Personal computing discussed

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Waco
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Re: Easiest to use disk cloning tool

Mon Sep 16, 2013 1:42 pm

PainIs4ThaWeak1 wrote:
just brew it! wrote:
...thereby giving her twice as many places where she can "lose" files? :wink:


Now you're just playing Devil's Advocate. So I give up.

To be honest he's really not...there are a huge number of people that really don't know and don't want to learn how to use the computers that they use daily.

I keep things as simple as possible for friends/family because they really don't care to learn how to use what they have properly. One large drive makes that simple. Two drives makes it painful.


Step-by-step instructions on how to do something once is much easier than changing the way they use their machines every day.
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just brew it!
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Re: Easiest to use disk cloning tool

Mon Sep 16, 2013 1:56 pm

Waco wrote:
To be honest he's really not...there are a huge number of people that really don't know and don't want to learn how to use the computers that they use daily.

Indeed. As I noted previously, my examples really did come from real life. Both of those people have been using PCs for years, are intelligent people, and yet, still have only the fuzziest of notions regarding how the Windows file system is laid out. They obviously don't care, and don't want to care about stuff like that.
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flip-mode
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Re: Easiest to use disk cloning tool

Mon Sep 16, 2013 3:03 pm

Waco wrote:
To be honest he's really not...there are a huge number of people that really don't know and don't want to learn how to use the computers that they use daily.

It's true; it's very, very true.

Oh, on topic, Macrium Reflect is perfectly easy to use. As a bonus, you can use it for scheduled full disk backups once you get the disk transfer out of the way. Of course, since the target user doesn't understand how to use two hard drives, you'd be playing Mr Tech Support if the disk backup ever needed to be recovered, but I think that goes without saying.
 
Waco
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Re: Easiest to use disk cloning tool

Mon Sep 16, 2013 3:47 pm

just brew it! wrote:
They obviously don't care, and don't want to care about stuff like that.

I think this bothers me more than anything. I don't get the "I just use it, I don't care how it works" attitude that many people have these days.
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just brew it!
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Re: Easiest to use disk cloning tool

Mon Sep 16, 2013 3:56 pm

Waco wrote:
just brew it! wrote:
They obviously don't care, and don't want to care about stuff like that.

I think this bothers me more than anything. I don't get the "I just use it, I don't care how it works" attitude that many people have these days.

And the flip side is, those people will say "Why should I need to understand details like that just to send e-mail, write Word documents, or create spreadsheets?" And yes, it makes me crazy too sometimes; but they also kind of have a point.
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Flatland_Spider
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Re: Easiest to use disk cloning tool

Mon Sep 16, 2013 4:17 pm

Computers are incredibly sophisticated machines, and most people have better things to do then learn how they work. Apple gets this, and that's why they have had a focus on usability. (To tie in another thread.)
 
flip-mode
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Re: Easiest to use disk cloning tool

Mon Sep 16, 2013 4:33 pm

Flatland_Spider wrote:
Computers are incredibly sophisticated machines, and most people have better things to do then learn how they work. Apple gets this, and that's why they have had a focus on usability. (To tie in another thread.)

This is true. I work with a bunch of very smart people that don't know much at all about how the computer works. They're busy figuring out how to put buildings together. I've been putting much less time into keeping up on computer stuff lately so that I can put more time into the architecture stuff. Doing both at the same time with any degree of depth is impossible. Granted, we're only talking about using two hard drives in this case. There is at least a minimum amount of knowledge that people should try to attain. If you're going to be that ignorant then you should not own a computer, or, well, you should be willing to pay through the nose for tech support to keep you from screwing yourself.
 
Waco
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Re: Easiest to use disk cloning tool

Mon Sep 16, 2013 4:58 pm

just brew it! wrote:
And the flip side is, those people will say "Why should I need to understand details like that just to send e-mail, write Word documents, or create spreadsheets?" And yes, it makes me crazy too sometimes; but they also kind of have a point.

I guess I have a skewed viewpoint as well -- I do systems programming. If I don't understand how things work I can't possibly do my job.

flip-mode wrote:
There is at least a minimum amount of knowledge that people should try to attain.

Some people define the minimum as "it works well enough that I don't care". Sometimes this is okay...sometimes this leads to 1000 toolbars installed in IE.
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flip-mode
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Re: Easiest to use disk cloning tool

Mon Sep 16, 2013 5:26 pm

Waco wrote:
just brew it! wrote:
And the flip side is, those people will say "Why should I need to understand details like that just to send e-mail, write Word documents, or create spreadsheets?" And yes, it makes me crazy too sometimes; but they also kind of have a point.

I guess I have a skewed viewpoint as well -- I do systems programming. If I don't understand how things work I can't possibly do my job.

flip-mode wrote:
There is at least a minimum amount of knowledge that people should try to attain.

Some people define the minimum as "it works well enough that I don't care". Sometimes this is okay...sometimes this leads to 1000 toolbars installed in IE.

I'm not going by some people's definition. :wink:
 
Flatland_Spider
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Re: Easiest to use disk cloning tool

Mon Sep 16, 2013 5:28 pm

flip-mode wrote:
There is at least a minimum amount of knowledge that people should try to attain.


Or just use a tablet.

I agree with you.

Of course, it's also on the programmers to crate tools and paradigms that are easy to understand and use. The drive letters in Windows are a good example of a paradigm that should have been ditched a long time ago.

If you're going to be that ignorant then you should not own a computer, or, well, you should be willing to pay through the nose for tech support to keep you from screwing yourself.


Indeed. :)
 
Ryhadar
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Re: Easiest to use disk cloning tool

Fri Oct 04, 2013 9:49 am

I had remembered after I posted this that I had a copy of Acronis True Image 11 so I gave that a shot first and it worked out great on my VM.

Tools -> Options -> Clone -> Automatic. Done. She's loving the speed of her new SSHDD.

I'll definitely be using this thread in the future though for future family member conundrums. :D Thanks again for the suggestions everyone.
 
ordskiweicz
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Re: Easiest to use disk cloning tool

Fri Dec 06, 2013 10:09 am

On the thread topic - I have just used Macrium to clone a few disks based on the suggestions of TR forums and found it great. I did my first clone on the trial but bought it because its so good.

I had used Acronis for some years - but the 2013 version was terrible and they somehow couldn't support the sn from my prior version for an upgrade.

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