Computer Is Fixed

It took a lot of time, a lot of reading online, along with trial and error following suggestions on fixing a hard drive that was freezing (hanging up) with just the simplest tasks. I thought I had it fixed the other night after my computer had a major crash, but I was trying to see if an easier way would work ... it did not.

So after days of thinking about it and doing a little more reading to make sure I had the process down so I would not lose my 300Gb's of files, I started the process as soon as I woke up this morning. I was going to erase my hard drive and install everything from scratch.


It wasn't long on Thursday before I started seeing the "spinning beachball" that Apple has designed for when software, websites or apps are not responding. For Window PC users, its the "hourglass" that never goes away when your computer is hung up.

I tried the three major browsers, some result. I tried using different apps to clear out old files that were possibly left behind when I deleted an app or a program. I tried maintenance programs to analyze and repair the hard drive in case it was damaged. Obviously there were some gremlins deep inside my computer that needed to be removed.

So I was nearing my last resort ... make sure everything was backed up, then erase the hard drive and reinstall the operating system. After that I would reload all of my files from my backup drive. In my case 80% of those files are photos.

While the computer was doing it's thing over these past few days I realized that it could be possible my hard drive had reached it's limit and was in the process of dying. A spinning beach ball is telling you that the software is waiting for the hardware to do it's thing. Sometimes it eventually does and other times it's bad enough you have to hold the power button in to shut off the computer when it is frozen.

Another sign that it might be my hard drive on it's way to failing permanently, was when I turned off and disconnected from the internet and ran programs like Word and Excel. Just using the computer as it was designed to do before the internet, I continued to see the spinning beach ball at times when I typed only a letter or moved my cursor and highlighting a cell.

I started reading about the new iMacs. Yes, they say that desktops are going out of style but as long as I have a huge 27" monitor sitting in front of me working I am going to continue to use a desktop computer as my main platform.

So I was somewhat protected this morning when I clicked that button that said 'erase'. My hard drive would be wiped clean and the only place my files were, is on the external hard drive that is backed up using Apple's Time Machine. My protection in case the computer would not operate, was to buy a new on today.

Oh, I forgot to mention the step before that I tried this morning that told me it was time to erase (reformat) the hard drive. I tried installing a new copy of the operation system without reformatting my hard drive. It would write over the new macOS Sierra over the old copy and getting rid of any gremlins hiding in there ... it failed and told me something was wrong with my hard drive.

After I erased the hard drive and started from scratch, the new operation system loaded with no problem. Then I loaded my files, which took almost 4 hours to complete. No problems there either. It was now time for the big test ... will those spinning beachballs coming back as I used my computer?

So far the computer has been running for a little over three hours and it is fast, no hangups, no websites not loading or crashing the system. To test it and try to get it to crash I had all kinds of programs running and doing different things at the same time.

Here are some of the things I remember I had going on at the same time:

 - Opened iTunes and played music.
 - Opened ten different tabs on Google Chrome with ten different websites
         - I loaded as many sites that I knew had automatic videos playing
 - Excel and Word were opened where I worked in each one
 - Opened Photos and imported pictures from an SD card
 - Ran a back up on Time Machine
 - Opened Kindle and loaded an ebook
 - Watched a video on an IU sports blog I follow
 - Opened Notes and Reminders
 - Opened Mail and deleted over 14,000 emails
 - Loaded Maps

Through all of that .... the spinning beach ball never showed up once.

I am in the process right now of moving my photos to the external drive I used last September to make a backup copy of them. I will then changed my settings in Apple Photos to use the .lib on the external drive as it's main library file.

Once I test that with a couple of things and sees that Apple Photos works with the library file on that external drive, then I will delete that same file that is taking up 49% of my hard drive on the iMac. That should make my iMac work even better with very little on the hard drive.

Of course, like all computers new or old, anything can happen at any time and all of the good results could come crashing down if the hard drive really has reached it's life cycle and dies.

If that happens I'll get in my car and head to Best Buy so I can look at and use some different computers before I choose one. The nearest Apple store is 100 miles away and to me that is too far away just to buy the same computer at a higher price. Plus I really like to get my eyes and hands on computers before I buy them, so the ordering online option does not work for me.

The weird thing is, I have always enjoyed researching this type of work and doing the work to get a computer running flawlessly again. Even in my Window PC days I liked it but during those years I had to do it more often than once every six o seven years.

Sadie and Stella had two walks today by 1:30pm and may get a third walk later this evening. The weather is that nice outside tonight.

It has been a good weekend here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.

Sadie & Stella Don't See The Deer !!!

It started like any other day .... mmmm, not really but that is a different story and a different post. As the water slowly recedes from the fields, the sun is out and the temperature is perfect this morning. Excitement was to follow with shocking results !!!

After being up until 4am trying different things to fix my iMac, that was still freezing up a few times even while I was not connected to the internet (a test), we didn't start our day until about an hour later than normal. Sadie of course started her detailed inspection of the yard for last night's activity.

Stella sat in the driveway contemplating her plans for the day and if she was willing to get her paws wet if she walked out into the grass. She didn't go any further than this and turned around to follow me when I headed back inside. It was only 8:30am but it was really nice outside.

About 3 hours into my reformatting, reinstalling my macOS Sierra and all my files (different blog post later), I decided it was the perfect time to take our first morning walk in a while. While the computer worked installing the macOS onto the erased and clean hard drive, we headed outside. Sadie was so excited, she took off ... but not for the reason you would think, by this blog post title.

Stella followed the path ahead of me and in fact ahead of Sadie too. It was a great morning to be walking. I was going to let the hounds have their freedom to do what they wanted, but not until I had Stella move past that first corner.

This is where the excitement started and what the hounds missed !!!!  I glanced up just in time to see the first of five deer. Stella never saw the five different deer jumping out of the gully and sprinting for their escape into the corn field in back. They took off one by one, slow enough for Sadie to catch them ... but ....

They were both too interested in finding and eating fresh natural protein, most likely deer scat. Now remember the bloodhound's DNA is to "smell and flush deer out of bushes or woods" and in the past they have taken off immediately as fast as they could run after them, but not today. I was shocked at their response.

Deer #2, even gave me time to focus and take it's picture ... you see Stella not even lifting her head.

Deer #3 was a little bigger and a lot faster. This is along the back edge of the field about where we turn to come home. As usual the deer jumped over that small hidden fence into the not yet plowed corn field.

Deer #4 actually walked out from the gully and did not really take off running until halfway to that point of escape the other deer took. Still ... no response from either bloodhound!!

Deer #5 was about the same way. Started out into the field walking, then took off.

Sadie finally realized what was going on and took off sprinting but no baying or barking. Stella is still chowing down on her diet supplement. She is usually the first one howling and sprinting in deer chases. It was shocking to see no response at all from her.

By this time Sadie did not have a chance in catching any of the deer, they were long gone. She was running as fast as she could. You can barely see her just a little right and above center. Some deer turned to go into the field behind this one, while others followed that path north, past the large power tower and then into the woods.

Stella still has not moved with all of this excitement going on. I still cannot believe it.

Sadie realized she had missed them but at least she had seen the last one. She decided the best thing she could do was to backtrack their path and see where she made the mistake.

For what had gone on, she still was not showing her normal "deer excitement" that I have seen in the past.

Stella had no idea what she had missed. She slowly walks to catch up with Sadie.

That is until she found more to eat. Sadie knows which direction the deer came from and she is going to find out if there are any more deer headed her way. I couldn't tell her they were all gone for today and maybe even for months.

Stella still eats and has no clue she missed the deer that she loves to chase.

Sadie is still searching for what she missed.

Stella finally figures out something is going on and takes off running to meet Sadie. I continue to walk the path and enjoying the day.

Yes, at some time recently there were probably more than one deer where they are sniffing but that was long ago and the deer are gone without being chased.

Stella finally picks up their scent and shows some urgency ...

They both head back home and a day of excitement for me at least, turned out to be a normal 'walk in the park' to them. As I type this an hour later I still cannot believe they deer were right under their noses, without an immediate response.

I had to use the 200mm zoom to catch this, just to show you how far away Stella is from me. She is not wanting to chase missed deer though ... she is wanting to go to the neighbor's wooded area where the big blonde cat hangs out.

They decided there was nothing else to do but to head home and wait for lunch to be served.

We will definitely get another walk in later this afternoon. With as many files I have to transfer back to my cleaned hard drive, I'll not have access to my iMac until later this afternoon. This is my last try to fix the issue that crashed my computer on Thursday and if this doesn't work I have two options.

1.  Buy a new iMac, which I am probably due for after 6-1/2 years of use. I don't have enough RAM and my hard drive is 60% full. My 2 year old laptop teases me about buying a new desktop computer, with its faster processor, more RAM and bigger hard drive .... all of this blogging process is much faster on this newer computer.

2.  Save some money and connect this laptop to my 27" monitor and use this as my main computer, with a 2Tb external drive as the main hard drive.

3. Move my large Photos Library to an external drive and reconfigure the setting where the Apple Photos program will used the library file on the external drive as the main source. Then delete the current library file from the internal hard drive, free up ~260Gb or over half of my iMac hard drive.

It's late and Stella wants lunch ... I have to go. She is lucky that her food quantity is not based on deer performance. LOL

I'll write about my computer information update in a different post for those that are interested.

A beautiful day here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.

Heidi Surprises Us On Sunday

For once the local tv weatherman was correct. Much cooler temps after a night of rain while the hounds slept. While we got to bed early, we all woke up early to a light rain, overcast skies and the temperature at 60°

That's quite a change from the 70's in the morning and mid 80's during the day.

The hounds had a pretty good weekend, surviving another weekend of nonstop football, getting in walks in between games or at halftimes.

While it was a little sad to see all of the flowers gone, it was great to walk with the field cut and I could keep better track of where they were running off to. We thought about walking this morning but there was still a very light rain going on.

Stella's favorite is eating the wet grass after the rain. She does not vomit it back up so I can only assume she eats it because she likes it, instead of trying to settle an upset stomach.

Even with sporadic big drops of rain hitting her, Sadie could not figure out why we couldn't take an early morning walk. She didn't hesitate though to head back to the house once it started raining a little harder.

Just like I thought they would, the farmers let the hay dry out for a day on Saturday, let the dew dry out Sunday morning ... then rake and bale the house sometime Sunday afternoon before the expected rain later that night.

With dad running the baler, his son ran the rake ... they still did not want to take that area giant ragweed next to my yard. I tried getting the Echo weed eater started. It has a steel cutting blade and would move right through that ragweed at ground level ... it ran and then shut off. I still need to play with some adjustments before giving up hope and having the local hardware store fix it.

After they left the hounds and I took off for a Sunday walk. A big big surprise ... when I asked Heidi if she wanted to go for a walk ... she jumped down off the couch and headed out to the field along with Sadie and Stella. I couldn't believe she walked right into the field without any coaxing by me.

From the start I could tell she was going to go at her own pace. There were a lot of smells for her to catch up on, after 5 months of refusing to walk with us. I can only conclude that she does not like to walk in the field when the grass is tall (like Winston) and the temperatures have be lower than it was in June when they last cut the field.

The longer I waited for her to catch up with us, the slower she walked and the faster the bloodhounds go out in front of me. I decided to let her roam at her own pace since she was taking her time of moving to different spots instead of a direct path.

Stella was right behind her as far as doing her own thing. Only Sadie and I were in the walking mode and she stayed out in front of me for most of the way.

By the time we made that last small turn toward the house, I could see Heidi up ahead waiting or possibly stopping her exploring once she saw us. She started wagging her tail ... something I have yet to catch in a photo ... and then kept up with Sadie and Stella as we walked back to the house.

She has not gained any weight this summer, yet has not lost weight so it's been stable for the past 15 months. She eats the same amount of kibble that I feed the bloodhounds, twice per day but that doesn't help either. With her blood work coming back perfect in her last trip to the vet in the spring at least I know that she has nothing wrong internally.

Once the field is mowed, you can see our paths from the grass that has been mashed down. I knew the path was not going to be straight this year because of all the flowers we walked around instead of on.

Saturday was another bright sunny day ... it was perfect.

This was early Saturday morning for their first walk of the day. Really wet with heavy dew but nice to have it cut.

They both had a lot of places they wanted to check out. Luckily I did not see anything hanging from their mouths whenever they would raise their heads out of the small piles of hay.

It was pretty slow trekking back to the house because there was just too much to smell on the way.

Even after a 2nd walk of the day in early evening, Stella couldn't believe that she had to come back inside the house. Both of them are still being supervised when outside and that will probably continue for months to come.

I just bought my 2nd gig of data this morning for the home internet connection. For all of you Apple users that read my blog ... I have not had any major issues with the new OS Sierra. My screen has locked up a couple of times to where I had to reboot the computer but nothing as far as software malfunctions. Yet I don't do as much as a lot of the 'power users' but enough to see it's a good upgrade.

I have moved the blog back to one blog post per page. For older posts you can click the link here at the bottom "older posts" or over on the right sidebar all of the posts are listed in order, with the most recent on top. That's a Blogger design, not mine.

I may post later tonight ... it will depend if the rain will stop long enough for us to get a walk in. It has not been raining for the past few hours so I'd say the chances are good for a 2nd post today at the normal time of 6:30pm or so.

All is good this morning here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.