dwise1 writes:
It was only about 11 years old...
Since you mentioned Office and Quicken I'm going to assume it was a Windows machine - if not don't bother reading on.
So if it was a Windows machine you can't say "only about 11 years old". In Windows machine years with manufacturers like Dell and HP that might be about 130 years old. It's amazing it lasted as long as it did.
You say the repair shop sold you a "rebuilt" (is that a synonym for some other used machine that they repaired?) that after they transferred everything from your old hard drive to a solid-state drive worked like a "pin-compatible replacement." That seems like some pretty amazing magic. Your installed applications should not have worked on the "rebuilt". What did they do that made it unnecessary to reinstall them?
Then the solid state drive died, so they replaced it and again transferred everything over from your old hard drive, only this time you used the word "repopulated." Is that significant, or is "repopulated" just a synonym for transferring everything over? I think you're saying that they tried to set up the replacement solid state disk the same way as the first one, but they somehow failed to do so.
Hopefully when you bring it back they can pull off the same magic they did before.
But unless keeping old stuff going is a sort of hobby or lifestyle, I'd recommend that you stop messing around and buy all new stuff. You might even consider going to Mac, whose OS is built on a version of Unix System V. When you bring up a terminal window on a Mac you get Unix. If you wait for the new Macbook Pro 16 that will likely be announced next month and get a mesh router for full coverage of your house (and upgrade your modem if appropriate) it'll set you back about $3500. MS Office (now Microsoft 365) and Quicken run on Macs. With a laptop you'll no longer have to sit at your dining room table but can sit in your living room with your screen displayed on the TV (using Bluetooth, unless your TV is also old).
--Percy
™ Version 4.2
