Windows Archives - Rick's Daily Tips

Q&A: How is my PC booting from an empty hard drive?

Posted on December 1, 2025

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Question from Marvin: I read your article about upgrading a computer by switching to an SSD to make it run faster.

The following weekend I went to Best Buy and bought a 1TB SSD and cloned the contents of the existing 1TB hard disk onto it.

I then wiped the hard drive and formatted it. Then I installed the SSD in the computer, leaving the now-blank hard drive in place to store my data files on.

Everything works perfectly but something has me baffled. When I look in the BIOS it says the hard drive is set as the boot drive.

How is this machine booting into Windows when the boot drive is blank?

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Q&A: How can I stop my PC’s hard drive from shutting down?

Posted on November 20, 2025

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Question from Amber: After my Windows computer has been sitting idle for a few minutes the hard drive just shuts down.

When I get back on the computer and press a key or move my mouse I can hear the drive starting back up again and I have to wait several seconds before I can do anything.

This is extremely irritating. I guess I’m just impatient and want my computer to respond as quickly as possible. [Read more…]

Q&A: Can I put more than one System Image Backup on the same drive?

Posted on November 18, 2025

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Question from Julienne: Hello, Rick. I’m a long time reader of your blog and I’ve read your posts about making System Image backups with Windows.

Your instructions are very good and easy to follow.

I’ve made three backups so far for my laptop but I just noticed that there’s only one backup on my external hard drive. I’m assuming it’s the last one I made?

My question is can I store more than one backup on the same drive? [Read more…]

Q&A: How can I quickly see what time it is in a foreign country?

Posted on November 7, 2025

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Question from Glenda: My son accepted a job in Brisbane, Australia and he now lives there.

My problem is I seem to wake him up every time I call him. I guess I’m horrible with time zones.

Is there an easy way to quickly see what time it is over there so I can avoid disturbing him when he’s sleeping? Maybe an app I an install on my computer? [Read more…]

How to undo an ‘Undo’ when there’s no ‘Redo’ option available

Posted on November 2, 2025

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Most every computer user is familiar with the “Undo” and “Redo” options on program menus.

If you’re unfamiliar with them, clicking “Undo” will reverse the last change you made to a text file, a Word document, a photo or most anything else that you can edit.

Clicking “Redo” will reverse the “Undo” and make the change you “undid” active once again.

As you can imagine, these are two of the most useful options you have at your disposal while you’re doing something with your computer.

But there’s a problem…

[Read more…]