*updated*
The studio laptop has thrown me two non-fatal BSODs in the last month.
The first thing I did after recovering from the first, was to check drivers. The system identified a USB driver issue, which I had a feeling I have known about for some time.
But I can’t resolve it, right now, because the box of drivers is upstairs, fully packed away, in one of the large cardboard boxes in the spare bedroom.
After the second BSOD (happened about three weeks after the first) I looked harder at the studio laptop’s hard disk.
Hmm.
Space was a little tight, with over 75% of the 149Gb hard disk full.
And I know that having a hard disk close to its maximum can lead to non-fatal BSOD error messages.
I don’t have MS-Office on the studio laptop, but I do have quite a bit of editing software (the very large Sony Vegas Pro, and the almost equally chunky Cubase, as well as a handful of smaller audio and video editing tools and file conversion utilities).
I can’t remove the editing tools/conversion utilities, obviously, because this is why the studio laptop exists.
But I have deleted a metric fuckton of completed video and audio edits, because they were already stored in audio and video project libraries on the NAS.
Then I looked at what else was left behind.
Music.
Slightly under 60Gb of music.
Slightly under 60Gb of music which is already backed up on the NAS.
So why is it on the hard disk of the studio laptop?
Because iTunes needs a local drive to work with.
And because of that simple rule, all of my music files have been stored in c:\documents and settings\[username]\my documents\my music\itunes\itunes music
Why is the music stored in that tediously long address?
Because the studio laptop precedes the arrival of the NAS by several years. And because although I have backed up my music library to the NAS every week, I have never migrated the iTunes functionality off the c:\
Because I have never got around to mapping a drive to the NAS.
Well all that is changing.
I have mapped z:\ to the NAS. I have given the mapping the appropriate permissions to read/write to the appropriate NAS directory.
And as I type this, iTunes is copying 7,081 songs from c:\etc to z:\my music\itunes
Erm.
Hopefully.
I say ‘hopefully’ because I won’t know if this has worked until I plug my iPod in, and it (hopefully) syncs with the library in the new location.
And I won’t be able to plug my iPod in to sync it, because moving 7,081 songs from c:\etc over to z:\etc is taking a really really really long time. Even though I’m directly connected to the router via Ethernet cable, and the router is directly connected to the NAS via Ethernet cable.
Oh well.
Fingers crossed that it all turns out alright, eh?
Anyway, when I’ve been able to validate that this musical migration has been successful, I will return to the hard disk of the studio laptop and delete the 60Gb of music.
And then I will start running serious diagnostics on the cause of the non-fatal BSOD.
See?
There is method to my madness.
Sortov.
___________________________________
Well, it worked.
And then I deleted the (now) duplicate music files on the c:\
And the studio laptop is down to 39.9Gb occupied and 109Gb free.
And it’s a lot quicker than it was.
And the iTunes migration plays nicely from the z:\ drive that I mapped to the NAS.
So yay!