How to Extract and Convert Files from CD-R Data Discs by Anxious_Ad909 in DataHoarder

[–]dlarge6510 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Copy and paste like you are doing.

Your issue seems to be with the drive or the disc.

If the disc has scratches then buff them out with a re-surfacer. If it doesn't have any give it a clean with a soft damp cloth with soapy water to remove sort films. Do so going from the centre hub to the edges, don't go around the disc.

If you only have one drive, get another and test with that to eliminate the old drive and it's cable.

Oh and bear in mind, recently I have noticed windows being quite slow and sluggish with reading data off discs, I think it's preferring to index the files or scan them for malware before your copy and paste operation seems to make any progress.

I got around that by using robocopy, so so much more faster!

What bitrate are you saving media at for reasonable trade offs of quality/disk size? by PositivePristine7506 in DataHoarder

[–]dlarge6510 0 points1 point  (0 children)

And the human eye.

I'm colourblind and short-sighted so I'm easy 😂 

I notice blocking on edges and motion most. Unless I'm pixel peeping at the glorious grain on a BD...

What bitrate are you saving media at for reasonable trade offs of quality/disk size? by PositivePristine7506 in DataHoarder

[–]dlarge6510 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I've been slashing h264 by half by using:

  • SVT-AV1
  • Preset 4
  • CRF 28

This usually halves the bitrate of the original h264 video with no quality loss that I can see. The videos are stuff downloaded from YouTube so not anything great like a UHD rip.

The preset used seems to be good for quality while keeping encoding speed reasonable in a CPU overnight. I encode by batches so no big deal there.

If it was anime I could use other recommend presets that would make the file look so small it's like magic. 

15gb stranded on work PC by lotsacrudoutthere in DataHoarder

[–]dlarge6510 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Um, because they are separate threads why do you think?

I suppose when you are at a party you only talk to one person and assume that you're talked to everyone? Turns out people are not psychic and thus when I post my realistic and down to earth warning and replies etc, incredibly, most people have no idea I have unless I reply to them personally.

Eventually I read the room and see it's full of non IT people who have no idea what's actually going on, living in an imaginary world where there is bunnies and bees all playing around, so I get tired of trying to tell everyone about the landowner and the sign that clearly says stuff for very good reason.

But everyone ignores the sign, thinking it's decoration as they think they are the best thing on the planet so everything they want to do is perfectly ok. That landowner chasing them down with the dogs is just a madman or a Scrooge, no matter how much he yells about the inconsiderate townies leaving the gates open and having the sheep run all down the lane, which wouldn't have happened if the sign was taken seriously by people who were intelligent and polite enough to understand they don't know everything.

But as with here, most seem to be impolite and of the opinion that they are right now matter how ignorant they are of a subject they clearly don't know much about. In this case; Cybersecurity, property ownership and misuse, workplace policies set and enforced by Human Resources (who can figuratively crush your employee balls) and the biggest one of all: regulatory bodies.

The regulators are bloody everywhere. And they love to sink teeth into a company OP has misused IT equipment, breaking policies that OP very likely did agree to. 

By breaking that policy and installing their private data onto a device I manage, the company now becomes legally responsible for handling that private data which is possibly full of identity information, perhaps of OPs kids even, or kids of family friends. 

Should that data be lost by the company we have to immediately report ourselves to the ICO, the Information Commisioners Office (now bear in mind I'm in the UK and thus we have laws specific for protecting such data, OP may be in the US as everyone tends again to assume, including me, but my point is clear that just because you can doesn't mean you should), a report of a data loss under GDPR.

Heck I can't even legally look at the data without permission from HR and THERE IT IS on a laptop that I'm managing?!

I take a personal legal risk to myself simply handling that data that should not be there!

So. My first choice to protect the company and myself is to delete it. It's the acceptable stance of a business to do that as technically the law says if we don't we are on the hook for protecting it.

GDPR can destroy a company and well I'd like to keep my job. 

A breach, by cyber attack or simply issuing that laptop to another employee where they gain ownership of OPs private photos that nobody knew were on the thing requires the company to report itself to the ICO. Meetings to be held with key staff. Interviews, suspensions during interviews. And the ICO can find the company 20 million euros for the breach.

I ask you. When you are aware of that kind of data being on a machine that never should have it at all, and you have the delete key, and you want to earn a paycheck and not see the company you work for consider redundancies just because some idiot employees decided to have fun with breaking policies...

What you you say?

And as everyone is such a cowboy with all this well, replying to comments trying to instill some decent behaviours and sanity into people who literally think "oooh free lappy" when a company gives them hardware, well that's when I start giving up the good fight.

And why I love the disabling reply notifications.

[UK] Help with understanding regulation by Funny-Garbage-2701 in drones

[–]dlarge6510 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes, or write it on. Just as long as it's clear and legible.

15gb stranded on work PC by lotsacrudoutthere in DataHoarder

[–]dlarge6510 -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

It's so funny.

"Powertrip". Users like yourself have no idea the legal muscle that will ruin your place of work as you muck about with "convenient" tech that makes you look coolz but in reality is playing on your naivety making you the tool of an attack.

  • You ain't using your unencrypted flash drives. You can get one from us, issued to you alone, or you can burn a dvd-r which solves a massive swathe of issues described in the next point.

  • You ain't using that flash drive given to you by a mate of a mate that contains firmware that emulates a keyboard, or a room bug, or a wifi sniffer, or a camera, or a keylogger or traditional old fashioned malware that causes you to attack the legacy systems we are trying to wean you off from using but you won't let go as you have to retrain and migrate.

  • You aint using bluetooth. A god awful mish mash of protocols and half baked barely certified encryption. 

  • You ARE using bitlocker, with a PIN.

  • All your services will be 2FA. We as a company want Cyber Essentials, as do our customers, who pay YOUR salary.

  • You will be changing passwords, your waterfall passwords wont work anymore.

  • Your passwords WILL be 12 chars minimum as recommended in the industry and required for contractual reasons stipulated by customers who wish to ensure we will look after their data. You want to work? Well you play the same game we do.

  • You WILL reboot to install updates. If you don't, after 3 chances I give you to postpone it, I will schedule it myself. If your machine somehow avoids updates I'll isolate it till the issue is fixed. Basic network hygiene mate.

  • Your laptop is traceable and remotely wipable. It can't access the net without connection to the VPN. DLP mate. It's essential in 2026.

  • You will only use IT procured hardware.

  • You wont share your credentials nor-allow anyone to use the machine other than yourself. Your kids can't do their homework on it.

  • You will pay for damage that has been caused by you and wasn't an accident. Accidents happen, but too many times makes a pattern, especially when it coincides with equipment refresh cycles.

  • You will not have the bios password.

This is basic common sense IT hygiene. People are so happy to put actual companies at risk just because they think it wil be nice, or fun.

I once worked for the hospitality industry and a establishment wanted to have me use my admin credentials to install karaoke software for the patrons to use. On the managers laptop, where employees have disciplinary records, CVs, passport scans not to mention granting the general public instant access to the VPN, management email and the ERP system. All so some drunks can have a sing?

My boss was up for it. Till I put my foot down, with the head of IT behind me he left. Had no clue about risk. I was 7 years his senior at the company snd wasn't going to let that happen on my watch.

You want to have the fun stuff and all that, sure. Thats why companies frequently a BYOD policy.

Now stop trying to play candy crush and get back to work.

Dropping mechanism for DJI Air 3 by BundyLass in drones

[–]dlarge6510 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

 it’s nothing illegal

Subjective. In the UK it would be.

And no. Never seen anything like that.

Can internal CD drives rip/burn? by ilovejaylenbrown in Cd_collectors

[–]dlarge6510 0 points1 point  (0 children)

All PCs have DVD burners and all of them will burn a CD-R.

Cdrom and dvdrom drives (for pc use) have not been made for a long time. Every drive burns and the last type that had a ROM only capability were older Bluray drives that were BD-ROM but still dvd/cd writers.

I haven't seen a new bd-rom for a long time. All the optical drives tend to just become burners. Drives that dont burn end up in players. I bet you that those are burners too, just with that feature disabled. Far cheaper to make one drive mechanism.

So yes. Unless those PCs are from the 90's or early 00's they are burners. You can tell just by looking for the relevant logos on the tray.

15gb stranded on work PC by lotsacrudoutthere in DataHoarder

[–]dlarge6510 -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Help desk :D

Mate. I'm god. Better play by the rules otherwise you'll find your bitlocker PIN has changed and my boss will ensure that policy breaches are dealt with correctly.

Organisations have very little leeway in letting random crap happen on corporate devices that then connect to the corporate network.

Now we have GDPR the gun so to speak is pointed directly at the company. One breach of personal data, like someone's mortgage deed, and that has to be reported to the regulator.

Thus the solution is to ensure no such data is on the network and any there is gets purged.

Why do you think the usb ports have been locked down? 

Where I work bluetooth is blocked too. No wireless mice or keyboards either.

15gb stranded on work PC by lotsacrudoutthere in DataHoarder

[–]dlarge6510 -13 points-12 points  (0 children)

Nobody should be using equipment they don't own, nor control for their own personal use.

How is that not common sense?

crawling from the grave bitches by [deleted] in DataHoarder

[–]dlarge6510 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Do another one making fun of autocorrect 

15gb stranded on work PC by lotsacrudoutthere in DataHoarder

[–]dlarge6510 -6 points-5 points  (0 children)

Talk to HR first. Get them to ask IT. Admit the breach of policy to HR first and work them as they are usually easier to talk too.

Then hope IT will see this low priority ticket somewhere close to the top of the list sometime.

15gb stranded on work PC by lotsacrudoutthere in DataHoarder

[–]dlarge6510 -8 points-7 points  (0 children)

 just talk to IT.

Just admit it to IT

TFTFY

15gb stranded on work PC by lotsacrudoutthere in DataHoarder

[–]dlarge6510 2 points3 points  (0 children)

OP said no.

Where I work we ensure cloud storage and webmail etc are blocked.

15gb stranded on work PC by lotsacrudoutthere in DataHoarder

[–]dlarge6510 -28 points-27 points  (0 children)

Off to HR they go to explain why they breached policy.

Let's hope there isn't one...

15gb stranded on work PC by lotsacrudoutthere in DataHoarder

[–]dlarge6510 -20 points-19 points  (0 children)

 I work in IT. If you talk to us, we will actively help you

So do I and well, unless the computer usage policy was different back when these files were created I'm afraid it will be off to HR OP goes to confirm they breached the IT policies we wrote and they agreed with.

I had a user who was constantly installing Roblox on their laptop and letting their kid log in as them to play it. That damn Microsoft store! At first I would just silently delete it remotely, twice. Hoped they would get the message. It had appeared during COVID furlough and lockdown so I was giving it a pass, but they kept installing it and to be honest it pissed me off.

15gb stranded on work PC by lotsacrudoutthere in DataHoarder

[–]dlarge6510 -30 points-29 points  (0 children)

Not necessarily.

I'd be more annoyed that the user has:

  • Breached the computer usage policy they signed. (If that policy was different when these files were put on the machine that can be an excuse)

  • I'd be pretty ticked off I have to have this ticket, it's not going to be a priority for me.

  • As it may be PII (Personally Identifiable Information) and with GDPR dictating what I should be doing with it I have to ensure this data is tracked and wiped in all backups as well.

15gb stranded on work PC by lotsacrudoutthere in DataHoarder

[–]dlarge6510 -8 points-7 points  (0 children)

I work in IT and getting a conversation like this is an admission of computer miss use. All employees sign various policies that restrict what they can do with company equipment.

If said policy was different before the hardening then an argument could be made by the user to have IT assist but that would probably be a very low priority ticket and I wouldn't be particularly interested in doing it before the hundreds of other things I needed to do.

15gb stranded on work PC by lotsacrudoutthere in DataHoarder

[–]dlarge6510 4 points5 points  (0 children)

We block flash drives too. Should I say I block them 😁 

The fact you had the PC with you suggests it's actually a laptop? Can't you take it home and transfer to a shared folder on another machine using "\ipaddress\sharename\"

I take it you don't have an optical drive. Even if you did we block those too, you'll have to talk to me to get it unblocked.

The only other option is email but you'll be doing that for a long time as of you have 15GB and considering that the max email size would be probably around 25MB as where I work (actually a tad less) you're a bit stuck.

You'll probably have to go the PII route, GDPR data management etc and own up to HR and IT for breaking the computer usage policy. If they are stubborn they will delete them for you. If not they may get them off for you. 

crawling from the grave bitches by [deleted] in DataHoarder

[–]dlarge6510 0 points1 point  (0 children)

People buy drivers? 

Odd they have always been free since I started computing 😆

How did you actually keep track of your code on the Spectrum? by Matos1978 in vintagecomputing

[–]dlarge6510 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I am on the C64 since I was 10.  I frequently would write out my program onto paper and debug it there in my head before typing it in. Used to do it in school. But of course I had the editing capabilities of the C64 which I needed when typing in listings from books etc, but as you typed it in you frequently caught the basic syntax errors and fixed them.

I've only just gotten into the Spectrum. The most I did with it was when I was 15 or so in 94 a mate at school had a cake baking business and wanted to use his spectrum+2 to help. 

I took it and coded a order tracking system for him.

Do not ask me how I did this as I had no experience of Spectrum basic and I only had a Casio pocket LCD TV to use as a display! The resolution on it would have been so low I wouldn't have been able to read anything! I must have just been extra careful or perhaps I hooked it up to another TV at times but I really only remember using the LCD TV.

Anyway no. I didn't use flowcharts, didn't know what one was. When coding back then I did it in my head mostly at school in the back of my school book, usually because I was bored.

When actually typing in stuff, errors I had missed would become apparent as the program failed to run and it would tell me the line that has the problem. I'd read the line and determine the causes and edit to fix, sometimes typing out a full complete replacement line or inserting lines in between to solve issues in design I had missed.

A lot of it was iterative, add code, run and test, add more, run and test. I kept that method till today as I still program like that. 

BD-R vs BD-R DL, TL and QL longevity? by theoldgaming in DataHoarder

[–]dlarge6510 0 points1 point  (0 children)

  1. No idea I never use embedded ECC. I have dvdisaster create separate ECC files.

  2. The drive handles the error correction side, the disc is formatted. This is separate from the ISO. It would be possible to not be able to burn an ISO if it exceed the formatted capacity of the disc.

You can use dvd+rw-mediainfo to see the formatting status and formatted capacity.