For some time now I have been having problems with USB and my hard drive letters. Over the course of a day or three, with the exception of C:, hard drives letters would vanish. I have C, W, X and Y. C is an SSD on the motherboard with the other three normal hard drives at 10, 10 and 8 TB. The other problem I had was the computer locking up as the system was scanning for a missing USB drive, even if I ejected them using the correct process. The exception was any Samsung phone that I tried to eject without success.
- All of this seems to have been solved with a Bios update. As a general rule of thumb, if you are not having any problems with your computer then do not do a Bios update. The exception might be if you are after a specific feature that a Bios update will give you. If you are running your drives in a Raid configuration then check carefully before doing the update. In my case I booted into the EZ Bios, went to tools and selected the update over the Internet option. This will not work over WiFi, you need that cable connected. After a few reboots and a final selection of "use defaults" I was back up and so far none of the issues I was having has reappeared. Your motherboard manufacturer will have a recommended way of doing a Bios update so follow their directions closely. I also recommend finding a how to YouTube or equivalent video to watch to give you a good overview of the process.
- I've been doing some deep diving into the whole Windows 11 update process and what I've found has convinced me not to upgrade from Windows 10, let me explain. Windows only supports UEFI Bios not the older Bios types. That takes us back about nine years but there are a lot of older computers out there. Next, Secure Boot must be turned up to boot the system with the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) also required. So what? I mean it all sounds so comforting. Secure Boot requires that the start-up boot loader be signed by a security key. By default, many systems just ship with the security key for Microsoft and no other systems. If you want to run say Linux or BSD in the past you just turned Secure Boot off and injected the necessary keys. Low level diagnostic and recovery tools typically require this to be turned off. Putting this another way, the software you run on your computer should not have to be signed by Microsoft before you can run it.
- Can you see where this is going? TPM works via Bit Locker to hand over the keys to Secure Boot to then load the Operation System and in some cases this combination of items will encrypt your hard drive for security. Still sounds good right? In reality it adds to the control Microsoft has over your computer and the endgame is you need to ask Microsoft for any help you may need to recover keys and data if something goes wrong. With TPM turned on Microsoft holds the trust. This trust is then passed onto hardware and software makers for them to check that your computer is a trusted platform. If you think about this it is backwards, as it should be you, as the computer owner, who can trust the hardware and software, not the other way round. As of now there are still ways around these controls but it is a short step from here to only rented software and hardware, i.e. like Apple software, you won't own it. The average user won't be too concerned with all of this as they just use their computer for emails, social media and the odd game. For those that push the limits a little then the direction this is heading will be discouraging.
- According to Samsung their head and the head of Intel met recently to discuss a working partnership. Discussions centred around next-gen memory chips, silicon for devices, fabless chip making, factories and other subjects. The two giants don't have a large overlap in their business. Sure, they both make CPUs but they are different. Both are making fabrication plants in the US and Samsung make need to hire some of Intel's as they get theirs built. This collaboration could be great for end-users.
- Elon Musk recently sent out a memo advising his executives that they must spend a minimum of 40 hours a week in the office. After that they can work from home if they wish. He also indicated that this was less than that expected of the factory workers. This flies in the face of what is now a fairly common practice, to spend at least some of your working week working from home. Tesla does not have a PR in house office but they do have a very high executive turnover of 44% for those reporting directly to the CEO compared to an average of 9% at other Silicon Valley companies. This will not make that number any better.
