2 major computer warnings.

[Techno]

My puter died on me friday. I new it was close to time to get a new one and had been having glitches with it. Well now everything in it may be lost. Still have to see if I can get it to boot up again.

So if your thinking of upgrading then do it and don't put it off.
More importantly -for anyone using digital cameras find a way of copying them or all your pictures could be lost. Now I have a CD burner so I can back up my pictures. But all the others may well be lost.

BTW the old girl was a 266 Mh. Got me this far anyway.

[Forkin' Crazy]

My laptop died last fall. Luckily I purchaced an external CD burner for that reason. 3 months later, it crashed.

My new one has one in it, so now I have two.:D I back up everything at least twice a month.:) I also got a 3 year warranty. If it dies after then, I needed a new one anyway.:cool:

[WharfRat]

ummm, maybe "techno" ain't the proper name..................

a 266 ?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!

Jeez dude, you got a Chrysler on yer boat too ?!?!?!?:eek: :eek: :eek:

j/k bro, let me know if ya need any help. I build systems on the side:D :D :D

[bulldogdaddy]

believe me techno,i bought my puter 3 yrs ago and had problems with it all the time.you definately always need to keep things on floppy,zip or cd. i had 3 motherboard ,1 harddrive and 1 processor replaced in that time. do not get a compaq:mad:

[ripperd2]

I have a 60GB hard drive that I keep in a safe location. I back up my essential data to it, a couple times a month. MUCH faster and more painless than any other method. Although a bit more expensive.

No crashes in the last 2 years, cross my fingers!

-Dean

[STV_Keith]

Techno, unless the HD failed, if just Windoze is messed up, put that drive in your new computer as a slave drive...that way you can still access the data from it, but your new machine will boot to Windoze from it's new drive.

Just a way to keep your data if possible.

[H2Onut]

Put the startup sdisk you made when yo installed windows, Have it boot to a DOS promt, copy your pics over to floppies. It prehistoric but will work.

[Techno]

I htink the HD is toast. Am going to try putting it in the new one though.

H2Onut
start up disk??? That wouldn't work anyway. The HD light comes on as soon as you turn the puter on. It stays on and nothing happens. Can't even turn it off. You have to cut power to it to shut it off.

Eventually I'll get around to playing with it. It might just be a capacitor, it'll bleed off over time. But thats wishful thinking.

[Gerben]

Good idea Techno,

Running a P166 which will probably die in a while...

Gerben

[baddjonny]

Is the drive making the click of death?? you know as it tries to boot you just hear klick whur klick whur and thats all she wrote!

[gaineso]

I keep everything (data) on my desktop backed up to a 40Gig Que external HD. Also keep all data files on my laptop, so I essentially have 2 complete backups of all data. Would have to re-install programs, but data is safe.

Latest version of Norton too.

[Techno]

baddjonny
It don't even do that. The light comes on and thats it. No sounds no attempts to boot nuthin.
This happens at exactly the same time as the power button is pushed.

I mostly mention this since we no longer have the negatives of our pictures. The digital move kind of leaves this hole in the future use of these pics.
I can deal with the loss of my cad drawings and the other crap I accumulate. It's the pics I took of my boat work that is a loss.

[STV_Keith]

Techno, does it come up and tell you the processor speed, memory, etc? (post screen) If not, it might be a motherboard or CPU issue, not the HD.

Does it come up with the Press [some key] to enter BIOS or SETUP?

[ripperd2]

I agree with the post above. Your data itself may not neccesarily be lost. If you have a computer-savvy friend, you could take the hard drive to them, and see what they could get off it. If you lived in the twin cities (MN) area, i'd be glad to help, but i dunno where you are. If you get absolutely nothing on powerup, it's either the motherboard, video card, cpu, or possibly ram. Unlikely it is the hard drive.

-Dean

[STV_Keith]

Originally posted by ripperd2
If you get absolutely nothing on powerup, it's either the motherboard, video card, cpu, or possibly ram. Unlikely it is the hard drive.

-Dean

Could also be the Power Supply.

[Techno]

I still have to plug the HD into the new one. That will take some time considering the laze factor I suffer from.

[Sorry Dog]

I agree with STV keith. If the puter does not even post then usually not the HD - it would have to be a severe HD failure to cause that (it does happen though - I had a quantum drive catch on fire once).

Even if the HD is malfunctioning then there is a possibility some data can be saved. I have used a recover program and I got about half the stuff off the drive before I threw it in the trash. If you get the click-click though that is bad.
With CD-r's being so cheap that is a good way to back up. If fact I had one prematurely crash on me last month but I had a month old backup so I managed to save 9 out of 10 gigs of porn. I'm going to try to take a working drive like the one that crashed and swap the platter from the bad to good to get that last 1 gig.

Has anyone ever tried a Harddrivectomy??