Windows 10 Recovery Drive Creation Issues | @PCWorld

When you can’t create the Windows 10 Recovery Drive, try these three fixes

The words you don’t want to read: “We can’t create a recovery drive on this PC.” These workarounds should help in most situations.

If you’re running Windows 10, you need to create a recovery drive—a bootable flash drive that will allow you to restore your system from a restore point, an image backup, or through a complete reinstall.

There’s no single solution to this problem. A fix that works for one person won’t necessarily work for another.

But first, a quick review on creating a recovery drive: Plug in an empty flash drive with a capacity of 4GB or more. Then open Control Panel’s Recovery tool, click Create a recovery drive, and follow the prompts.

And yes, you do want to back up system files necessary for a full reinstall.

If you try those directions and get a “We can’t create a recovery drive…” error, try these solutions:

Scan for problems

Your PC may be suffering from a corrupted system file. Here’s how to find out and hopefully fix it:

Type cmd in the Search field. In the search results, right-click Command Prompt and select Run as administrator.

Once you’re inside the command environment, type sfc/scannow and press Enter. The System File Checker (SFC) program will examine Windows files and replace any that appear to be corrupt. This scan rarely takes more than 10 minutes.

After the scan, try again.

Try another flash drive

Yes, it’s obvious, but a lot of people overlook the obvious. You can buy a 4GB flash drive for less than $5, so there’s really no excuse.

Create an install drive instead

A Windows 10 install drive is very much like a Windows 10 recovery drive. The major differences are that the install drive defaults to reinstalling Windows, and doesn’t know the details of your particular Windows installation.

First, you’ll need to download the media creation tool. Be patient; it’s a big file. Once you have it, plug in your flash drive, launch MediaCreationTool.exe, select Create installation media for another PC and follow the prompts.

When you boot from this drive, the Windows Setup wizard comes up. On the second page of the wizard, ignore the big “Install now” button and click Repair your computer in the lower-left corner. That brings you into an environment nearly identical to the Recovery Tool.

But if you do a complete reinstall, there’s a possibility that it will require you to enter your Product ID number—the proof that you can legally run Windows 10 on this machine. So take a precaution now: Download and run Nirsoft’s free and portable ProduKey. Save the displayed numbers in a safe place.

Article by Lincoln Spector via When you can’t create the Windows 10 Recovery Drive, try these three fixes | PCWorld.

Starting a tech startup with C — Startups, Wanderlust, and Life Hacking — Medium

Excellent article by James Perry

I founded a new tech-startup called Signal Analytics with an old University friend, Fedor Dzjuba of Linnworks. We are building a modern, cloud-based version of OLAP cubes (multi-dimensional data storage and retrieval) using a propriety multi-dimensional database system.

I am taking the lead on the technical side and I am most comfortable with C++ so decided to build our OLAP engine with it. I did originally build a prototype in Rust but it was too high risk (I should write another post to explain more about this decision).

A lot of my peers think it is bizarre that I am building a cloud service with C++ and not with a dynamic language — such as Ruby or Python— that provides high productivity to ship quickly.

It started to question my own judgement to use C++ and I decided to research whether it is good idea or not.

Click the link below for full article.

via Starting a tech startup with C — Startups, Wanderlust, and Life Hacking — Medium.

New year and same old me or maybe not

Most of us make resolutions for the new year and hope everything will change magically in this year but as the days pass on so does the enthusiasm and the new resolutions are left behind to solve the old issues first from the previous year. The same story is repeated for most of us year on year.

The problem is that we try to set unrealistic aims and goals, even though it’s OK to set your aim/ goal high but also must realize that we can only reach there with smaller steps and achievements. A lot of people tend to give up when they set the target too high and realize they are not getting close to it.

The idea is to set the bigger target and then divide it into smaller steps and try to achieve those gradually e.g. set a goal to loose 10 kg in 6 months but mini goals of 1-2 kg a month and then when you work your way to the monthly goal and achieving it will boost your moral and keep you going for the next step and finally achieve your main/ bigger goal.

Happy New Year

Multiplying teeth | EurekAlert! Science News

Researchers have found a way to — literally — multiply teeth. In mice, they were able to extract teeth germs — groups of cells formed early in life that later develop into teeth, split them into two, and then implant the teeth into the mice’s jaws, where they developed into two fully functional teeth.

Source: Multiplying teeth | EurekAlert! Science News

Claim your free 15GB of OneDrive storage

Microsoft has grudgingly agreed to let current OneDrive users keep their 15GB of free cloud storage and 15GB of free Camera Roll “bonus” storage, rather than dropping you to 5GB as previously stated, but only if you’re aware of the offer and don’t mind a bit of spam.

To take advantage of the offer, visit this Microsoft page. Microsoft representatives said the company does not have a supplementary explanatory blog post or statement to add at the present, but they did supply the webpage address, whose URL lists it as a “preview” at the moment.

You’ve already navigated the first hurdle: since users have to manually opt in to the offer, OneDrive users who are unaware of the deal won’t be able to take advantage of it. And there’s a small catch: by selecting the offer, you agree “to receive promotional emails from OneDrive,” although Microsoft immediately says that you can unsubscribe as well—how to do that, however, isn’t exactly clear.

It appears that un-checking the “promotional email” box, then clicking the “Keep your free storage” button also appears to work. In response to a question from PCWorld, a Microsoft representative said that the wording is being changed to “make it more clear”.

To read the full article please click the link below.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3014183/data-center-cloud/microsoft-will-let-you-keep-your-free-15gb-of-onedrive-storage-if-you-claim-it.html