• Couple of Techy Questins

    From Jeff Gaines@21:1/5 to All on Thu Dec 26 15:54:44 2024
    XPost: uk.d-i-y

    Good afternoon all, I need to stop eating for a while so I thought I'd ask
    a couple of computer related techy questions!

    Firstly I had a frustrating online chat with an alleged human at Amazon yesterday about a courier who walked up my path, reached the front door
    then turned round and went back to his van. I dashed out as I was
    expecting a delivery and he said "oh" or something of that ilk, opened the
    back door of his van and got my package out. If I hadn't seen him it would
    be back at a depot somewhere. I want to communicate with Amazon about this
    and the Amazon chat bot/human has given me an email address allegedly for customer service. I wanted the transcript but apparently I have to go back
    to chat and read it. Is there a way of down-loading it does anybody know?
    I suspect it's a template with the conversation held on a database so the answer is probably "no". In the meantime I printed the screen, scrolled
    down, printed the screen etc. and have 5 x .pngs of it.

    Second one is I would like a computer case that has removable hard drives accessible through individual doors on the front, preferably with a back
    plane so drives can be slid in and out, something like this (link is to Amazon.com):

    https://www.amazon.com/Generic-ZhenLoong-Computer-Workstation-backplane/dp/B0DH4LYCFK

    Ali Express has some but shipping is as much or more as the case! Don't
    mind a used server to strip down as long as it will take an ATX board.

    Happy New Year!

    --
    Jeff Gaines Dorset UK
    This is as bad as it can get, but don't bet on it

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Paul@21:1/5 to Jeff Gaines on Thu Dec 26 14:20:11 2024
    XPost: uk.d-i-y

    On Thu, 12/26/2024 10:54 AM, Jeff Gaines wrote:

    Good afternoon all, I need to stop eating for a while so I thought I'd ask a couple of computer related techy questions!

    Firstly I had a frustrating online chat with an alleged human at Amazon yesterday about a courier who walked up my path, reached the front door then turned round and went back to his van. I dashed out as I was expecting a delivery and he said "oh" or
    something of that ilk, opened the back door of his van and got my package out. If I hadn't seen him it would be back at a depot somewhere. I want to communicate with Amazon about this and the Amazon chat bot/human has given me an email address allegedly
    for customer service. I wanted the transcript but apparently I have to go back to chat and read it. Is there a way of down-loading it does anybody know? I suspect it's a template with the conversation held on a database so the answer is probably "no". In
    the meantime I printed the screen, scrolled down, printed the screen etc. and have 5 x .pngs of it.

    Second one is I would like a computer case that has removable hard drives accessible through individual doors on the front, preferably with a back plane so drives can be slid in and out, something like this (link is to Amazon.com):

    https://www.amazon.com/Generic-ZhenLoong-Computer-Workstation-backplane/dp/B0DH4LYCFK

    Ali Express has some but shipping is as much or more as the case! Don't mind a used server to strip down as long as it will take an ATX board.

    Happy New Year!


    This is just an enclosure. Presumably the drives slide on
    their side surfaces. The door is there, to provide leverage
    to propel the drive out of the backplane connector.

    https://www.startech.com/en-ca/hdd/hsb4satsasba

    That particular one, does not come with a power supply.
    The two SATA 15p powering four drives, could deliver 1.5 amps
    on +12V per drive, during spinup, which is OK but not a lot of excess
    ampacity. When you use large capacity drives, the drives
    are designed to take a long time to spin up. On a 1TB boot
    drive, it draws more current, but the spinup time is only
    1 second. I can barely catch the peak current on my clamp-on
    DC ammeter that makes one measurement per second. Whereas
    a large capacity helium drive takes forever to spin up
    and the peak current on that is less than the 1TB drive.
    Once spinup is achieved, the choice of using SATA 15p connectors
    on the outside of the enclosure is no longer a concern.

    The current trend on motherboards, is reduced numbers of
    PCIe slots, as well as reduced numbers of SATA ports (down
    from 6 to 4 ports). a new gadget has come out, an NVMe stick
    with 6 SATA data ports on it, but it's a bit bandwidth starved
    for running a softraid array. There is an Asrock chip with
    PCIe x2 lane interface, for the SATA ports.

    Computers continue to have two video card slots, and one
    of the slots can be used for a RAID card or a multi-port SATA,
    but the selection of cards right now may not be all that
    wonderful.

    *******

    If you have Windows 11, the SnippingTool has OCR capability,
    using the "text actions" button. It has virtually perfect
    comprehension... as long as the text consists of sentences.
    If random characters are present in the sample you submit,
    it drops back to "tesseract accuracy" and mixes up o/O/0 .
    I even had a 0 on a sample, with the strikethru
    in the character, the Tesseract-like behavior made an
    "oh" out of that character. But on English sentences,
    it's a champ.

    Paul

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Brian@21:1/5 to Jeff Gaines on Thu Dec 26 19:42:51 2024
    XPost: uk.d-i-y

    Jeff Gaines <jgnewsid@outlook.com> wrote:

    Good afternoon all, I need to stop eating for a while so I thought I'd ask
    a couple of computer related techy questions!

    Firstly I had a frustrating online chat with an alleged human at Amazon yesterday about a courier who walked up my path, reached the front door
    then turned round and went back to his van. I dashed out as I was
    expecting a delivery and he said "oh" or something of that ilk, opened the back door of his van and got my package out. If I hadn't seen him it would
    be back at a depot somewhere. I want to communicate with Amazon about this and the Amazon chat bot/human has given me an email address allegedly for customer service. I wanted the transcript but apparently I have to go back
    to chat and read it. Is there a way of down-loading it does anybody know?
    I suspect it's a template with the conversation held on a database so the answer is probably "no". In the meantime I printed the screen, scrolled
    down, printed the screen etc. and have 5 x .pngs of it.

    Second one is I would like a computer case that has removable hard drives accessible through individual doors on the front, preferably with a back plane so drives can be slid in and out, something like this (link is to Amazon.com):

    https://www.amazon.com/Generic-ZhenLoong-Computer-Workstation-backplane/dp/B0DH4LYCFK

    Ali Express has some but shipping is as much or more as the case! Don't
    mind a used server to strip down as long as it will take an ATX board.

    Happy New Year!


    I use these for individual drives:

    https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/135248200895?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=aanqhb1-saw&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From RJH@21:1/5 to Brian on Fri Dec 27 11:42:29 2024
    XPost: uk.d-i-y

    On 26 Dec 2024 at 19:42:51 GMT, Brian wrote:

    <div id="editor" contenteditable="false">I use these for individual drives:

    https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/135248200895?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=aanqhb1-saw&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY
    </div>
    <div class="footer" onclick="setCursorToBottom()"></div>

    Can you swap drives out while the PC's powered up?
    --
    Cheers, Rob, Sheffield UK

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Daniel James@21:1/5 to RJH on Fri Dec 27 15:13:21 2024
    XPost: uk.d-i-y

    On 27/12/2024 11:42, RJH wrote:
    On 26 Dec 2024 at 19:42:51 GMT, Brian wrote:

    I use these for individual drives:

    https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/135248200895?
    mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=aanqhb1-
    saw&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

    Can you swap drives out while the PC's powered up?

    If you look at the instruction booklet just readable in the third
    picture on that eBay page you will see that it says that the disk must
    not be removed while the computer is running.

    Some drive bays do support swapping drives while the PC is running, and
    they are normally described as "hot swap".

    scan.co.uk usually have quite a decent range, including some that house multiple drives ... e,g. 3 x 3.5" drives in 2 x 5.25" bays.

    --
    Cheers,
    Daniel.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Jeff Gaines@21:1/5 to Gaines on Fri Dec 27 15:18:24 2024
    XPost: uk.d-i-y

    On 26/12/2024 in message <xn0ov0vklfzbnyk01d@news.individual.net> Jeff
    Gaines wrote:

    Second one is I would like a computer case that has removable hard drives >accessible through individual doors on the front, preferably with a back >plane so drives can be slid in and out, something like this (link is to >Amazon.com):

    Many thanks for all the replies :-)

    Some interesting ideas there, will think it through!

    --
    Jeff Gaines Dorset UK
    Remember, the Flat Earth Society has members all around the globe.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From GB@21:1/5 to Jeff Gaines on Fri Dec 27 17:39:32 2024
    XPost: uk.d-i-y

    On 26/12/2024 15:54, Jeff Gaines wrote:

    Firstly I had a frustrating online chat with an alleged human at Amazon yesterday about a courier who walked up my path, reached the front door
    then turned round and went back to his van. I dashed out as I was
    expecting a delivery and he said "oh" or something of that ilk, opened
    the back door of his van and got my package out. If I hadn't seen him it would be back at a depot somewhere. I want to communicate with Amazon
    about this and the Amazon chat bot/human has given me an email address allegedly for customer service. I wanted the transcript but apparently I
    have to go back to chat and read it. Is there a way of down-loading it
    does anybody know? I suspect it's a template with the conversation held
    on a database so the answer is probably "no". In the meantime I printed
    the screen, scrolled down, printed the screen etc. and have 5 x .pngs of
    it.

    Complaining to Amazon is a bit of an art. I use the phone option. Chat
    doesn't work well. And I time my call for the afternoon, as that way
    I'll probably get someone in South Africa. I've found them to be the
    most helpful.

    Generally speaking, the CS reps are there to put things right, and your complaint isn't about that. You got your parcel, and the CS reps are
    soooooo far down the pecking order that there's no way at all that they
    can do anything about crap delivery procedures.

    Plus, it's simply not your role to give management consultancy advice to Amazon. If you don't like their deliveries, go elsewhere.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Joe@21:1/5 to Raj Kundra on Fri Dec 27 21:36:38 2024
    XPost: uk.d-i-y

    On Fri, 27 Dec 2024 21:16:36 +0000
    Raj Kundra <raj@kundracomputers.co.uk> wrote:

    On 26/12/2024 15:54, Jeff Gaines wrote:

    Good afternoon all, I need to stop eating for a while so I thought
    I'd ask a couple of computer related techy questions!

    Firstly I had a frustrating online chat with an alleged human at
    Amazon yesterday about a courier who walked up my path, reached the
    front door then turned round and went back to his van. I dashed out
    as I was expecting a delivery and he said "oh" or something of that
    ilk, opened the back door of his van and got my package out. If I
    hadn't seen him it would be back at a depot somewhere. I want to communicate with Amazon about this and the Amazon chat bot/human
    has given me an email address allegedly for customer service. I
    wanted the transcript but apparently I have to go back to chat and
    read it. Is there a way of down-loading it does anybody know? I
    suspect it's a template with the conversation held on a database so
    the answer is probably "no". In the meantime I printed the screen,
    scrolled down, printed the screen etc. and have 5 x .pngs of it.

    Second one is I would like a computer case that has removable hard
    drives accessible through individual doors on the front, preferably
    with a back plane so drives can be slid in and out, something like
    this (link is to Amazon.com):

    https://www.amazon.com/Generic-ZhenLoong-Computer-Workstation-backplane/ dp/B0DH4LYCFK

    Ali Express has some but shipping is as much or more as the case!
    Don't mind a used server to strip down as long as it will take an
    ATX board.

    Happy New Year!

    I am sure HP Z Series workstation has that option.
    Also Dell used to do one, but I can not remember the model.

    My old (~10 years) HP/Proliant microserver has pluggable drives, but
    not hot-swappable, power has to be off.

    --
    Joe

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Raj Kundra@21:1/5 to Jeff Gaines on Fri Dec 27 21:16:36 2024
    XPost: uk.d-i-y

    On 26/12/2024 15:54, Jeff Gaines wrote:

    Good afternoon all, I need to stop eating for a while so I thought I'd
    ask a couple of computer related techy questions!

    Firstly I had a frustrating online chat with an alleged human at Amazon yesterday about a courier who walked up my path, reached the front door
    then turned round and went back to his van. I dashed out as I was
    expecting a delivery and he said "oh" or something of that ilk, opened
    the back door of his van and got my package out. If I hadn't seen him it would be back at a depot somewhere. I want to communicate with Amazon
    about this and the Amazon chat bot/human has given me an email address allegedly for customer service. I wanted the transcript but apparently I
    have to go back to chat and read it. Is there a way of down-loading it
    does anybody know? I suspect it's a template with the conversation held
    on a database so the answer is probably "no". In the meantime I printed
    the screen, scrolled down, printed the screen etc. and have 5 x .pngs of
    it.

    Second one is I would like a computer case that has removable hard
    drives accessible through individual doors on the front, preferably with
    a back plane so drives can be slid in and out, something like this (link
    is to Amazon.com):

    https://www.amazon.com/Generic-ZhenLoong-Computer-Workstation-backplane/ dp/B0DH4LYCFK

    Ali Express has some but shipping is as much or more as the case! Don't
    mind a used server to strip down as long as it will take an ATX board.

    Happy New Year!

    I am sure HP Z Series workstation has that option.
    Also Dell used to do one, but I can not remember the model.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Jeff Gaines@21:1/5 to Joe on Fri Dec 27 21:55:37 2024
    XPost: uk.d-i-y

    On 27/12/2024 in message
    <20241227213638.52b9fe26@jrenewsid.jretrading.com> Joe wrote:

    On Fri, 27 Dec 2024 21:16:36 +0000
    Raj Kundra <raj@kundracomputers.co.uk> wrote:

    On 26/12/2024 15:54, Jeff Gaines wrote:

    Good afternoon all, I need to stop eating for a while so I thought
    I'd ask a couple of computer related techy questions!

    Firstly I had a frustrating online chat with an alleged human at
    Amazon yesterday about a courier who walked up my path, reached the
    front door then turned round and went back to his van. I dashed out
    as I was expecting a delivery and he said "oh" or something of that
    ilk, opened the back door of his van and got my package out. If I
    hadn't seen him it would be back at a depot somewhere. I want to >>>communicate with Amazon about this and the Amazon chat bot/human
    has given me an email address allegedly for customer service. I
    wanted the transcript but apparently I have to go back to chat and
    read it. Is there a way of down-loading it does anybody know? I
    suspect it's a template with the conversation held on a database so
    the answer is probably "no". In the meantime I printed the screen, >>>scrolled down, printed the screen etc. and have 5 x .pngs of it.

    Second one is I would like a computer case that has removable hard
    drives accessible through individual doors on the front, preferably
    with a back plane so drives can be slid in and out, something like
    this (link is to Amazon.com):

    https://www.amazon.com/Generic-ZhenLoong-Computer-Workstation-backplane/ >>>dp/B0DH4LYCFK

    Ali Express has some but shipping is as much or more as the case!
    Don't mind a used server to strip down as long as it will take an
    ATX board.

    Happy New Year!

    I am sure HP Z Series workstation has that option.
    Also Dell used to do one, but I can not remember the model.

    My old (~10 years) HP/Proliant microserver has pluggable drives, but
    not hot-swappable, power has to be off.

    That's the sort of thing I want (I already have three) but with the
    capacity for, say, 8 readily accessible drives.

    --
    Jeff Gaines Dorset UK
    By the time you can make ends meet they move the ends

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Jeff Gaines@21:1/5 to vkmook$3ndsi$1@dont-email.me on Sat Dec 28 08:35:39 2024
    XPost: uk.d-i-y

    On 27/12/2024 in message <vkmook$3ndsi$1@dont-email.me> GB wrote:

    On 26/12/2024 15:54, Jeff Gaines wrote:

    Firstly I had a frustrating online chat with an alleged human at Amazon >>yesterday about a courier who walked up my path, reached the front door >>then turned round and went back to his van. I dashed out as I was
    expecting a delivery and he said "oh" or something of that ilk, opened
    the back door of his van and got my package out. If I hadn't seen him it >>would be back at a depot somewhere. I want to communicate with Amazon
    about this and the Amazon chat bot/human has given me an email address >>allegedly for customer service. I wanted the transcript but apparently I >>have to go back to chat and read it. Is there a way of down-loading it
    does anybody know? I suspect it's a template with the conversation held
    on a database so the answer is probably "no". In the meantime I printed
    the screen, scrolled down, printed the screen etc. and have 5 x .pngs of >>it.

    Complaining to Amazon is a bit of an art. I use the phone option. Chat >doesn't work well. And I time my call for the afternoon, as that way I'll >probably get someone in South Africa. I've found them to be the most
    helpful.

    Generally speaking, the CS reps are there to put things right, and your >complaint isn't about that. You got your parcel, and the CS reps are
    soooooo far down the pecking order that there's no way at all that they
    can do anything about crap delivery procedures.

    Plus, it's simply not your role to give management consultancy advice to >Amazon. If you don't like their deliveries, go elsewhere.

    I'm not. I am complaining about their delivery method. They deliver
    perishable goods nowadays and different considerations apply, I have had refunds on two which were dumped on the doorstep and so inedible.

    --
    Jeff Gaines Dorset UK
    You know it's cold outside when you go outside and it's cold.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Andy Burns@21:1/5 to Jeff Gaines on Sat Dec 28 09:19:56 2024
    XPost: uk.d-i-y

    Jeff Gaines wrote:

    GB wrote:

    Jeff Gaines wrote:

    opened the back door of his van and got my package out.

    it's simply not your role to give management consultancy advice
    to Amazon.

    I am complaining about their delivery method.

    You got your delivery, beyond that they don't care, they have no
    mechanism for you to make your point.

    Regarding the chat transcrit, I generally find you have a chance at the
    end to either copy/paste it, or have it emailed to you, after that it's
    too late (they probably have it saved at their end, but that's for them,
    not for you).

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Jeff Gaines@21:1/5 to All on Sat Dec 28 10:53:03 2024
    XPost: uk.d-i-y

    On 28/12/2024 in message <lt9u5sFjaarU1@mid.individual.net> Andy Burns
    wrote:

    Jeff Gaines wrote:

    GB wrote:

    Jeff Gaines wrote:

    opened the back door of his van and got my package out.

    it's simply not your role to give management consultancy advice to >>>Amazon.

    I am complaining about their delivery method.

    You got your delivery, beyond that they don't care, they have no mechanism >for you to make your point.

    They do, the chat system during which they have supplied me with an email address.


    Regarding the chat transcrit, I generally find you have a chance at the
    end to either copy/paste it, or have it emailed to you, after that it's
    too late (they probably have it saved at their end, but that's for them,
    not for you).

    Not available, they said during the chat there is no mechanism for printing/saving the transcript but would send me an email summary. The
    summary says:

    "It has been a pleasure to assist you today!

    I am so sorry that your order was marked as delivered even though you did
    not receive it - my colleague has filed a complaint against the driver so
    the team can take further action. Should you like to provide further
    feedback please email nnn@amazon.co.uk.

    I hope you have a lovely evening - safe travels and Merry Christmas!"

    In fact as I told them several times i did receive the order, it was
    dumped on the doorstep with no indication, perhaps I was chatting with a
    bot?

    --
    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)
  • From The Natural Philosopher@21:1/5 to Jeff Gaines on Sat Dec 28 11:08:30 2024
    XPost: uk.d-i-y

    On 28/12/2024 10:53, Jeff Gaines wrote:
    In fact as I told them several times i did receive the order, it was
    dumped on the doorstep with no indication, perhaps I was chatting with a
    bot?

    I ordered some stuff and it was clkaiomed to have been delivered to the
    prch - which had a sliding external door.

    It never arrived, Amazon promptly refunded and I reordered.
    10 weeks later I found a soggy package where it had been flung into a
    recondite corner of the garden.

    Sometimes its easier to just give the punter their money back. The
    delivery drivers are paid for 'marked as delivered'. They are under
    pressure.,

    The normal delivery method now is to leave it on the doorstep, ring the
    bell and scarper.
    It helps if they take a picture, because I have more than one doorstep



    --
    “I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most
    obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which
    they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.”

    ― Leo Tolstoy

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Brian@21:1/5 to RJH on Sat Dec 28 11:09:05 2024
    XPost: uk.d-i-y

    RJH <patchmoney@gmx.com> wrote:
    On 26 Dec 2024 at 19:42:51 GMT, Brian wrote:

    <div id="editor" contenteditable="false">I use these for individual drives: >>
    https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/135248200895?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=aanqhb1-saw&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY
    </div>
    <div class="footer" onclick="setCursorToBottom()"></div>

    Can you swap drives out while the PC's powered up?

    I don’t know, I use them instead of dual booting etc so tend to power down, swap, power up.

    They are entirely ‘dumb’ ( at least the ones I have are). Just slide for the drive and connectors, no electronics to detect one is present etc.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Richard Kettlewell@21:1/5 to Jeff Gaines on Sat Dec 28 12:05:04 2024
    XPost: uk.d-i-y

    "Jeff Gaines" <jgnewsid@outlook.com> writes:
    In fact as I told them several times i did receive the order, it was
    dumped on the doorstep with no indication, perhaps I was chatting with
    a bot?

    You are tilting at windmills. The idea that someone would complain about receiving their delivery is so alien to the customer service rep that
    they didn’t even understand that’s what you were saying (possibly compounded by English being their second language and Amazon not paying
    them enough to care).

    --
    https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Jeff Gaines@21:1/5 to Kettlewell on Sat Dec 28 12:09:27 2024
    XPost: uk.d-i-y

    On 28/12/2024 in message <wwvv7v4f1xr.fsf@LkoBDZeT.terraraq.uk> Richard Kettlewell wrote:

    "Jeff Gaines" <jgnewsid@outlook.com> writes:
    In fact as I told them several times i did receive the order, it was
    dumped on the doorstep with no indication, perhaps I was chatting with
    a bot?

    You are tilting at windmills. The idea that someone would complain about >receiving their delivery is so alien to the customer service rep that
    they didn’t even understand that’s what you were saying (possibly >compounded by English being their second language and Amazon not paying
    them enough to care).

    Perhaps, my choice.

    --
    Jeff Gaines Dorset UK
    That's an amazing invention but who would ever want to use one of them? (President Hayes speaking to Alexander Graham Bell on the invention of the telephone)

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From The Natural Philosopher@21:1/5 to Richard Kettlewell on Sat Dec 28 12:22:39 2024
    XPost: uk.d-i-y

    On 28/12/2024 12:05, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
    "Jeff Gaines" <jgnewsid@outlook.com> writes:
    In fact as I told them several times i did receive the order, it was
    dumped on the doorstep with no indication, perhaps I was chatting with
    a bot?

    You are tilting at windmills. The idea that someone would complain about receiving their delivery is so alien to the customer service rep that
    they didn’t even understand that’s what you were saying (possibly compounded by English being their second language and Amazon not paying
    them enough to care).

    Bloody hell Richard, you are even grumpier and cynical than me this
    merry Christmas!

    --
    “it should be clear by now to everyone that activist environmentalism
    (or environmental activism) is becoming a general ideology about humans,
    about their freedom, about the relationship between the individual and
    the state, and about the manipulation of people under the guise of a
    'noble' idea. It is not an honest pursuit of 'sustainable development,'
    a matter of elementary environmental protection, or a search for
    rational mechanisms designed to achieve a healthy environment. Yet
    things do occur that make you shake your head and remind yourself that
    you live neither in Joseph Stalin’s Communist era, nor in the Orwellian utopia of 1984.”

    Vaclav Klaus

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From RJH@21:1/5 to Daniel James on Sat Dec 28 14:17:54 2024
    XPost: uk.d-i-y

    On 27 Dec 2024 at 15:13:21 GMT, Daniel James wrote:

    On 27/12/2024 11:42, RJH wrote:
    On 26 Dec 2024 at 19:42:51 GMT, Brian wrote:

    I use these for individual drives:

    https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/135248200895?
    mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=aanqhb1-
    saw&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

    Can you swap drives out while the PC's powered up?

    If you look at the instruction booklet just readable in the third
    picture on that eBay page you will see that it says that the disk must
    not be removed while the computer is running.

    Some drive bays do support swapping drives while the PC is running, and
    they are normally described as "hot swap".

    scan.co.uk usually have quite a decent range, including some that house multiple drives ... e,g. 3 x 3.5" drives in 2 x 5.25" bays.

    Thanks
    --
    Cheers, Rob, Sheffield UK

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  • From GB@21:1/5 to Jeff Gaines on Sat Dec 28 18:45:54 2024
    XPost: uk.d-i-y

    On 28/12/2024 08:35, Jeff Gaines wrote:

    I'm not. I am complaining about their delivery method. They deliver perishable goods nowadays and different considerations apply, I have had refunds on two which were dumped on the doorstep and so inedible.


    CS can give you a refund. They can also tweak your delivery options on
    their website (same as you could do).

    What they can't do is change their delivery methods, so "complaining
    about their delivery method" to CS won't work.

    Try emailing the UK managing director.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From GB@21:1/5 to Jeff Gaines on Sat Dec 28 18:47:59 2024
    XPost: uk.d-i-y

    On 28/12/2024 12:09, Jeff Gaines wrote:
    On 28/12/2024 in message <wwvv7v4f1xr.fsf@LkoBDZeT.terraraq.uk> Richard Kettlewell wrote:

    "Jeff Gaines" <jgnewsid@outlook.com> writes:
    In fact as I told them several times i did receive the order, it was
    dumped on the doorstep with no indication, perhaps I was chatting with
    a bot?

    You are tilting at windmills. The idea that someone would complain about
    receiving their delivery is so alien to the customer service rep that
    they didn’t even understand that’s what you were saying (possibly
    compounded by English being their second language and Amazon not paying
    them enough to care).

    Perhaps, my choice.


    People on this NG are being remarkably polite to you, but you can bet
    they're sniggering quietly.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Paul@21:1/5 to Daniel James on Sat Dec 28 15:32:29 2024
    XPost: uk.d-i-y

    On Fri, 12/27/2024 10:13 AM, Daniel James wrote:
    On 27/12/2024 11:42, RJH wrote:
    On 26 Dec 2024 at 19:42:51 GMT, Brian wrote:

    I use these for individual drives:

    https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/135248200895? mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=aanqhb1- saw&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

    Can you swap drives out while the PC's powered up?

    If you look at the instruction booklet just readable in the third picture on that eBay page you will see that it says that the disk must not be removed while the computer is running.

    Some drive bays do support swapping drives while the PC is running, and they are normally described as "hot swap".

    scan.co.uk usually have quite a decent range, including some that house multiple drives ... e,g. 3 x 3.5" drives in 2 x 5.25" bays.


    Start by checking the BIOS, for the "Hot Swap" setting
    in the BIOS SATA port section. This setting can be
    exposed on enthusiast desktop motherboard BIOS.

    It has to be turned on in the BIOS, for Southbridge/PCH
    SATA ports to have Hot Swap support. Various other means
    of providing SATA ports, it's already turned on.

    Hot Swap support means, that in the middle of an OS session
    while you are sipping your coffee, if a running SATA drive
    suddenly has the seven pin data connector make contact
    with the seven contact motherboard connector, the SATA link
    trains up, and the motherboard "mounts" the physical layer,
    scans the drive, and mounts all the file systems on partitions.

    If the detection is not enabled, touching the contacts together
    does nothing at all.

    In the reverse direction, removal, there are safe and safer
    ways to do that.

    1) Use an application level command, that takes a drive offline,
    and not only does the drive go offline, it parks the heads
    and turns off the motor. Drives have various sleep states.
    Not all drives support the sleep states. Some of the drives
    work very well. Good luck figuring this part out. I have some
    USB external drives (not what we are talking about), which
    successfully put the drive "offline" when you issue a Safely Remove.

    Getting this to happen for a SATA drive, it *could* happen, because
    with Hot Swap turned on, the "Safely Remove" menu now has your
    Hot Swap drive in the menu, ready for a kick in the nuts. But if you use
    the Safely Remove, the minimum it does is flush the files.
    The drive could still be spinning, and is not necessarily in
    the parked state. The reason this is unpredictable, is because
    drives do not have consistent support states. Some, accept no
    "hints" at all about parking -- the drives are brain dead.
    But your files are safe.

    2) The next phase, is power removal. Remove power from the drive.
    The SATA data cable is AC coupled, and can be disconnected any time.
    With the power off, in a "controlled state" such as the drive
    had in (1), the drive does not "count one emergency power fail"
    in its SMART table. If the drive is not spinning, it is pretty hard
    for a drive to log "that the power just went off".

    3) The third step, is the physical ejection operation. The ejection
    lever, at a minimum, eases the drive out of its backplane
    connection. If the drive is completely disabled as in (2), this
    step causes no electrical challenges whatsoever. There is no arcing,
    there is no reason for MOV to conduct and suppress an arc.

    Well, as it turns out, the hard drive *was* designed, to just
    be ripped out of the equipment by a cretin. There are two MOV
    near the +5V and +12V input power connector, which suppress hot removal
    arcing and overvoltage. The drive can start emergency powerdown,
    when you yank it out. As long as you have not violated the G-rating
    of a running spinning disk, then the heads will retract to the landing ramp, using energy extracted from the rotating platter and motor-turned-generator. Before retraction, the contents of the drive DRAM cache, are
    written to the platter.

    In the case of large capacity hard drives with 512MB DRAM cache
    onboard (pretty unusual), the emergency power fail is implemented
    by dumping DRAM, to a special NAND flash on the controller board.
    They do this, since there isn't sufficient time to write out
    512MB of material before the power is gone. the drives only
    resort to writing out to the NAND, on an emergency power fail.
    On normal shutdown sequences, the NAND is not used, and all the
    files are flushed from cache to the platter, in the normal way.

    By understanding some of the properties of hot swap drives,
    you can make the life of your drive, as simple as you would like :-)

    The worst case, is when a drive flubs the landing, the voice coil
    doesn't have the energy to get the heads onto the plastic ramp...
    and the heads have now landed right on the platter. Ordinary drives do
    not have laser-patterned landing areas for heads. The heads
    could *stick* to the platter, if they land the wrong way.
    (This hardly ever happens.) We press the front button on PCs
    in the middle of Windows Update, all the time, so we have been
    "testing for flubs" on a regular basis :-)

    Someone in another group, turned off the power to his PC,
    when it said on the screen "Do NOT turn off the power".
    Guess what happened :-/ I understand he reinstalled Windows 10
    yesterday.

    If you are going to be adventurous, be prepared.
    The equipment is prepared for adventure. But,
    you can do your part to help.

    If I thought all the equipment I owned, was fully compliant
    and well behaved (parking support), I would not mind using this feature.

    Paul

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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