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Report: Microsoft's latest Windows 11 24H2 update breaks SSDs/HDDs, may corrupt your data

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  • Sure, that's an argument for why the stock price is suffering, not for why macOS is in danger. Apple is still massively profitable, the stock price just reflects the market's perception that profits won't increase as fast as their competitors.

    Again, why are you so over focused on stock price? As a consumer, how is the first thing you take away from lack of innovation and engineering failures that Apples stock price may suffer and not that the machine you are buying may be sub-par and overpriced?

  • Again, why are you so over focused on stock price? As a consumer, how is the first thing you take away from lack of innovation and engineering failures that Apples stock price may suffer and not that the machine you are buying may be sub-par and overpriced?

    I'm agreeing w/ you that stock price is irrelevant here, and that's what the video opens with. The market is unhappy w/ Apple because they're delivering essentially what people claim to want: a solid product with steady improvements w/o anything crazy. Microsoft, on the other hand, is delivering what the market wants, which is shoving AI into everything.

    I guess I don't understand why the video is relevant to the average user, who doesn't really care about innovation and instead wants a consistent experience.

  • I'm agreeing w/ you that stock price is irrelevant here, and that's what the video opens with. The market is unhappy w/ Apple because they're delivering essentially what people claim to want: a solid product with steady improvements w/o anything crazy. Microsoft, on the other hand, is delivering what the market wants, which is shoving AI into everything.

    I guess I don't understand why the video is relevant to the average user, who doesn't really care about innovation and instead wants a consistent experience.

    I highly doubt there is a user that truly does not care for innovation. If there is a better product for the same price, who wouldn't buy it.

    More importantly, the impact is not just innovative features but security, price of ownership and reliability. Apple managed to "innovate" themselves into a position where they are obstructing data rescue on Macs and iPhones. That's the kind of thing you may not be thinking about when buying but may greatly regret not having when you need it.

  • Fully overwriting an SSD is so archaic.

    Example from hdparm:

    --trim-sector-range
    For Solid State Drives (SSDs). EXCEPTIONALLY DANGEROUS. DO NOT USE THIS OPTION!! Tells the drive firmware to discard unneeded data sectors, destroying any data that may have been present within them. This makes those sectors available for immediate use by the firmware's garbage collection mechanism, to improve scheduling for wear-leveling of the flash media. This option expects one or more sector range pairs immediately after the option: an LBA starting address, a colon, and a sector count (max 65535), with no intervening spaces. EXCEPTIONALLY DANGER‐ OUS. DO NOT USE THIS OPTION!!

    I think the all caps warnings say it all.
    This is only for the trim sectors of the disk but I can't imagine it being much different overwriting a whole disk.
    Not to mention, as OP said, an old and very used disk.
    Quick formatting should be enough to prevent any normal user from extracting meaningful data from the flash storage as only the controller knows how to piece together the flash cells to a file.
    If the controller forgets it, the files are toast anyway.
    At best write some random data to a quarter of the disk or something lile that.

    File recovery may only be possible if you give it to a drive recovery facility. But remember: Those ain't exactly cheap.
    A client paid some 4 figure price because an HDD died. Just for a small amount of files.

    @zer0bitz@lemmy.world did a SecureErase, which is an entirely different function. It was exactly made to be used in this scenario: user is selling their laptop.

    other than that, hdparm --trim-sector-range is most probably only marked dangerous because with a slight miscalculation you can wipe some of your data and you won't even know how much damage you did. I'm pretty sure the fstrim command relies on this, which is executed every few weeks on my system, by default. check systemctl status fstrim.timer, maybe on yours too.

    Quick formatting should be enough to prevent any normal user from extracting meaningful data from the flash storage as only the controller knows how to piece together the flash cells to a file.

    what do you mean by quick formatting? how do you do that on linux? I have only heard this term with te windows disk management tool.

    on windows quick formatting only deletes the partition entry from the partition table. that's why it's quick. all the former data is there and can be easily recovered, given you know the former partition boundaries, which can also be recovered by tools. the ssd controller won't know a thing, it won't forget where it should look for each LBA address.

  • Why not ? I suppose that as long as a browser (and whatever else she need) is working, my grandmother would not need much more. And I could also install a windows11 theme on KDE, if I really want to. A icon is a icon

    And in the end I think that my grandmother would be able to mantain neither a window machine, so I don't see the problem.

    I think most of the replies to my remark thought I was questioning Linux for grandma overall. I wasn’t. Just Arch. I don’t think grandma needs rolling releases.

  • Yeah, it's honestly crazy to me because I think lockdowns were a net benefit to me. I was able to spend more time with my SO and kids, I had time for exercise and hobbies since I didn't need to sit in traffic, and I didn't need to spend as much social energy making small talk (I'm introverted). I honestly thrived during COVID. Getting COVID sucked for the week or so I had symptoms, but that was honestly a small price to pay for solitude.

    But then I see headlines of people literally going crazy, see a dramatic increase in road rage in my area (which didn't have lockdowns, only social distancing for businesses), and see my own extended family struggling.

    I feel so bad for people like your grandparents that suffered. I just personally wish the COVID lifestyle was more accessible.

    I just personally wish the COVID lifestyle was more accessible.

    Same, it suited me quite well and I feel bad saying I missed it because so many others, including some of my own family and friends, suffered. Now that I'm back in the office 5 days a week, I lose >2 hours a day with my kids. I had my own parents say "i don't get why you're complaining, we got by before COVID" while refusing to acknowledge it's different because one of them stayed home with us, while my wife and I must both work to survive.

    I grew up in a religious conservative family. These and other experiences drove me to the left in a big way. I see now that thinking we can solve systemic issues with individualism is bullshit. I want a world where my wife or I could stay home (or some communal solution) to raise our family right rather than having a bunch of latchkey kids and being stuck doing chores from the moment we get home until the moment we lie down. Some people say "well that's how I was raised" but it isn't right.

  • Unlucky for you then. I’m gonna be having an absolute blast on Battlefield 6 in a few months 😀

    I very seriously doubt that but cope away haha

  • I very seriously doubt that but cope away haha

    You doubt I'll be having a blast playing Battlefield 6? Why?

  • You doubt I'll be having a blast playing Battlefield 6? Why?

    Why?

    it's made by ea

  • A few things here.....

    1. I've already played the game for 20+ hours. I loved almost every second of it, and some of the things I didn't have already been addressed. They're taking player feedback seriously.

    2. Battlefield 6 is made by a whole new studio, not "EA DICE", helmed by one of the best in the history of the industry for these games - Vince Zampella.

    3. Not everything by EA is bad, and anyone saying anything like that is immediately showing they shouldn't be listened to.

    4. Again - I've already played the game via the beta. I know I'm going to have an absolute blast. I didn't like the last few BF games, so I didn't buy them. This one is a return to form from what everyone has seen and played.

    5. You tell me to "cope away" while basing your entire opinion on a wikipedia article that's pretty much got nothing to do with the actual game that's being discussed lol. Who is "coping"?

  • I think most of the replies to my remark thought I was questioning Linux for grandma overall. I wasn’t. Just Arch. I don’t think grandma needs rolling releases.

    In my opinion also Arch is usable on grandma desktop.
    True, it is a rolling release but I would suppose that on such machine there would not be that many packages installed and if the network is configured correclty (so nothing can connect from the outside) it would be not be a big problem, after all what grandma use is not updated on a daily basis.

  • Swollen battery

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    It's ripe and ready to be juiced.
  • Donald Trump pressure extracts $100bn Apple investment pledge

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    Niemand hat geantwortet
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    I'd really rather not make an account.
  • What are the most in-demand Tech Skills? (besides AI)

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    AI is devaluing other skills. I got an email today, from my own company, telling me I wouldn't have to renew my professional certification for 2 years if I passed an unrelated test on AI. The "test" was 10 questions. Glad to know my professional certification is equivalent to a 10 question pop quiz on AI.
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    I worked in a bank for a bit. Literally any transaction that's large and unusual for the account will be flagged. Also people do bonkers things with their money for the stupidest reasons all the time so all that one has to do if they're making large transactions is be prepared to talk to the bank and explain what's going on. Unless of course you are handling money in relation to organized crime, in which case you were fucked the moment the money touched the banking system
  • Could Windows and installed apps upload all my personal files?

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    rikudou@lemmings.worldR
    Yes, every application has access to everything. The only exception are those weird apps that use the universal framework or whatever that thing is called, those need to ask for permissions. But most of the apps on your PC have full access to everything. And Windows does collect and upload a lot of personal information and they could easily upload everything on your system. The same of course applies for the apps as well, they have access to everything except privileged folders (those usually don't contain your personal data, but system files).
  • Sitting up and waiting.

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    What new AI slop hell is this?
  • Microsoft's AI Secretly Copying All Your Private Messages

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    Forgive me for not explaining better. Here are the terms potentially needing explanation. Provisioning in this case is initial system setup, the kind of stuff you would do manually after a fresh install, but usually implies a regimented and repeatable process. Virtual Machine (VM) snapshots are like a save state in a game, and are often used to reset a virtual machine to a particular known-working condition. Preboot Execution Environment (PXE, aka ‘network boot’) is a network adapter feature that lets you boot a physical machine from a hosted network image rather than the usual installation on locally attached storage. It’s probably tucked away in your BIOS settings, but many computers have the feature since it’s a common requirement in commercial deployments. As with the VM snapshot described above, a PXE image is typically a known-working state that resets on each boot. Non-virtualized means not using hardware virtualization, and I meant specifically not running inside a virtual machine. Local-only means without a network or just not booting from a network-hosted image. Telemetry refers to data collecting functionality. Most software has it. Windows has a lot. Telemetry isn’t necessarily bad since it can, for example, help reveal and resolve bugs and usability problems, but it is easily (and has often been) abused by data-hungry corporations like MS, so disabling it is an advisable precaution. MS = Microsoft OSS = Open Source Software Group policies are administrative settings in Windows that control standards (for stuff like security, power management, licensing, file system and settings access, etc.) for user groups on a machine or network. Most users stick with the defaults but you can edit these yourself for a greater degree of control. Docker lets you run software inside “containers” to isolate them from the rest of the environment, exposing and/or virtualizing just the resources they need to run, and Compose is a related tool for defining one or more of these containers, how they interact, etc. To my knowledge there is no one-to-one equivalent for Windows. Obviously, many of these concepts relate to IT work, as are the use-cases I had in mind, but the software is simple enough for the average user if you just pick one of the premade playbooks. (The Atlas playbook is popular among gamers, for example.) Edit: added explanations for docker and telemetry