HELP!! CROMAGNON COMPUTER MAN DID IT AGAIN!

[stubeck]

THanks guys, finally I think I get it. I can access the icloud and thus, the pics on the phone. FIXED!!!!
Honestly it's better than the classical cable system
Thanks again!
James
PS: BTW the system I had been using for "few" pics was sending them thru whatsapp. I suppose it's not an original system, but you can create a group where only you are, so you may send there anything

With Whatsapp I believe you need to create a group with someone else. I'm not positive what happens if they then leave the group though.

[JamesB]

With Whatsapp I believe you need to create a group with someone else. I'm not positive what happens if they then leave the group though.

That's what I meant, Stu, but fell short on explaining You create a group inviting, say, your wife. She then leaves and from now on you have a private forum for yourself, where you may post anything. It works!

[stubeck]

You explained it well, I didn't explain my point properly I don't think you can just create a group with yourself, and wasn't sure if you invited someone to a group whether it still existed when they left. Appears it does remain

[JamesB]

You explained it well, I didn't explain my point properly I don't think you can just create a group with yourself, and wasn't sure if you invited someone to a group whether it still existed when they left. Appears it does remain

Yes, though maybe some day they might put that down
OK, now some question for computer pundits. I just bought an SSD so I can make my desktop PC work faster. Past the fisrt spooky and scary surprise of not finding it recognized, I managed by myself and Youtube to correctly install it and format.
Now I am in search of a software to clone the old HDD into the new SSD. Someone handed me a link to a cloning software, AOMEI, but free version won´t work any longer any idea? There´s Acronis, but test version just lasts 1 month.
I have another issue. I had win10 and Office working properly, I tried to update to a better version of Office (or so I dumbly tought) and I spoilt the version I had so have nothing. Not sure how can I have Office again. I updated to Win10 directly from MS site when they made that offer of doing it for free.
Thanks in advance guys!
J

[stubeck]

Acronis should work if you only need it for a month, you won't need to be doing this again in the near future right? Depending on what you are trying to bring over though, it may just be easier to reinstall the software and manually copy your files over.

Regarding Office, you'll need to find your old version and install that. Saying that, the free online versions of them (or other versions from Google) work for most people if you aren't looking to pay for it. If you have a Hotmail/Outlook account or a Gmail one, you can upload files to their online area and access them online that way.

[JamesB]

Thanks Stu.But somehow every software I try has one shortcoming or another. So nothing till now,either Aomei, clonezilla or Acronis. So if someone is in "been there, done that" mode recently, please guys tell me. I spent too many hours to no avail.
About Office I do have a freeware version,but wouldlike to have again the original. And no I don´t have it as it was downloaded from MS site THx!

[stubeck]

You'll need to revert back to the old hard drive, but I've used Veeam Free for this. Boot up to the old hard drive, take a backup using Veeam onto an external hard drive, make a recovery image, then shut down the PC, connect up the SSD, boot off of the recovery image and you can copy it to the SSD. Its free for this.

For Office, if it was downlaoded from the MS site, you should still be able to access it. Which version was it?

[JamesB]

Thanks Stu! always there
I finally found a solution with Macrium. So Veeam Free will be next time
Macrium did work really well and it seems to have several interesting tools. I seriously recommend it.
Now I´ll have to remove the other three softwares I downloaded.
Ah... about the old office version, I´ll try tomorrow, thanks. I think it was 2010 (if that makes any sense at all) but now I am overjoyed and overproud with my achievement after all day!
BTW yes the PC feels faster with the SSD. I´ll fiddle a bit tomorrow to see if I can assign some SSD space to make some kinf of virtual memoryy supplementing RAM... or kinda.
Ah! I did not have an old disc to keep since it was a brand new PC with just Win on it...

[stubeck]

You're very welcome It was probably on a disc if it was Office 2010. If you can't find it, its probably worthwhile to get Office 2019. I found some keys here in the US for $80 on ebay that connects to your account as well so you can download it later relatively easily.

[JamesB]

I really have the hope that the always thanked and wise answers the f1m people gives to these boomer questions about computers are not just useful for me but also some more
Anyway here we go.
You will know the difficulties to make a match between a Win PC and an iPhone. Harder than seating two in-laws together at the Xmas family dinner
OK, I bought a flash drive relatively smooth working, but the other day it fell to the ground (you know carpets are not popular in Spain) from seated knee heigth, and next thing is it worked no more.
I bought a new one. Great, half a TB capacity, fast, frindly software...
But it has endured 48 hours.
Not sure it was a flaw, maybe unproper early unplugging... but it resulted in lots of folders named with ascii characters, and no longer recognizable from the iPhone.
Fortunately at least the files were still there and were readable from the PC.
Once that done, I thought returning it to Amazon, but... what if that´s a trick to steal valuable data?
I formatted it and now doubt between still returning it or keeping it as a 0.5 TB USB and look for a new, different one.
Here comes the question:

Do you know of a trustable, good one you have tried successfully?
Thanks in advance!!