Otherbarry

Yes. In fact that’s how banks and brokerages try to retain FDIC insurance with larger sums of money e.g. Fidelity’s sweep accounts are actually spread across many accounts under $250k each. See the Deposit Sweep Program info at https://www.fidelity.com/why-fidelity/safeguarding-your-accounts

Booting from a usb is not working. Automatic repair is hanging for hours.

Do you mean just a Windows USB, or anything USB?

Personally what I’d do in that situation is load SystemRescue onto a bootable USB (can use YUMI or Ventoy), boot off that, let it run a memtest for a few passes to rule out RAM issues. Then if that looks okay boot into SystemRescue again and run a smartctl long test against the NVME drive in the computer and make sure those stats look good. That should at least rule out RAM and SSD problems.

With Ventoy you can load other OSes too, copy a Ubuntu Linux ISO on there and see if the system can live boot into Linux. If it does then maybe your issue is purely just Windows being Windows, there’s only so much you can do with a broken install.

Though I’m a bit surprised you can’t at least boot off a Windows USB and go into recovery mode… maybe double-check that your boot USBs actually work on other desktops/laptops? Would be silly but possible you have both a system/Windows issue along with a bad USB drive making things extra confusing.

Im going to get an nvme adapter, pull the important data off of my c drive

Yup definitely work on that, feels like even if your hardware is fine/fixable you’re going to have to re-install your entire OS no matter what.

Not saying that is for sure the culprit, but could be worth a try if you’re not getting anywhere with other solutions. Especially if the system keeps hanging at the BIOS screen before even attempting to boot to USB or Windows.

It’s possible your original build just started out with an older battery so with some luck a replacement could be an easy and cheap fix :)

Could that be the culprit? Why was it fine for almost a whole week?

Oddly that’s how those issues tend to manifest themselves. You start having unreliable boot ups, sometimes it hangs at the BIOS because it lost the prior BIOS config, and somehow the next startup manages to keep going with defaults.

Unfortunately even if that is the issue and you fix it, the prior Windows installation may be pretty broken if it is unable to fix itself… if you manage to get to the point that you consistently get past the BIOS, and Windows itself isn’t repairing it, then maybe the next step is booting off a Windows 10 USB and try to do a repair from there.

Also maybe start thinking about how you’ll back up your data in the case you need to start over with a fresh Windows install… since it’s Windows 10 maybe the universe is telling you it’s time to move onto Windows 11 or migrate over to the world of Linux but that’s your call to make.

Do you have a separate GPU installed and does your CPU/motherboard have a built-in GPU? If so may as well try unplugging the GPU, plugging your monitor into the motherboard video port, and see if the system boots up. (this is just in case it’s actually some GPU issue)

Otherwise, maybe a long shot - How old is your computer? You mentioned Windows 10 which makes me think it’s possibly on the old side… if something like 8-10+ years old it could be that the battery on the motherboard needs to be replaced and your entire system is acting up during reboots (this is especially obvious if there’s any power outages). Try doing a BIOS reset - if there’s a button on the motherboard to do that you should be able to press it, otherwise just take the motherboard battery out, unplug from power for something like 30 seconds, then plug power/battery back in and try a boot up. That could get you to at least boot up past the BIOS and you may want to consider buying a new battery to install into the motherboard. … I don’t know if Windows 10 itself would start after all this but at least you can find out if the hardware is still okay.

Sounds like a SSD drive connected via SATA. You’ve already tried swapping SATA cable, did you already try plugging into a different SATA port? If the SSD doesn’t show up at all then it’s probably gone at this point… hopefully you have backups.

You could also try installing the SSD drive into a good external USB case/adapter but I doubt that’ll yield different results.

Not sure about all the other stuff you’re doing, unless this issue occurred right after you updated or reset your BIOS there should be no reason to mess with BIOS downgrades, RAM speeds, SATA settings, etc.

Yes.

Not only that, the current generation of smoke detectors have sealed batteries so you can’t even open them up to change batteries or anything. So once they expire in 10 years they start their incessant “I’m dying” non-stop beeping - that’s when you dispose of the entire smoke detector and buy a new one.

I’ve read that they don’t detect smoke as well after 10 years anyway (e.g. even more false alarms) so it’s probably for the best to get rid of old ones.

I don’t have any answers - but now I wonder if your idea would be easier when working with one of the fancier smoke detectors with voice alerts. Those have pre-recorded voice alerts that “speak” when an alert occurs, rather than beeping. Those pre-recorded messages must be stored somewhere in the smoke detector.

That was my first thought too. My understanding is that Nordic countries do think about vitamin D deficiency (especially this time of year) so it’s common to see stuff like cod liver oil and other ways to supplement vitamin D, besides just eating fish. Figured Switzerland would be similar.

Dead, probably. I’d be okay with it… the way The Road is set up the world is going through an extinction level event, nothing grows anymore. There’s only so much pre-canned food, or other humans, to eat before it all runs out. It’s pretty bleak.