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Brilliant, thank you.

This is cool but you should check out LICEcap by Cockos. I use it frequently for creating tiny, animated-GIF screencaps when OBS would be too much hassle. Stretch a window over all or part of your screen and invoke the record command. Done.

Holy crap, Merc. How long have you been holding out on me? This is a veritable goldmine! 😂

Yes. It was the subject of this thread. I lack discipline when it comes to backups. Most nights I'm too lazy to even plug in my USB drives for a local backup. But how is Macrium different than something like Clonezilla or DriveImage XML? Is it automated? Does it have a huge installation...

It's an i7-6700HQ, so 6th gen. Still does the work so I'd rather not spend the money.

It's security theater.

Okay; Plot twist: A few months ago I tried to access company email on my P50. I went through the 2FA rigamarole but was ultimately unable to gain access. The next workday, my local IT guys told me that I'd unwittingly enrolled my machine in MS Intune and said they'd un-enroll me. Shortly...

Oh, I've been using Rufus forever. Didn't know it could do that. Sadly, I started dicking around with swapping drives and at one point when I plugged the drive in question (nVME) back into its slot, the computer booted into a sort of blue screen error which I've thus far been unable to resolve...

My computer tells me it won't run Windows 11 but if I know OS enthusiasts, there's probably a workaround.

I ran a file comparison using Beyond Compare between the P50's current drive and the previous drive (of which it's a recent clone) but there were tens of thousands of differences which I couldn't possibly parse in any meaningful way. I'm thinking maybe a registry comparison would might provide...

The remote IP address appears to belong to Microsoft.

Here's another TinyWall screenshot from after a fresh reboot. Dunno yet if it reveals anything meaningful about my situation. Note that one of those svchost processes is now using IPV6. Also note that the remote address is now .217 instead of .216

TinyWall didn't solve anything directly but I filtered its connections window to show only active connections and it displayed an svchost process and something called MuseHub (which I promptly uninstalled). Then later it briefly showed MsSense.exe. I looked up the remote IP address...

New observation: 07:15 Invoked Windows 10's Network Reset function. Didn't work. I'm thinking of installing a third-party firewall like TinyWall to see if it doesn't knock something loose.

Also, the time on the P50 keeps slipping four hours ahead for some reason, even though I keep manually setting it. Speaking of which, I'm falling asleep at my desk so I'm going to have to pick this up in the morning. Thanks for all the help so far, fam. 🙏💤

Didn't work.

Yes, although I only connected to the internet; I didn't try to connect to the router but I would imagine that works, too.

I feel you, bro. I have that same tenacity. I've spent the last 14 hours (minus nap time) banging my head against this. I just know that at some point I'm going to want to use my computer for something other than troubleshooting itself. Right. No, not from the P50. Only from my much older...

I've been derelict in my backup routine but I actually do have a copy of this system on the drive I swapped out a few weeks ago. I like a fresh system as much as the next guy but the thought of spending hours reinstalling and configuring all my software is more objectionable than the thought of...

Ha, same, actually. I just tried it. No error.

I've booted into Ubuntu live environment again and am scanning the Windows partition with ClamAV. ... Now scanning with Kaspersky Rescue Disk.

I'm digging through the Windows Event Viewer hoping to find clues.

I'll try that. I just booted into the recovery environment and uninstalled the most recent Windows Update but that didn't help. Also, I just noticed that the system time on my P50 was set 4 hours ahead, to 20:00 when it's only 16:00. I don't know if it's a cause or a symptom but it's always...

Okay, I just tried setting a manual IP using the Windows 10 Settings dialog and it won't save.

Right, that's what netsh int ip reset does. I've tried that half a dozen times already. This is something more nefarious.

Yes, sorry, the machine is picking up an IP over DHCP on both Ethernet and WiFi. Aside from my phone this laptop is the only device on the LAN, but I can't even access the router. I tried manual DNS; I'll try setting a manual IP. Yes, with Malwarebytes. I downloaded a new installer on...

Last night I was using my Thinkpad P50 (Windows 22H2) as usual. When I went to bed I simply left it—as I often do—in situ without putting it to sleep. This morning the internet and local network are completely inaccessible. All browsers report that the internet has been blocked. Running a ping...

As usual, Merc, you're right. I thought there was some kind of invisible system file hogging all the space but it was just various bits of image and audio data that I'd been neglecting to clear out. Whatsapp media made up the bulk of it. Another contributing factor was my Google One account...

There's no easy correlation I can establish between that green block and any particular piece of software.

Today my Pixel 4a started throwing warnings about low storage space. This seemed unusual because my usage is pretty consistent and I tend to stay on top of clearing out old files. But as you can see from the green rectangle in the DiskUsage screenshot, there's are 56.3 GB of data unaccounted...

Okay, on second glance I have definitely seen Roblox in passing, here and there. I don't know if it's possible or practical to try and sanitize online spaces. It'd certainly be a hell of an undertaking. I think it's wise for parents to heavily moderate the online activities of their younger...

...aaaaand I don't even know what that is. Guess I must be old.

My sister is trying to maintain control over her kids' internet time. When all devices used a single MAC address it was fairly simple to block an individual device on the fly. But now that all phones have inbuilt MAC address spoofing, managing access has become a lot trickier. I've proposed...

Yeah, so I tried in Ubuntu using the Disks control panel and while it didn't error out like IMGburn in Windows, it basically returned a long string of unreadable errors. The disc reads fine in Windows. I'm going to get a new (secondhand) drive and try again.

Oh, cool. I hadn't heard of this before. I guess that's what happens when your interests shift away from gaming for a couple of decades. 😂

Truth is I'm entirely disinterested in ripping and burning Blu-Ray discs. I just want to play my old games without needing the disc in the drive, or even a drive.

Oh, right, MakeMKV forums. Got it.

How about the Asus BC-12B1ST? Someone's selling one near me for CAD$50

Oh, great. Another forum rabbit hole. Thanks a LOT. 😂

I've actually never owned a BluRay drive or disc.

How old are we talking? Any models in particular to put on my watch list?

Ah, good idea.

If not then it might just be these old drives and I'll pick up a new one. Any recommendations for a bullet-proof optical drive that'll read just about anything? I remember some LG and Lite-On models were really good back in the day, as was a Plextor I had, but that was a long time ago.

Is it possible that some of my old game CDs (Ultima IX, Unreal Tournament) have some kind of protection that allows them to be read but not ripped to disk images? I've tried imaging them from two different optical drives using both Daemon Tools Lite and IMGBurn but am getting errors. Other CDs...

I dunno if I'd use flash for long-term mass storage. I mean, how recoverable are these drives? With spinning rust I know there are pretty good odds of recovery. Also, how much is 8TB of flash? A lot more than 8TB of HDD, I'm guessing.

Yeah, I don't know why I typed 3.5". The drive with the integrated USB board was one of those 2.5" portables. I think I ended up soldering leads directly to it. It was a long time ago. What do you use?

As I'm typing this the new drive blinks off and back on again, completely at random. Maybe I'll use the new power adapter after all...

Yeah, I've encountered those. 500GB 3.5" spinners From WD, if memory serves, with a damaged USB 3 Micro B connector (worst connector ever?). I thought I could pop the drive out and pop it into an enclosure but nope!

Ah, were they all from a particular brand? I tested the power adapter and it appears to be working. I left it in place and it's currently powering the replacement enclosure.

On a side note I really like the GDrive enclosure and wish I could salvage it but the board has like 30 components, many of them ICs and is probably beyond my skills as a repair technician. None of the capacitors look swollen and that's about as far as I'm willing to investigate. 😁