 27/02/2025 20:22, Andrew wrote:

On 27/02/2025 17:06, David Wade wrote:

On 27/02/2025 15:50, ajh wrote:

An old primary school friend has asked me to look at a 2021 desktop
PC with a 4 minute boot up time. There are no saved restore points.
The problem was first noticed after the 12 year old grandson had
downloaded some games.

I used to make money from fixing PCs that had been used by
grandchildren. They are dangerous....

But Win 7 onwards allows such evil users to be ringfenced
in such a way that downloads, format and other ill-thoughtout
behaviour can only be done by someone with admin privilege

One of the things about this installation is that it seems to boot
straight into an admin account without needing to log in with a password.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 27/02/2025 22:01, ajh wrote:

On 27/02/2025 19:21, David Wade wrote:

Clone to a new SSD and use for backup or bin it after wiping it.
Hard disks slow as they fragment. Windows does some defragging but
they still slow.

SSDs don't slow. I haven't had a HDD

This is probably a good idea, which program do you suggest?

de-fragging or cloning...
.. I usually buy an SSD that has a cloning programming ....

.. de-fragging - waste of time. its like trying to stop the tide...

Dave

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On Thu, 2/27/2025 10:50 AM, ajh wrote:

An old primary school friend has asked me to look at a 2021 desktop PC with a 4 minute boot up time. There are no saved restore points. The problem was first noticed after the 12 year old grandson had downloaded some games.

I have run a check with malwarebytes which was installed and windows shows it is up to date with security. It is a bit slow loading programs but chrome works as do video and audio files.

I have removed Roblox and Discord from the start up menu.

I'm thinking a back up of files and re install is called for but need advice, I haven't used windows for 20 years and am used to just backing up Home in Linux.

Is appears to be a March 2021 shop installed Windows 10 home 22H2 edition. Asus motherboard and a pentium G3320 3GHz processor with 8GB of ram booting with UEFI windows boot manager.

Also I have some much older windows back ups done with a program called Ghost. Is there a way of unzipping the files without Ghost?

A Pentium G3320 is from the year 2013. If the motherboard is UEFI,
it's an earlier version of UEFI, but should still work. There won't be
a TPM (just a header to plug it in, on consumer devices of that era).
The TPM available at the time might have been version 1.4 or so.

In the WinXP era, there was Bootvis, which was a tool humans could use.
You could get a bootup trace from it.

The tools now are like this, but even this may have been
discontinued at some point.

I:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.1\Windows Performance Toolkit\xbootmgr.exe <=== trace capture
I:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.1\Windows Performance Toolkit\xperf.exe <=== view the trace graphical output

You could make a folder anywhere for output, and C:\TEMP is being used here. This should cause the machine to reboot, and do a trace of activity.

xbootmgr -trace boot -traceFlags BASE+CSWITCH+DRIVERS+POWER -resultPath C:\TEMP

*******

If that requires WADK, don't panic. There should be a dialog with tick
boxes, and all that needs to be ticked in the download suite, is the
Windows Performance Toolkit or similar. The other parts of WADK are independent and not needed. It should only take five minutes to download the utilities,
and check to see if xbootmgr and xperf are in that version.

https://www.elevenforum.com/t/analysing-boot-behaviour-something-is-slowing-down-windows-loading-by-at-least-30-seconds.11825/

The problem with WPA as a tool, is it reboots the machine a whole bunch of times
and collects a lot of traces. It's an IT tool for evaluating performance, and it isn't all that prepared for "the little people", the end users, to get a simple
answer. It does have the advantage that the viewing tool, if you open a trace like from xbootmgr, it has potentially richer graphics. The trick if using that, is there are triangle icons on the display and when you "twiddle" one,
it opens up a pane with some information in it. I missed that at first,
and couldn't figure out where my output was supposed to be.

The baffling ones, are when there is a 50 second slice of time
on the screen, with no activity at all from anything. That seems
to involve a scan of system memory by some process, like perhaps
it is encrypting system memory or initializing system memory.
When there is no activity in view, it's pretty hard to "blame" a process. That's a limitation of the concept. But as long as an activity is a
"visible" one, such as something a rogue game could be doing, that
may leave footprints on the screen as to who is doing it.

Long delays at boot, can be due to permanently mounted file
shares, and the file share is no longer available. That can cause
a ten minute delay at startup. But we know it isn't that.

It could be CHKDSK, but we know that has a specific screen output,
and you would know it was going on.

Another way to do a boot trace, is with Sysinternals Process Monitor.
But I've had some degree of trouble getting that to start and
do the trace at startup. That leaves a DLL like "procmon23.dll"
as a hidden file in System32. Using "dir /ah" in Command Prompt,
when cd'ed to System32, might help you see that it is present. The
program does not have a means to remove it. Normally, it does no harm
sitting there. That is just so you have some idea, how it can be
doing a boot trace, right after autochk or so. Autochk is just before
the C: partition mounts.

*******

If the previous section made your eyes glaze over, there are
easier things to attempt, with less assurance of perfection
as a result. There is "Repair Install" as an attempt at a solution.

Start : Run : winver.exe

That's a program that shows you the current Windows version. Maybe
it is Win10 22H2 19045.xxxx or so. If you have the ISO file for the
installer DVD, you can right click the ISO and select "Mount". when the
virtual DVD drive appears in File Explorer or Disk Management, you
can run "setup.exe" off the root level of the virtual DVD, and
that kicks off a Repair Install. You would want to "match" the version
of OS. If Winver reported 22H2 as the version, then the current
download of Win10 materials is also 22H2. I usually change the
file name on my ISO files, so I know which one is 22H2. Sometimes,
the tools make a file "Windows.iso" which tells us nothing.
I change the name to "windows10-22H2-x64.iso".

Doing a Repair Install, should report it is keeping your Programs
and your User Data. It will try to do Windows Update, to at least
make the Windows Update components current. Even if you think
the OS is up to date, the stupid thing will waste time updating.
Then, finally, it will run the install. You need maybe 40GB of
slack space on C: , for a Repair Install to take place. There
will be a C:\Windows.old folder if the installation was
successful, and you don't throw that folder away by hand.
The second level of Cleanmgr.exe can remove it. I prefer to use
a system tool for this, because there have been a couple nasty
bits of business in C: on some older versions of Win10, that a manual
command will foul up (unprintable UTF-8 characters).

That is typically a "least effort" approach to repair, for an end user.
You don't have to know how to do anything, except click the "Setup.exe"
on the virtual DVD and run it. On the other hand, it doesn't remove
Malware, and it doesn't flush garbage out of the Registry particularly.
It's also possible you could receive a warning to remove a program
or two, if they are a known source of mischief at the beginning of
the install. For example, I removed VirtualBox 5 and installed VirtualBox 6
to get past one of those warnings.

Summary: A Repair Install is the less adventurous way to try to fix it.
Other methods, have a learning curve, but at least you should
know there are some things that an intermediate level person
can do.

You do a Repair Install from a running OS. If the OS won't run
at all, that is no longer an option for you. Doing it from Safe Mode,
there might not be enough subsystems running for that to work.

To use Task Manager to analyze what is going on, sure, that's a
good suggestion "if you know what normal looks like". It's not always
easy to spot stuff which is totally off the wall in there. If you see
six "run something or other" in there, is that normal ? To be honest
with you, I don't know the answer, but I've seen that. Some activities
do not seem normal, but they are likely just regular maintenance.

Paul

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 27/02/2025 in message <[email protected]> ajh wrote:

On 27/02/2025 19:21, David Wade wrote:

Clone to a new SSD and use for backup or bin it after wiping it.
Hard disks slow as they fragment. Windows does some defragging but they >>still slow.

SSDs don't slow. I haven't had a HDD

This is probably a good idea, which program do you suggest?

Windows 10 on has "Trim" built it so you don't need an extra program.
Don't de-frag an SSD, you will just use up its limited number of write
cycles for no reason.

--
Jeff Gaines Dorset UK
The first five days after the weekend are the hardest.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 27/02/2025 19:21, David Wade wrote:

Clone to a new SSD and use for backup or bin it after wiping it.
Hard disks slow as they fragment. Windows does some defragging but they
still slow.

SSDs don't slow. I haven't had a HDD

This is probably a good idea, which program do you suggest?

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 27/02/2025 20:29, John Rumm wrote:

On 27/02/2025 18:50, ajh wrote:

On 27/02/2025 17:06, David Wade wrote:

Why is it slow. Have you run taskmanger to see what is using CPU cycles? >>> Is it CPU cycles or a Disk bottle neck?
.. go to the details TAB and sort by CPU. Have the games loaded
background tasks...

I cannot see any . In fact once the thing has booted up none of the
processes seem to be using much resource and I can see no games running

For the slow startup go into the "settings" app, "Apps", "Startup"
see if you can turn things ohh...

I have removed Roblox and Discord from the start up menu.

pointless. you need to un-install...

I'm thinking a back up of files and re install is called for but
need advice, I haven't used windows for 20 years and am used to just
backing up Home in Linux.

Ah letting Linux admins loose on Windows is even worse than a 12 year
old....

Just a user

OK, but is it Spinning rust or SSD. After a Windows update Windows
spends a lot of time indexing. On spinning rust its slow...

Sata HDD Seagate barracuda 1TB

Multi minute boots are not uncommon with HDDs - you tend to forget once
you have used SSDs for a while!

However listening carefully can also give some clues on a HDD. One that
is having difficulty reading sectors, but is managing to recover with multiple retries will be very slow.

Task manager also has a tap that lets you disable some startup programs. Teams seems to be one the pops up and takes quite a bit of time to load
at book, so knobbing that can help.

did you mean nobbling rather than knobbing? :-D

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 27/02/2025 22:17, David Wade wrote:

On 27/02/2025 22:01, ajh wrote:

On 27/02/2025 19:21, David Wade wrote:

Clone to a new SSD and use for backup or bin it after wiping it.
Hard disks slow as they fragment. Windows does some defragging but
they still slow.

SSDs don't slow. I haven't had a HDD

This is probably a good idea, which program do you suggest?

de-fragging or cloning...
.. I usually buy an SSD that has a cloning programming ....

.. de-fragging - waste of time. its like trying to stop the tide...

Uneccessary on SSD as well. The seek time is zero.

Dave

--
How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think.

Adolf Hitler

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 27/02/2025 19:21, David Wade wrote:

On 27/02/2025 18:50, ajh wrote:

On 27/02/2025 17:06, David Wade wrote:

Why is it slow. Have you run taskmanger to see what is using CPU cycles? >>> Is it CPU cycles or a Disk bottle neck?
.. go to the details TAB and sort by CPU. Have the games loaded
background tasks...

I cannot see any . In fact once the thing has booted up none of the
processes seem to be using much resource and I can see no games running

For the slow startup go into the "settings" app, "Apps", "Startup"
see if you can turn things ohh...

Did you check this?
Microsoft also have a tool call "autoruns" you can download from live.sysinternals.com which lets you look at everything that runs at startups/logon.
Snip <

I was going to suggest using msconfig but I see that programmes that run
at start up are now to be found under Task Manager / Startup tab (ctrl/alt/delete or right click on bottom task bar to select).

--
Regards
wasbit

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 27/02/2025 22:01, ajh wrote:

On 27/02/2025 19:21, David Wade wrote:

Clone to a new SSD and use for backup or bin it after wiping it.
Hard disks slow as they fragment. Windows does some defragging but
they still slow.

SSDs don't slow. I haven't had a HDD

This is probably a good idea, which program do you suggest?

I've used several free cloning programmes over the years.
The last one was Disk Genius. Very easy to use.
- https://www.diskgenius.com/



--
Regards
wasbit

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 27/02/2025 15:50, ajh wrote:

An old primary school friend has asked me to look at a 2021 desktop PC with
a 4 minute boot up time. There are no saved restore points. The problem was first noticed after the 12 year old grandson had downloaded some games.

Is appears to be a March 2021 shop installed Windows 10 home 22H2 edition. Asus motherboard and a pentium G3320 3GHz processor with 8GB of ram booting with UEFI windows boot manager.

I have Windows 10 pro 22H2 edition, i5-3470, 8GB ram, UEFI, WD500 HDD.

Rarely gets rebooted but I just tried, and it took 1 minute to get to
'Please wait' and then 90 seconds more before I could log on.
Event viewer shows nothing for the 90 seconds.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 28/02/2025 09:35, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

On 27/02/2025 22:17, David Wade wrote:

On 27/02/2025 22:01, ajh wrote:

On 27/02/2025 19:21, David Wade wrote:

Clone to a new SSD and use for backup or bin it after wiping it.
Hard disks slow as they fragment. Windows does some defragging but
they still slow.

SSDs don't slow. I haven't had a HDD

This is probably a good idea, which program do you suggest?

de-fragging or cloning...
.. I usually buy an SSD that has a cloning programming ....

.. de-fragging - waste of time. its like trying to stop the tide...

Uneccessary on SSD as well. The seek time is zero.

Not only unnecessary, but advised not to be used.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 28/02/2025 09:29, SH wrote:

On 27/02/2025 20:29, John Rumm wrote:

On 27/02/2025 18:50, ajh wrote:

On 27/02/2025 17:06, David Wade wrote:

Why is it slow. Have you run taskmanger to see what is using CPU
cycles?
Is it CPU cycles or a Disk bottle neck?
.. go to the details TAB and sort by CPU. Have the games loaded
background tasks...

I cannot see any . In fact once the thing has booted up none of the
processes seem to be using much resource and I can see no games running >>>>

For the slow startup go into the "settings" app, "Apps", "Startup"
see if you can turn things ohh...

I have removed Roblox and Discord from the start up menu.

pointless. you need to un-install...

I'm thinking a back up of files and re install is called for but
need advice, I haven't used windows for 20 years and am used to
just backing up Home in Linux.

Ah letting Linux admins loose on Windows is even worse than a 12 year
old....

Just a user

OK, but is it Spinning rust or SSD. After a Windows update Windows
spends a lot of time indexing. On spinning rust its slow...

Sata HDD Seagate barracuda 1TB

Multi minute boots are not uncommon with HDDs - you tend to forget
once you have used SSDs for a while!

However listening carefully can also give some clues on a HDD. One
that is having difficulty reading sectors, but is managing to recover
with multiple retries will be very slow.

Task manager also has a tap that lets you disable some startup
programs. Teams seems to be one the pops up and takes quite a bit of
time to load at book, so knobbing that can help.

did you mean nobbling rather than knobbing?  :-D

No, but I did mean "tab" rather than "tap" :-)

--
Cheers,

John.

/=================================================================\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk | |-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk | \=================================================================/

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Fri, 28 Feb 2025 13:18:44 +0000
John Rumm <[email protected]> wrote:

Task manager also has a tap that lets you disable some startup
programs. Teams seems to be one the pops up and takes quite a bit
of time to load at book, so knobbing that can help.

Presumably with the electronic equivalent of a knobkerrie...

did you mean nobbling rather than knobbing?  :-D

No, but I did mean "tab" rather than "tap" :-)

--
Joe

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On Fri, 2/28/2025 3:33 AM, Jeff Gaines wrote:

On 27/02/2025 in message <[email protected]> ajh wrote:

On 27/02/2025 19:21, David Wade wrote:

Clone to a new SSD and use for backup or bin it after wiping it.
Hard disks slow as they fragment. Windows does some defragging but they  still slow.

SSDs don't slow. I haven't had a HDD

This is probably a good idea, which program do you suggest?

Windows 10 on has "Trim" built it so you don't need an extra program. Don't de-frag an SSD, you will just use up its limited number of write cycles for no reason.

Windows can present the wrong option in the Optimize pane
for a storage device.

The determination by Windows, of whether a drive is SSD or HDD,
is done by

(administrator)

winsat disk

That runs a portion of the defunct performance analysis software
in Windows, and Windows is measuring the speed and seek time,
then recording for later, that the "device seems as fast as an SSD".
It is (unfortunately) not done by just reading the part number
and consulting a table of storage devices, nor by examining the
SMART for SSD-type entries. They have messed around with the
code over the years, so your mileage may vary.

That was annoying me for the longest while, and recently I
found a suggestion to run the winsat so the OS has a second
chance to evaluate a drive. Then the SSD will offer TRIM and
the HDD will off DeFrag as options in the Optimize dialog.

winsat disk

Windows System Assessment Tool

Running: Feature Enumeration ''
Run Time 00:00:00.00
Running: Storage Assessment '-ran -read -n 0'
Run Time 00:00:00.39
Running: Storage Assessment '-seq -read -n 0'
Run Time 00:00:01.63
Running: Storage Assessment '-seq -write -drive C:'
Run Time 00:00:01.58
Running: Storage Assessment '-flush -drive C: -seq'
Run Time 00:00:00.36
Running: Storage Assessment '-flush -drive C: -ran'
Run Time 00:00:00.36
Dshow Video Encode Time 0.00000 s \
Dshow Video Decode Time 0.00000 s \___ Various tests are disabled in WinSat
Media Foundation Decode Time 0.00000 s /
Disk Random 16.0 Read 434.76 MB/s 8.2
Disk Sequential 64.0 Read 534.88 MB/s 8.1
Disk Sequential 64.0 Write 508.64 MB/s 8.1
Average Read Time with Sequential Writes 0.090 ms 8.8
Latency: 95th Percentile 0.205 ms 8.9
Latency: Maximum 0.433 ms 8.9
Average Read Time with Random Writes 0.099 ms 8.9
Total Run Time 00:00:04.44

That's a SATA SSD, so TRIM should be the offering.

Paul

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 28/02/2025 in message <vpshsj$3n3hm$[email protected]> Paul wrote:

Windows 10 on has "Trim" built it so you don't need an extra program.
Don't de-frag an SSD, you will just use up its limited number of write >>cycles for no reason.

Windows can present the wrong option in the Optimize pane
for a storage device.

The determination by Windows, of whether a drive is SSD or HDD,
is done by

A really useless process by the look of it :-(

I have been trying to find a way to programmatically determine if a
drive is HD/SSD/NVMe and gave up in the end because there seems no
reliable way to do it in Visual Studio 2008 & C#.

If you come across anything I'd be interested!

--
Jeff Gaines Dorset UK
This joke was so funny when I heard it for the first time I fell of my dinosaur.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 27/02/2025 21:58, ajh wrote:

On 27/02/2025 20:22, Andrew wrote:

On 27/02/2025 17:06, David Wade wrote:

On 27/02/2025 15:50, ajh wrote:

An old primary school friend has asked me to look at a 2021 desktop
PC with a 4 minute boot up time. There are no saved restore points.
The problem was first noticed after the 12 year old grandson had
downloaded some games.

I used to make money from fixing PCs that had been used by
grandchildren. They are dangerous....

But Win 7 onwards allows such evil users to be ringfenced
in such a way that downloads, format and other ill-thoughtout
behaviour can only be done by someone with admin privilege

One of the things about this installation is that it seems to boot
straight into an admin account without needing to log in with a password.

Making an additional non admin account for the kids sounds like a good
plan! They then can mess about without doing too much damage.

quick command line create:

"net user /add Kids"

will add a non admin account called "Kids" with a blank password.

You can add a password on the main account:

"net user accountname newpassword"


(or enable the standard windows sandbox - that will create a disposable
VM that they can play in - when the close it, everything vanishes and
you get a fresh start next time)


--
Cheers,

John.

/=================================================================\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk | |-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk | \=================================================================/

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 28/02/2025 11:11, Nick Finnigan wrote:

On 27/02/2025 15:50, ajh wrote:

An old primary school friend has asked me to look at a 2021 desktop PC
with a 4 minute boot up time. There are no saved restore points. The
problem was first noticed after the 12 year old grandson had
downloaded some games.

Is appears to be a March 2021 shop installed Windows 10 home 22H2
edition. Asus motherboard and a pentium G3320 3GHz processor with 8GB
of ram booting with UEFI windows boot manager.

 I have Windows 10 pro 22H2 edition, i5-3470, 8GB ram, UEFI, WD500 HDD.

 Rarely gets rebooted but I just tried, and it took 1 minute to get to 'Please wait' and then 90 seconds more before I could log on.
Event viewer shows nothing for the 90 seconds.

Still twice as fast as this on, thanks for looking.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 28/02/2025 19:05, John Rumm wrote:

Making an additional non admin account for the kids sounds like a good
plan! They then can mess about without doing too much damage.

quick command line create:

"net user /add Kids"

will add a non admin account called "Kids" with a blank password.

You can add a password on the main account:

"net user accountname newpassword"

(or enable the standard windows sandbox - that will create a disposable
VM that they can play in - when the close it, everything vanishes and
you get a fresh start next time)

Thanks, I will make that suggestion.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Nick Finnigan wrote:

it took 1 minute to get to 'Please wait' and then 90 seconds more
before I could log on. Event viewer shows nothing for the 90 seconds.

I daresay there *are* events logged, just that they're not in one of the "traditional" (system/application/security) logs, instead look at the
myriad .evtx logs

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On Fri, 2/28/2025 10:05 AM, Jeff Gaines wrote:

On 28/02/2025 in message <vpshsj$3n3hm$[email protected]> Paul wrote:

Windows 10 on has "Trim" built it so you don't need an extra program. Don't de-frag an SSD, you will just use up its limited number of write cycles for no reason.

Windows can present the wrong option in the Optimize pane
for a storage device.

The determination by Windows, of whether a drive is SSD or HDD,
is done by

A really useless process by the look of it :-(

I have been  trying to find a  way to programmatically determine if a drive is HD/SSD/NVMe and gave up in the end because there seems no reliable way to do it in Visual Studio 2008 & C#.

If you come across anything I'd be interested!

The Plug and Play on disks and disk controllers, is not very good.

Some people have figured out how to do it, how to make
associations. But I would not say the source for that
was available.

I don't know how to do that. Stuff like this:

wmic diskdrive

is useless.

Paul

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 28/02/2025 11:11, Nick Finnigan wrote:

On 27/02/2025 15:50, ajh wrote:

An old primary school friend has asked me to look at a 2021 desktop PC
with a 4 minute boot up time. There are no saved restore points. The
problem was first noticed after the 12 year old grandson had
downloaded some games.

Is appears to be a March 2021 shop installed Windows 10 home 22H2
edition. Asus motherboard and a pentium G3320 3GHz processor with 8GB
of ram booting with UEFI windows boot manager.

 I have Windows 10 pro 22H2 edition, i5-3470, 8GB ram, UEFI, WD500 HDD.

 Rarely gets rebooted but I just tried, and it took 1 minute to get to 'Please wait' and then 90 seconds more before I could log on.
Event viewer shows nothing for the 90 seconds.

Ive got linux Mint 20. It generally reboots in about 9 seconds or 25
from a cold boot.

--
"The great thing about Glasgow is that if there's a nuclear attack it'll
look exactly the same afterwards."

Billy Connolly

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 28/02/2025 11:58, SteveW wrote:

On 28/02/2025 09:35, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

On 27/02/2025 22:17, David Wade wrote:

On 27/02/2025 22:01, ajh wrote:

On 27/02/2025 19:21, David Wade wrote:

Clone to a new SSD and use for backup or bin it after wiping it.
Hard disks slow as they fragment. Windows does some defragging but
they still slow.

SSDs don't slow. I haven't had a HDD

This is probably a good idea, which program do you suggest?

de-fragging or cloning...
.. I usually buy an SSD that has a cloning programming ....

.. de-fragging - waste of time. its like trying to stop the tide...

Uneccessary on SSD as well. The seek time is zero.

Not only unnecessary, but advised not to be used.

+1.
FSTRIMming is the advised treatment IIRC

--
Truth welcomes investigation because truth knows investigation will lead
to converts. It is deception that uses all the other techniques.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 2/27/25 15:50, ajh wrote:

An old primary school friend has asked me to look at a 2021 desktop PC
with a 4 minute boot up time. There are no saved restore points. The
problem was first noticed after the 12 year old grandson had downloaded
some games.

Sometimes a dead CMOS BIOS Cr2032 battery can cause slow boots. That
manifests as slow to get to the BIOS screen, before Windows 10 even
starts booting.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 28/02/2025 15:05, Jeff Gaines wrote:

On 28/02/2025 in message <vpshsj$3n3hm$[email protected]> Paul wrote:

Windows 10 on has "Trim" built it so you don't need an extra program.
Don't de-frag an SSD, you will just use up its limited number of
write cycles for no reason.

Windows can present the wrong option in the Optimize pane
for a storage device.

The determination by Windows, of whether a drive is SSD or HDD,
is done by

A really useless process by the look of it :-(

I have been  trying to find a  way to programmatically determine if a
drive is HD/SSD/NVMe and gave up in the end because there seems no
reliable way to do it in Visual Studio 2008 & C#.

If you come across anything I'd be interested!

CrystalDiskInfo
- https://crystalmark.info/en/software/crystaldiskinfo/


--
Regards
wasbit

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Paul wrote:

Jeff Gaines wrote:

Windows 10 on has "Trim" built it so you don't need an extra
program. Don't de-frag an SSD, you will just use up its limited
number of write cycles for no reason.

Windows can present the wrong option in the Optimize pane
for a storage device.

I don't swap HDD/SSD every day, week or even every month, but I think
the last time I had Windows get the device type wrong was with Win8,
then you had to use fsutil to enable TRIM support.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 28/02/2025 19:05, John Rumm wrote:

On 27/02/2025 21:58, ajh wrote:

On 27/02/2025 20:22, Andrew wrote:

On 27/02/2025 17:06, David Wade wrote:

On 27/02/2025 15:50, ajh wrote:

An old primary school friend has asked me to look at a 2021 desktop
PC with a 4 minute boot up time. There are no saved restore points.
The problem was first noticed after the 12 year old grandson had
downloaded some games.

I used to make money from fixing PCs that had been used by
grandchildren. They are dangerous....

But Win 7 onwards allows such evil users to be ringfenced
in such a way that downloads, format and other ill-thoughtout
behaviour can only be done by someone with admin privilege

One of the things about this installation is that it seems to boot
straight into an admin account without needing to log in with a password.

Making an additional non admin account for the kids sounds like a good
plan! They then can mess about without doing too much damage.

quick command line create:

"net user /add Kids"

will add a non admin account called "Kids" with a blank password.

You can add a password on the main account:

"net user accountname newpassword"

I don't know if it's still the same, but when I tried that some years
ago, if the non-passworded account was the one in use when the machine
was shut down, it booted straight into that account on start-up, without offering a chance to select the passworded account. At the time, I
simply put a very simple password on the kids' account, so that you had
a chance to switch accounts at that point

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 01/03/2025 in message <vpul2m$5pvs$[email protected]> wasbit wrote:

On 28/02/2025 15:05, Jeff Gaines wrote:

On 28/02/2025 in message <vpshsj$3n3hm$[email protected]> Paul wrote:

Windows 10 on has "Trim" built it so you don't need an extra program. >>>>Don't de-frag an SSD, you will just use up its limited number of write >>>>cycles for no reason.

Windows can present the wrong option in the Optimize pane
for a storage device.

The determination by Windows, of whether a drive is SSD or HDD,
is done by

A really useless process by the look of it :-(

I have been  trying to find a  way to programmatically determine if a >>drive is HD/SSD/NVMe and gave up in the end because there seems no
reliable way to do it in Visual Studio 2008 & C#.

If you come across anything I'd be interested!

CrystalDiskInfo
- https://crystalmark.info/en/software/crystaldiskinfo/

So it can be done, question is how can I do it inside a C# program :-)

--
Jeff Gaines Dorset UK
Indecision is the key to flexibility

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 01/03/2025 10:38, Jeff Gaines wrote:

On 01/03/2025 in message <vpul2m$5pvs$[email protected]> wasbit wrote:

On 28/02/2025 15:05, Jeff Gaines wrote:

On 28/02/2025 in message <vpshsj$3n3hm$[email protected]> Paul wrote:

Windows 10 on has "Trim" built it so you don't need an extra
program. Don't de-frag an SSD, you will just use up its limited
number of  write cycles for no reason.

Windows can present the wrong option in the Optimize pane
for a storage device.

The determination by Windows, of whether a drive is SSD or HDD,
is done by

A really useless process by the look of it :-(

I have been  trying to find a  way to programmatically determine if a
drive is HD/SSD/NVMe and gave up in the end because there seems no
reliable way to do it in Visual Studio 2008 & C#.

If you come across anything I'd be interested!

CrystalDiskInfo
- https://crystalmark.info/en/software/crystaldiskinfo/

So it can be done, question is how can I do it inside a C# program :-)

From Powershell

Get-WmiObject -Class MSFT_PhysicalDisk -Namespace root\Microsoft\Windows\Storage

or

get-physicaldisk | Select *

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 01/03/2025 in message <vpupaq$6917$[email protected]> mm0fmf wrote:

On 01/03/2025 10:38, Jeff Gaines wrote:

On 01/03/2025 in message <vpul2m$5pvs$[email protected]> wasbit wrote:

On 28/02/2025 15:05, Jeff Gaines wrote:

On 28/02/2025 in message <vpshsj$3n3hm$[email protected]> Paul wrote:

Windows 10 on has "Trim" built it so you don't need an extra program. >>>>>>Don't de-frag an SSD, you will just use up its limited number of  write >>>>>>cycles for no reason.

Windows can present the wrong option in the Optimize pane
for a storage device.

The determination by Windows, of whether a drive is SSD or HDD,
is done by

A really useless process by the look of it :-(

I have been  trying to find a  way to programmatically determine if a >>>>drive is HD/SSD/NVMe and gave up in the end because there seems no >>>>reliable way to do it in Visual Studio 2008 & C#.

If you come across anything I'd be interested!

CrystalDiskInfo
- https://crystalmark.info/en/software/crystaldiskinfo/

So it can be done, question is how can I do it inside a C# program :-)

From Powershell

Get-WmiObject -Class MSFT_PhysicalDisk -Namespace >root\Microsoft\Windows\Storage

or

get-physicaldisk | Select *

I managed to get that far, provides a lot of data. However I ended up with three ways of getting information on drives and there was nothing common between them so I couldn't relate the information back to a specific drive.

--
Jeff Gaines Dorset UK
640k ought to be enough for anyone.
(Bill Gates, 1981)

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 01/03/2025 03:33, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

On 28/02/2025 11:11, Nick Finnigan wrote:

On 27/02/2025 15:50, ajh wrote:

An old primary school friend has asked me to look at a 2021 desktop PC
with a 4 minute boot up time. There are no saved restore points. The
problem was first noticed after the 12 year old grandson had downloaded
some games.


Is appears to be a March 2021 shop installed Windows 10 home 22H2
edition. Asus motherboard and a pentium G3320 3GHz processor with 8GB of >>> ram booting with UEFI windows boot manager.

  I have Windows 10 pro 22H2 edition, i5-3470, 8GB ram, UEFI, WD500 HDD. >>
  Rarely gets rebooted but I just tried, and it took 1 minute to get to
'Please wait' and then 90 seconds more before I could log on.
Event viewer shows nothing for the 90 seconds.

That's actually slightly quicker than two years ago.

Ive got linux Mint 20. It generally reboots in about 9 seconds or 25 from a cold boot.

40 seconds for Fedora Workstation (same hardware).

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 01/03/2025 11:22, Jeff Gaines wrote:

On 01/03/2025 in message <vpupaq$6917$[email protected]> mm0fmf wrote:

On 01/03/2025 10:38, Jeff Gaines wrote:

On 01/03/2025 in message <vpul2m$5pvs$[email protected]> wasbit wrote:

On 28/02/2025 15:05, Jeff Gaines wrote:

On 28/02/2025 in message <vpshsj$3n3hm$[email protected]> Paul wrote:

Windows 10 on has "Trim" built it so you don't need an extra
program. Don't de-frag an SSD, you will just use up its limited
number of  write cycles for no reason.

Windows can present the wrong option in the Optimize pane
for a storage device.

The determination by Windows, of whether a drive is SSD or HDD,
is done by

A really useless process by the look of it :-(

I have been  trying to find a  way to programmatically determine if >>>>> a drive is HD/SSD/NVMe and gave up in the end because there seems
no reliable way to do it in Visual Studio 2008 & C#.

If you come across anything I'd be interested!

CrystalDiskInfo
- https://crystalmark.info/en/software/crystaldiskinfo/

So it can be done, question is how can I do it inside a C# program :-)

From Powershell

Get-WmiObject -Class MSFT_PhysicalDisk -Namespace
root\Microsoft\Windows\Storage

or

get-physicaldisk | Select *

I managed to get that far, provides a lot of data. However I ended up
with three ways of getting information on drives and there was nothing
common between them so I couldn't relate the information back to a
specific drive.

Maybe I missed something but digging in the huge amount of guff printed
for "get-physicaldisk | Select *" I get

For the USB memory stick

"MediaType : Unspecified"
"BusType : USB"

For the SSD,

"BusType : RAID"
"MediaType : SSD"

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 01/03/2025 in message <vputb0$78od$[email protected]> mm0fmf wrote:

Get-WmiObject -Class MSFT_PhysicalDisk -Namespace >>>root\Microsoft\Windows\Storage

or

get-physicaldisk | Select *

I managed to get that far, provides a lot of data. However I ended up
with three ways of getting information on drives and there was nothing >>common between them so I couldn't relate the information back to a
specific drive.

Maybe I missed something but digging in the huge amount of guff printed
for "get-physicaldisk | Select *" I get

For the USB memory stick

"MediaType : Unspecified"
"BusType : USB"

For the SSD,

"BusType : RAID"
"MediaType : SSD"

I need to put it into a simple drive info window, drive letter, type,
capacity, used, available, free space graphic.

I couldn't find a way to link the drive letter to the type, the normal way
just calls it "Fixed" whether it's HD/SSD or NVMe. I have 8 x drives on my server and would have liked to distinguish between them.

--
Jeff Gaines Dorset UK
Though no-one can go back and make a new start, everyone can start from
now and make a new ending.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 01/03/2025 10:21, SteveW wrote:

On 28/02/2025 19:05, John Rumm wrote:

On 27/02/2025 21:58, ajh wrote:

On 27/02/2025 20:22, Andrew wrote:

On 27/02/2025 17:06, David Wade wrote:

On 27/02/2025 15:50, ajh wrote:

An old primary school friend has asked me to look at a 2021
desktop PC with a 4 minute boot up time. There are no saved
restore points. The problem was first noticed after the 12 year
old grandson had downloaded some games.

I used to make money from fixing PCs that had been used by
grandchildren. They are dangerous....

But Win 7 onwards allows such evil users to be ringfenced
in such a way that downloads, format and other ill-thoughtout
behaviour can only be done by someone with admin privilege

One of the things about this installation is that it seems to boot
straight into an admin account without needing to log in with a
password.

Making an additional non admin account for the kids sounds like a good
plan! They then can mess about without doing too much damage.

quick command line create:

"net user /add Kids"

will add a non admin account called "Kids" with a blank password.

You can add a password on the main account:

"net user accountname newpassword"

I don't know if it's still the same, but when I tried that some years
ago, if the non-passworded account was the one in use when the machine
was shut down, it booted straight into that account on start-up, without offering a chance to select the passworded account. At the time, I
simply put a very simple password on the kids' account, so that you had
a chance to switch accounts at that point

Generally (unless you specifically setup the machine to skip the login)
it will present a "Sign in" button rather than a password entry box for accounts with no password.

--
Cheers,

John.

/=================================================================\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk | |-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk | \=================================================================/

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 01/03/2025 13:49, Jeff Gaines wrote:

On 01/03/2025 in message <vputb0$78od$[email protected]> mm0fmf wrote:

Get-WmiObject -Class MSFT_PhysicalDisk -Namespace
root\Microsoft\Windows\Storage

or

get-physicaldisk | Select *

I managed to get that far, provides a lot of data. However I ended up
with three ways of getting information on drives and there was nothing
common between them so I couldn't relate the information back to a
specific drive.

Maybe I missed something but digging in the huge amount of guff printed
for "get-physicaldisk | Select *" I get

For the USB memory stick

"MediaType                        : Unspecified"
"BusType                          : USB"

For the SSD,

"BusType                          : RAID"
"MediaType                        : SSD"

I need to put it into a simple drive info window, drive letter, type, capacity, used, available, free space graphic.

I couldn't find a way to link the drive letter to the type, the normal way just calls it "Fixed" whether it's HD/SSD or NVMe. I have 8 x drives on my server and would have liked to distinguish between them.

get-partition | select disknumber, driveletter, size
get-physicaldisk | select disknumber, mediatype, bustype ?

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 01/03/2025 in message <vpv827$92us$[email protected]> Nick Finnigan wrote:

On 01/03/2025 13:49, Jeff Gaines wrote:

On 01/03/2025 in message <vputb0$78od$[email protected]> mm0fmf wrote:

Get-WmiObject -Class MSFT_PhysicalDisk -Namespace >>>>>root\Microsoft\Windows\Storage

or

get-physicaldisk | Select *

I managed to get that far, provides a lot of data. However I ended up >>>>with three ways of getting information on drives and there was nothing >>>>common between them so I couldn't relate the information back to a >>>>specific drive.

Maybe I missed something but digging in the huge amount of guff printed >>>for "get-physicaldisk | Select *" I get

For the USB memory stick

"MediaType                        : Unspecified" >>>"BusType                          : USB"

For the SSD,

"BusType                          : RAID" >>>"MediaType                        : SSD"

I need to put it into a simple drive info window, drive letter, type, >>capacity, used, available, free space graphic.

I couldn't find a way to link the drive letter to the type, the normal way
just calls it "Fixed" whether it's HD/SSD or NVMe. I have 8 x drives on my server and would have liked to distinguish between them.

get-partition | select disknumber, driveletter, size
get-physicaldisk | select disknumber, mediatype, bustype ?

Many thanks, will give it a try :-)

--
Jeff Gaines Dorset UK
Have you ever noticed that all the instruments searching for intelligent
life are pointing away from Earth?

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 01/03/2025 in message <vpv827$92us$[email protected]> Nick Finnigan wrote:

I need to put it into a simple drive info window, drive letter, type, >>capacity, used, available, free space graphic.

I couldn't find a way to link the drive letter to the type, the normal way
just calls it "Fixed" whether it's HD/SSD or NVMe. I have 8 x drives on my server and would have liked to distinguish between them.

get-partition | select disknumber, driveletter, size
get-physicaldisk | select disknumber, mediatype, bustype ?

If anybody is the slightest bit interested I managed to use the Windows Management Service under C# .net 3.5 to write a class that produces a
sorted dictionary linking the drive letter to what Microsoft calls the "Friendly Name" so you can use the drive letter as a key into the
dictionary.

You have to accept that "CT1000MX500SSD1" is regarded as a friendly name
but that's down to Crucial, my Sabrent returns "Sabrent Rocket 4.0 500GB".

Anybody wants a copy email me (reply to is valid) it's 3 KB.

Thanks for the encouragement :-)

--
Jeff Gaines Dorset UK
Indecision is the key to flexibility

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 3 Mar 2025 at 14:08:43 GMT, ""Jeff Gaines"" <[email protected]> wrote:

On 01/03/2025 in message <vpv827$92us$[email protected]> Nick Finnigan wrote:

I need to put it into a simple drive info window, drive letter, type,
capacity, used, available, free space graphic.

I couldn't find a way to link the drive letter to the type, the normal way >>> just calls it "Fixed" whether it's HD/SSD or NVMe. I have 8 x drives on my >>> server and would have liked to distinguish between them.

get-partition | select disknumber, driveletter, size
get-physicaldisk | select disknumber, mediatype, bustype ?

If anybody is the slightest bit interested I managed to use the Windows Management Service under C# .net 3.5 to write a class that produces a
sorted dictionary linking the drive letter to what Microsoft calls the "Friendly Name" so you can use the drive letter as a key into the
dictionary.

Of course the drive letter as seen on machine A will not be the same as seen
on machine B, if that drive is mounted remotely.

You have to accept that "CT1000MX500SSD1" is regarded as a friendly name
but that's down to Crucial, my Sabrent returns "Sabrent Rocket 4.0 500GB".

Why don't you just change the name to something sensible?

--
The referendum gave ordinary people a voice, and what they have told us is that their country, its laws and its sovereignty are more important to them than the edicts of anonymous bureaucrats striving to rule from nowhere.

Roger Scruton, 12th July 2016.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 03/03/2025 16:19, Jeff Gaines wrote:

On 03/03/2025 in message <[email protected]> Tim Streater wrote:

On 3 Mar 2025 at 14:08:43 GMT, ""Jeff Gaines"" <[email protected]>
wrote:

On 01/03/2025 in message <vpv827$92us$[email protected]> Nick Finnigan
wrote:

I need to put it into a simple drive info window, drive letter, type, >>>>> capacity, used, available, free space graphic.

I couldn't find a way to link the drive letter to the type, the
normal way
 just calls it "Fixed" whether it's HD/SSD or NVMe. I have 8 x
drives on my
 server and would have liked to distinguish between them.

get-partition | select disknumber, driveletter, size
get-physicaldisk | select disknumber, mediatype, bustype ?

If anybody is the slightest bit interested I managed to use the Windows
Management Service under C# .net 3.5 to write a class that produces a
sorted dictionary linking the drive letter to what Microsoft calls the
"Friendly Name" so you can use the drive letter as a key into the
dictionary.

Of course the drive letter as seen on machine A will not be the same
as seen
on machine B, if that drive is mounted remotely.

I mounted one of the server drives as "Z" and it shows as "Z" with the correct drive name (as used on the server) and sizes but the type is "Unknown", I would think WMI only works on the local machine.

You can use WMI to a remote machine if the firewall and credentials are
set up correctly...

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/wmisdk/connecting-to-wmi-on-a-remote-computer

You have to accept that "CT1000MX500SSD1" is regarded as a friendly name >>> but that's down to Crucial, my Sabrent returns "Sabrent Rocket 4.0
500GB".

Why don't you just change the name to something sensible?

The "friendly name" is built into the firmware, the drive name for that
one is "DataBack".

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 03/03/2025 in message <[email protected]> Tim Streater
wrote:

On 3 Mar 2025 at 14:08:43 GMT, ""Jeff Gaines"" <[email protected]>
wrote:

On 01/03/2025 in message <vpv827$92us$[email protected]> Nick Finnigan
wrote:

I need to put it into a simple drive info window, drive letter, type, >>>>capacity, used, available, free space graphic.

I couldn't find a way to link the drive letter to the type, the normal >>>>way
just calls it "Fixed" whether it's HD/SSD or NVMe. I have 8 x drives on my
server and would have liked to distinguish between them.

get-partition | select disknumber, driveletter, size
get-physicaldisk | select disknumber, mediatype, bustype ?

If anybody is the slightest bit interested I managed to use the Windows >>Management Service under C# .net 3.5 to write a class that produces a >>sorted dictionary linking the drive letter to what Microsoft calls the >>"Friendly Name" so you can use the drive letter as a key into the >>dictionary.

Of course the drive letter as seen on machine A will not be the same as
seen
on machine B, if that drive is mounted remotely.

I mounted one of the server drives as "Z" and it shows as "Z" with the
correct drive name (as used on the server) and sizes but the type is
"Unknown", I would think WMI only works on the local machine.

You have to accept that "CT1000MX500SSD1" is regarded as a friendly name >>but that's down to Crucial, my Sabrent returns "Sabrent Rocket 4.0 500GB".

Why don't you just change the name to something sensible?

The "friendly name" is built into the firmware, the drive name for that
one is "DataBack".

--
Jeff Gaines Dorset UK
I was standing in the park wondering why Frisbees got bigger as they get closer.
Then it hit me.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 3 Mar 2025 at 15:19:38 GMT, ""Jeff Gaines"" <[email protected]> wrote:

On 03/03/2025 in message <[email protected]> Tim Streater wrote:

On 3 Mar 2025 at 14:08:43 GMT, ""Jeff Gaines"" <[email protected]>
wrote:

I mounted one of the server drives as "Z" and it shows as "Z" with the

correct drive name (as used on the server) and sizes but the type is "Unknown", I would think WMI only works on the local machine.

You have to accept that "CT1000MX500SSD1" is regarded as a friendly name >>> but that's down to Crucial, my Sabrent returns "Sabrent Rocket 4.0 500GB". >>

Why don't you just change the name to something sensible?

The "friendly name" is built into the firmware, the drive name for that
one is "DataBack".

So "DataBack"is the actual friendly name. Just give them all actual friendly names.

--
"A committee is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled." - Sir Barnett Cocks (1907-1989)

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 03/03/2025 in message <[email protected]> Tim Streater
wrote:

The "friendly name" is built into the firmware, the drive name for that
one is "DataBack".

So "DataBack"is the actual friendly name. Just give them all actual
friendly
names.

DataBack is the functional name, the "friendly name" reflects the manufacturer/type.

--
Jeff Gaines Dorset UK
The first five days after the weekend are the hardest.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 01/03/2025 03:34, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

On 28/02/2025 11:58, SteveW wrote:

On 28/02/2025 09:35, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

On 27/02/2025 22:17, David Wade wrote:

On 27/02/2025 22:01, ajh wrote:

On 27/02/2025 19:21, David Wade wrote:

Clone to a new SSD and use for backup or bin it after wiping it.
Hard disks slow as they fragment. Windows does some defragging but >>>>>> they still slow.

SSDs don't slow. I haven't had a HDD

This is probably a good idea, which program do you suggest?

de-fragging or cloning...
.. I usually buy an SSD that has a cloning programming ....

.. de-fragging - waste of time. its like trying to stop the tide...

Uneccessary on SSD as well. The seek time is zero.

Not only unnecessary, but advised not to be used.

and not even wrong :-)

+1.
FSTRIMming is the advised treatment IIRC

Windows *does* "defrag" SSDs (although defrag is called "Optimize
Drives" these days) - but it understands the technology and does not
rack up additional SSD writes for no good reason.

File fragmentation still happens on SSDs however because the seek
latency is not affected by the fragmentation you don't get the
performance hit that you would with a HDD. However when a file is
fragmented there needs to be meta data maintained that tracks where
those fragments are - so as the fragmentation increases, so does the
size of the meta data. As that needs to be read, updated, and written to
the SSD, and that *does* reduce performance a bit (and also means that
badly fragmented files will result in additional write operations to
track those fragments).

More significantly however there are a maximum number of fragments that
the meta data can track. So if you have a file hit that limit, then any
further writes or attempts to extend that file would fail.

Optimisation also takes care of running re-trim operations (which mops
up any actual trim notifications that were abandoned because the number
of queued trims at the time the file was deleted had reached its maximum length).

There is a resonable explanation here:

https://www.hanselman.com/blog/the-real-and-complete-story-does-windows-defragment-your-ssd


--
Cheers,

John.

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On Mon, 3/3/2025 11:05 AM, Tim Streater wrote:

On 3 Mar 2025 at 15:19:38 GMT, ""Jeff Gaines"" <[email protected]> wrote:

On 03/03/2025 in message <[email protected]> Tim Streater
wrote:

On 3 Mar 2025 at 14:08:43 GMT, ""Jeff Gaines"" <[email protected]>
wrote:

I mounted one of the server drives as "Z" and it shows as "Z" with the

correct drive name (as used on the server) and sizes but the type is
"Unknown", I would think WMI only works on the local machine.

You have to accept that "CT1000MX500SSD1" is regarded as a friendly name >>>> but that's down to Crucial, my Sabrent returns "Sabrent Rocket 4.0 500GB". >>>

Why don't you just change the name to something sensible?

The "friendly name" is built into the firmware, the drive name for that
one is "DataBack".

So "DataBack"is the actual friendly name. Just give them all actual friendly names.

The physical disks are the whole disk drive, which could have multiple partitions with a label for each partition. The FriendlyName is the manufacturer identifier as you would see in the catalog. The second
line here, is an 870 EVO 2.5" SATA drive. I removed its serial number
from the example.

get-physicaldisk

Number FriendlyName SerialNumber MediaType CanPool OperationalStatus HealthStatus Usage Size
------ ------------ ------------ --------- ------- ----------------- ------------ ----- ----
1 PassMark osfdisk Unspecified True OK Healthy Auto-Select 87.89 GB
0 Samsung SSD 870 EVO 4TB ************ SSD True OK Healthy Auto-Select 3.64 TB

And because the operating system is rather confused about
the PassMark ramdisk, it keeps calling the stupid thing
"Fiber Channel" connected. Which it is not. There is no
Device Manager entry, and the labeling is based on
a WinSAT erroneous evaluation, rather than a chain of
PNP information. The MediaType in the above table is
more accurate, as it says "unspecified", which is
true to a large extent. No purpose would be served
by declaring a MediaType either. Or it would bust
the behavior in the Optimize (defragment) panel.

If instead, you do a Volume listing or a Partition listing,
then the "label" of the file system can be listed, which
might be "Backup2025" or whatever.

You can see these properties in the text-based "diskpart.exe",
which can "list partitions" or "list volumes" for you. And
then some of this Powershell goodness, can do a similar thing.

[Administrator terminal]
diskpart.exe
list disk
select disk 0
list partition
select partition 3
detail partition

Partition 3
Type : ebd0a0a2-b9e5-4433-87c0-68b6b72699c7
Hidden : No
Required: No
Attrib : 0000000000000000
Offset in Bytes: 122683392

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- -------- * Volume 0 C W11HOME NTFS Partition 118 GB Healthy Boot

The "W11HOME" is the same as the "DATABACK" idea, it's the label field.

Paul

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