Tim's Computer Science Blog

Sometimes there are good old things that we just can't get away from. Something about the continued functionality inspite of the "newer better" hype cycles in technology. I digress though, so onto the meat of this post. There is an issue that has plagued an old laptop of mine for a while. It happened when I would change the HardDrive in the machine. (Think cycling through Windows 7, 8, 10, Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian, etc) Each time the HD was switched up the bootloader would cease to work. Worse yet a fresh install wouldn't work. DunDunDun! Hardware Issues! Turns out the nvram was having issues. Luckily Linux has this handy command line tool efibootmgr  to save the day. Grab a Live Cd/USB and Extra entries can be deleted by command like    sudo efibootmgr -b entry_in_nvram -B    . You might also want to remove excessive dump files using a command such as    sudo rm /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/dump-*   If needed check your OS for how to regenerate y...

Computers may not sleep but they certainly can seem crabby when they wakeup. First the screen is black. Then it will show a logo while the insides grind and gurgle, balk and beep. With little relief you will likely see a Windows logo (unless you are using a Mac, Linux or other OS) and after what seems like a excruciatingly long time your login screen. Unless of course you don't randomly get a screen with a list of options with names such as Windows Vista Home Premium, Recovery Options, linux Kernel 2.6.32.22-generic, memtest86+ after the nice looking logo you first saw. The computer boot up process happens in several steps as out lined below. #1 Power On Self Test (POST), BIOS (Basic Input Output System) #2 Master Boot Record, Bootloader -Boot Options #3 Operating system The Power On Self Test is where the computer checks that the hardware is functioning correctly, and if there is problems the BIOS will beep. The BIOS is what controls the boot-up process and is a...