wiped disk - no longer bootable

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Thu, 11 Jul 2019 11:15:24 -0400, Gene Heskett wrote:
>Well, me being both a retired tech, a C.E.T. and basicly a belt and 
>suspenders type in this regard, I also will be wearing a "ground me" 
>wrist band.  Those things are cheap enough, 2 or 3 bucks, that you 
>should always snap it on before touching what is today, nearly 100%
>CMOS based circuitry. I also make heavy use of one of those $14 AC
>sniffers. We still have in most pre-NEC built houses, and even in
>stuff built 20 years post-NEC 3 pin electrical plugs that aren't
>properly wired by incompetent carpenters.  You can get those gizmo's
>from your nearest home center, electrical aisle.
>
>When I married this lady in '89, I moved into a house she'd bought 
>in '81. Since there weren't any children to consider, I took the 3rd, 
>smaller bedroom and made it into my computer den. First thing in the 
>next storm, blowed a modem.  Replaced it, blew it again. I took the 
>sockets out, verified they were wired right and soldered them with a 
>silver bearing solder, going all the way back to the service, found it 
>wasn't properly grounded and fixed that. That was 18 years ago, and I 
>haven't lost a single piece of gear since. I don't care if lightning 
>hits my service pole and sends me a quarter million volt surge, but if 
>everything is properly bonded so that everything bounces in unison, 
>nothing will be hurt.  I've since built a wired workshed and a garage, 
>that needed a new 200 amp service, so this house is now a subcircuit.
>And I still seem to be safe.

Old houses are an electric nightmare. I suffer from potential
difference between one power outlet to another. Connect a grounded
guitar amp to one power outlet and connect my single coil guitar with
grounded strings and then touch the grounded metal case of my mixing
console connected to another power outlet, while at the same time you
touch the strings and have fun.

Not to mention that when I worked for Brauner Microphones we had just
one isolating transformer, most of the gear was directly connected to
the power outlets and the RCCB was dimensioned for heavy agricultural
gear, since the manufactory was a farm in the first place.

Nowadays at home, I don't own a transformer for galvanic isolation at
all, but at least the RCCB has got a sane value.