Windows Rot (bit Rot)
 

my older computer has slowed down verr badley....the AVs cant find anything nor can ad-awarese , drive is 75 % free space , defragmenting dident do sh!t. everything is fine but its still extremely slowed down . it has done this befor ....and i have to reinstall windoze to restore the speed and power , about every 6 months or so this cycle repeats itself. upon further reaserch and consulting my friends in the one of the ares pc help chatrooms ,iv found out that this is common for windose...google sead that it is when windows just degrades for no reson and gets so shakey it must be reformatted/reinstalled roughley every 6 months or so. google & othor sites sead allsow that windows is the onley OS that dose this, MAC and linux supposedley dont do it. however my friend from the chatroom (he sez hes a network administrator or somthing so im assuming hes right) sead that ALL OSs do this AND that data files eg music, video, text etc will "wear out" and "fade" or othorwize get corrupted and go south over time and with use too along with the OS. i am hopeing my friend/aquantence is wrong about the data file part atleast. this scares the shi* out of me .


has anybody els ever herd of this "bit rot" and has anybody ever seen it happen?? and is there a way to prevent or reverse it?

i can live with reinstalling the os every 6 months but if my large music colection and photos/home movies are doomed...why is it agen that we even bother with computers??
i think this is verry serious so please no smartazz coments mr ____(you know who you are)

I have a 13 yr old mac & the files seem to be fine on that. It's never had a re-installation or any kind of change since it was purchased. Still the same HDD.

It is apparently true that all digital storage formats do wear out. At least it's arguably better than non-digital formats however. And they are also susceptible to static, UV, magnetic interference!, etc.

What you do need to consistently do on windows machines is defragment your HDD's. And yes a fragmented HDD will slow your comp down considerably. This was also true for the older macs using older mac os's. But it doesn't seem to be the case for mac osx. There's other issues re: mac osx. Also a windows HDD that's almost full will slow down the system. AFAIK

By the way, there's ways of optimising your system & getting rid of unnecessary files. This may mean start up files (during system startup), registry, etc. Google about this (optimising your system.) I'm no windows expert (or about anything for that matter), so I can only offer simple advice re: your problem.

Digital Media
 

Dear CRT

If you want to keep your data files permanently, i.e. for the next 20 - 40 years, you must burn them onto reputable CD/R disks.

Unfortunately, nothing lasts forever, it will wear out, burn out or fall apart with use and, as LOTR said, our computers are prone to various forms of electrical interference.

Therefore, if you want some form of permanence you must put your music collection, digital photos and home movies onto CD/R disks (not CD/RW).




UK Bob

Hi CRT

I have not suffered the nature of the problem you are discussing here, but I have had to reformat my hdd several times through my own neglect.

By neglect I mean d/l something that has corrupted the OS or by messing with the registery and deleting something I wasn't supposed to. In both instances mentioned I had to reformat and reinstall the OS. It is a pita on this machine.

One thing I have noticed on this machine is that when the hdd gets down to 20% free space left it starts slowing down big time. I have learned through research and googling that windows based systems need 15% free hdd space to function.

But as mentioned by LOTR and ukbobboy01 those are the best steps to keeping your machine and operating system healthy.

CRT wrote:
Either you horribly misunderstood him or he is telling nonsense. Digital data cannot "wear out" or "fade". If you notice any corruption that's most likely a hardware failure.

Mr. I've Not A Chance Of Being Counted....

Listen-up dick-head...

Mr. Tube, for all of his various and amusing madness, actually does ask questions that bear on some reality vis a vis p2p world, whereas your routine garbage does not...

So...


Perhaps you could shut-up for a bit and actually learn from your betters...


Additionally, you are cruisin' for a bruisin' for a COMPLETE i.p. ban here... Then, if that does not make you 'behave', we bring in the heavy-squad and you are then absolutlely denied access here within these august Gnutellaforums... (and maybe a bit more denial, huh ?)
In other words of other words.... You be good, you here ? Or, you be off. OFF as in OFF.
Up to you, dumbo...

If you want to continue to participate here in GF and maybe even provide benefit for other users, GREAT !
If not, you is toast.

Understand, young one... I have not been 'involved' previously in any of your horse's *** posts.... BUT, NOW I AM !

Me is ON WATCH, junior. OK ?

And, I am not alone.

Ming The Moderator can measure your hat size via the net, let alone know EVERYTHING about you... He has a "girlfriend" who can tell how often you change you underpants and exactly what colour they must be BEFORE you do change them !!!

This lovely lady can do ANYTHING she wants re: YOU...
And we only need to make the slightest 'request'...

You are NOT ALONE, my child.

Be Good, huh, dear ?

Dear ursula,

do you abuse this thread to send private message to me? Otherwise, please tell me what in the above post of mine could be used against me.

Furthermore, if I had written this:
I'm rather sure you or the mysterious Mr Ming would have deleted my post. Looks like some are more equal than others.

Sincerely,
I_Have_No_Account

Having a very good idea exactly who and what you are and were...

Well... It's going to be fun, isn't it, chuckles ?

ta ta

ursula, you speak in riddles.

It can and it does.

You can only rewrite a sector of your hard drive so many times until it will start losing your data and you can only store data for a limited amount of time until it is lost.

There is always a one in a million or one in a billion chance that a file you wrote to your new harddrive has been corrupted while writing it and you just didn't notice it.