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Post by grey_matters on Nov 10, 2021 20:34:23 GMT
SSD boot drive failure (OCZ effort with a bad reputation, never got around to installing the replacement).  What's the best way to het a Win10 activation key these days? |
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Post by dfunked on Nov 10, 2021 20:53:48 GMT
You shouldn't need a Windows key if it was activated previously. Just get a new SSD and do a clean install and choose not to enter a key. When it's finished installing it'll just connect to the interweb and activate based on your other hardware.
OCZ Agility? Those things were notorious!
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KD
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Post by KD on Nov 10, 2021 21:08:51 GMT
I believe its a new motherboard that makes you need another code.
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Post by grey_matters on Nov 10, 2021 21:38:13 GMT
You shouldn't need a Windows key if it was activated previously. Just get a new SSD and do a clean install and choose not to enter a key. When it's finished installing it'll just connect to the interweb and activate based on your other hardware. OCZ Agility? Those things were notorious! I know, and I've had the replacement sitting there for 2 years so I can only blame myself. Good news on the key front, thanks both! |
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Post by One_Vurfed_Gwrx on Nov 10, 2021 21:56:21 GMT
So when I finally upgrade my mobo and CPU my Win 10 key will stop working and I will need a new one? Ugh.
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Post by grey_matters on Nov 10, 2021 22:06:30 GMT
So when I finally upgrade my mobo and CPU my Win 10 key will stop working and I will need a new one? Ugh. I think there's a way around this too. Especially as it will be planned. Can't think what it is though. I think my brother contacted customer support and got it sorted that way, however unlikely that sounds. |
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malek86
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Post by malek86 on Nov 10, 2021 22:37:45 GMT
It's a lot easier if you have a Windows online account. When I upgraded my mobo and CPU, it recognized my account and just worked.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 10, 2021 22:39:19 GMT
I think there's a way to unlink your Windows key, which would let you use it on another PC.
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malek86
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Post by malek86 on Nov 17, 2021 12:25:24 GMT
So I'm definitely going to pick up a NVMe during the next Black Friday. Even if there are no good deals, it's about time I get one anyway. I'll probably go for a budget model, the Kingston A2000 is looking decent. I have also never had any trouble with Kingston in the past. Though if you people want to dissuade me for any reason, this is your chance.
Only need to decide if I want to splurge extra for a 1TB model, or just go for 500GB, since I already have a 1TB SATA SSD that I use for storage and games, and I still believe in that probably outdated idea that people should have a smaller hard drive for the OS and the most played games, and a bigger hard drive for everything else (it's convenient when you want to format or need to clone the drive, especially since M2s can't be just swapped easily).
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Post by dfunked on Nov 17, 2021 12:34:30 GMT
Yeah, I like to be able to just format my boot drive at the drop of a hat without worrying about losing anything important, so went with a 500GB boot drive.
1TB could be useful for the future if this direct storage stuff actually makes a difference and you want to have more than a handful of games on it, so possibly worth splurging...
Very helpful post!
Can't say that I've had any recent experience with Kingston, but Sabrent Rockets have always been good for a budget option for me.
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malek86
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Post by malek86 on Nov 17, 2021 12:51:57 GMT
I currently have a 250GB SATA M2 as boot drive, which is only 70GB full, and a 1TB SATA SSD for storage, which is only 310GB full. Realistically, I wouldn't even need a new hard drive until DirectStorage becomes an actual thing instead of a paper concept.
But I had this half idea of upgrading to a NVMe for future proofing, then putting the M2 in an USB enclosure and recycling it on the Series S for backward compatible games, to give the internal drive some relief.
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Post by Phattso on Nov 17, 2021 13:02:49 GMT
If it's not a PCI-Express V4 NVMe drive then it's potentially not future proofed. I don't think they've said what the requirement is. I believe the Series X is about PCI-Express 3 speed though, so that might be enough. It's becoming a bit of a minefield.
Aside from DirectStorage though, NVMe has been transformational for me on the laptop I bought this year. Sadly only PCI-E V3, but it spanks the old SSD I had so hard it actually stunned me somewhat. I thought I was cool with my previous storage solution, but NVMe shits all over it for day to day use. The system is just soooo sooo snappy and responsive.
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Post by Phattso on Nov 17, 2021 13:03:31 GMT
(I too will be supplementing my existing drive with another during Black Friday - the 1TB I have is already more than half full  ) |
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malek86
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Post by malek86 on Nov 17, 2021 13:22:35 GMT
They already confirmed that DirectStorage will work with PCIE 3.0. The Kingston A2000, though relatively slow, is Gen3 x4 so it should be fine.
Almost all modern drives are at least Gen3, so they should work regardless of speed. Whether they will work well... who knows. But I don't want an uberfast drive. The slot is directly below the GPU, which is already hot enough as is.
(and well, my mobo doesn't support 4.0 anyway)
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Post by Phattso on Nov 17, 2021 13:26:26 GMT
Ah, cool, that's good to know; thanks for the info. I believe the PS5 runs, basically, as PCI-E V4 speeds so any games for that which come to PC may struggle on V3. But, realistically, there are never going to be games that actually truly properly *require* that speed are there? So it's all good. |
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KD
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Post by KD on Nov 17, 2021 13:33:41 GMT
I’m the person who wants more, I have a 1tb nvme boot drive + game pass apps, 2 x 1tb SSD for more games and 2x 2tb 7200 rpm HDD older drives for data.
Just upgrading slowly and eyeing one of those HDD’s for my ps2 soon.
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malek86
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Post by malek86 on Nov 17, 2021 13:37:03 GMT
Hard to say. The PS5 itself has a Gen4 drive. But so far, DF's own tests showed that even Ratchet and Clank performs effectively the same on a relatively slow 3200MB/s Gen4 as it does on the faster internal drive (makes you think it could even be done on the Series X), so maybe we just don't have anything that requires the full speed of the PS5 yet. Who knows if we ever will.
And anyway, with a RX480 that I probably won't be able to upgrade for a while, the hard drive speed should be the least of my concerns.
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Post by stuz359 on Nov 17, 2021 20:25:08 GMT
I keep wondering the best way to upgrade my PC.
My 256gb NVME isn't really cutting it, so thinking of upgrading that first. Gen 4 are back compatible iirc.
Then I think the PSU would have to be upgraded if I wanted (or could find) a new GPU.
Then I think a new Mobo Cpu combi bundle with RAM. Keep wondering whether to get a new case at that point as well with more expandable storage bays, then concentrating on upgrading storage via NVME drives for a while.
My GPU is probably the last thing to upgrade, but I will give it a while yet. It's a 1070 so is still a pretty strong rasteriser for now, so most games, minus RT goodness still run pretty well and it's likely to be the most expensive part of a new upgrade.
Pretty much going to be the whole of next year upgrading. Can't rationalise one massive outlay but lots of increments, maybe.
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malek86
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Post by malek86 on Nov 18, 2021 23:19:41 GMT
I ended up getting a Kingston KC2500. A bit above what I wanted, but it looked more reliable than the usual budget drive and the sale price was good enough. I also bought that USB enclosure, so I can reuse my old M2 drive on the console.
Now i just need to decide how to go about moving everything to the new drive. I only have one M2 slot on the motherboard.
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Post by stuz359 on Nov 19, 2021 7:36:32 GMT
I ended up getting a Kingston KC2500. A bit above what I wanted, but it looked more reliable than the usual budget drive and the sale price was good enough. I also bought that USB enclosure, so I can reuse my old M2 drive on the console. Now i just need to decide how to go about moving everything to the new drive. I only have one M2 slot on the motherboard. Can you create a clone image of your current drive onto a mechanical drive and boot/transfer from that? |
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Post by dfunked on Nov 19, 2021 8:16:41 GMT
Yeah, clone to an image file with Macrium or whatever instead of a disk to disk clone if you've got the space elsewhere.
Or as I think you mentioned elsewhere, get a caddy for the old M.2 drive.
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malek86
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Post by malek86 on Nov 19, 2021 9:02:03 GMT
I have enough space on my secondary drive to create an image, but I'd still need to get to Windows. I could always use a Macrium Reflect boot drive.
Or do you mean I could literally create a new partition on the secondary drive that contained the cloned M2 drive, and then boot from that? That's possible too, but I want to be sure that I'm not going to make a mess, partinioning a drive already half full.
Alternatively, I could move the M2 drive to the caddie, start Windows from there, and clone away. I assume there aren't going to be any issues with starting Windows from USB? And I'm not going to have any trouble with drive letters and stuff?
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Post by dfunked on Nov 19, 2021 9:07:14 GMT
Definitely do it all from a Macrium boot drive. Clone existing drive to image and then shut down and plop the new drive in and restore from image to that. The image will just be a file on your existing partition on your stuff drive.
Or if you go the caddy route, put the new drive in and the old one in the caddy and boot from Macrium and do the clone there.
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Post by Phattso on Nov 19, 2021 9:24:02 GMT
Oooooh, a 2TB Samsung 970 Evo Plus for £170 on Amazon's Black Friday week. That's about the right speed for my laptop, and would be all the additional storage I'll reasonably need for the foreseeable. Result.
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malek86
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Post by malek86 on Nov 19, 2021 9:27:19 GMT
Definitely do it all from a Macrium boot drive. Clone existing drive to image and then shut down and plop the new drive in and restore from image to that. The image will just be a file on your existing partition on your stuff drive. Or if you go the caddy route, put the new drive in and the old one in the caddy and boot from Macrium and do the clone there. Yeah, I think I'm gonna do the latter. Sound safer and less complicated. Meanwhile, I'm gonna test some loading times on the Series S, so I can compare them to the M2 drive when I connect it to the console. This WD Blue always felt pretty slow, even for SATA. It's why I didn't wanna go for Western Digital again. I do hope going for just 500GB won't bite me in the ass. I don't play a lot of big games, so for now the secondary SATA will probably do. But I guess even then, it would just be a matter of adding a PCI-E adapter for another NVMe drive. |
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Post by malek86 on Nov 20, 2021 19:17:57 GMT
Crap, the cloning isn't working... no matter what I tried, Windows blue screened as soon as I try to boot. I tried direct cloning, I tried keeping the exact same partition, I even tried creating an image file and then writing from that. Nothing worked.
In the end, I just reinstalled Windows. Screw it, luckily the process is fairly simple nowadays. Time to reinstall a few essential programs and I'm back in business. Good thing Steam just recovers itself.
Too bad, last time I cloned the netbook hard drive to a new SSD it went painlessly. I don't know what went wrong this time.
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Post by Phattso on Nov 27, 2021 10:31:25 GMT
Because I know you've all been chomping at the bit to know which mouse I've bought, I can exclusively reveal that I went with the Corsair Dark Core Pro SE RGB monstrosity in the end. What swung it over the Logitechs was that it uses the iCUE software I already have for the keyboard on this laptop... and I kinda liked the look of it more.
Anyway, it's hands down the most transformative mouse upgrade I've ever made. Fuck me, how was I limping along with the old one for the last five fucking years?! Back into Deathloop and I'm pulling off headshots at distance that I couldn't even get close to before, and it all feels so... fucking... good.
Four additional buttons in easy reach now too, and I'm gonna start messing with remapping some controls RIGHT NOW!
(also bought that 2TB Samsung 970 Pro NVMe, bringin the storage on this thing to 3TB which even I shouldn't be able to fill with sample packs and virtual instruments... right?)
All in all, Black Friday was good to me this year. Can't believe the LG C1 TVs got such steep reductions, though, when last year the CX got next to fuck all in most places!
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malek86
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Post by malek86 on Nov 30, 2021 20:10:10 GMT
Just got the prompt to upgrade to Windows 11. Since they fixed the Ryzen issue, I went for it.
Seems more or less the same as before, just all a bit uglier.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 30, 2021 20:15:30 GMT
Win 11: Win 10, but the big ugly box is in the center of the screen.
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malek86
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Post by malek86 on Nov 30, 2021 20:22:48 GMT
Oh yeah, first thing I did was realign that to the left. Dunno what they were thinking there.
There's one good thing though, snap dragging and auto-resizing seems much more reliable. Really good to make the most of my ultrawide.
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