Two years of Photoshop files, web designs, UP3 work, music, programs, ICQ logs, games... all... gone.
Hard drive failures fucking suck.
Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :
:-(
I remember how bummed i was when i lost LCARS mk1..
Posted by The359 (Member # 37) on :
Woah, thats...not...good... Posted by Malnurtured Snayer (Member # 411) on :
Wow. I've had this computer (my second, first PC) since 5/2000. Hah. Longer then I thought it was ... hopefully, the hard-drive won't fry (or at least, no time soon).
Sorry for your loss, Charles. But from what you described, I imagined your "computer room" as resembling something from "Hackers" with ten or twelve CPUs and a hundred monitors ...
Posted by Kosh (Member # 167) on :
Dude, come on, Backups.
Posted by Charles Capps (Member # 9) on :
The last backup was a year ago... I was actually using that system to back *THIS* one up, as I assumed this one would keel over first.
Luckily what was lost can be replaced, and this is giving me the chance to start over cleanly. (Had some nasty driver conflict issues and odd crashes)
Posted by Siegfried (Member # 29) on :
Sorry about the loss, Charles.
But, as you can see, even in death there is hope.
Yer Pal, Sieg "I've been watching too many sentimental movies" fried
Posted by Mucus (Member # 24) on :
Technically, its just the hard drive thats gone right? Nothing physically wrong with the rest of the computer?
Posted by Charles Capps (Member # 9) on :
Nope, it's "just" the drive... but really, isn't it the contents of the drive that make up the computer?
Think about it. Each and every computer has its own little personality, its own quirks. The icons in the tray, your shortcut bar, if any, the items in the start menu, your desktop.. the things you do every day define the computer and how you work with it... or in some cases, how it prevents you from working.
The loveable kludge of a machine known as pentium3 is now dead - the hard drive turned into strawberry jam.
The "new" machine, while it shares the same hardware, is totally different... and seems to be behaving itself. For the most part.
Oh... the new machine's name? flyinghell.
Posted by Vogon Poet (Member # 393) on :
Eighteen months is still pretty crummy in terms of HD lifetime. . . What make was the drive?
Posted by Charles Capps (Member # 9) on :
'Tis an IBM deskstar DTLA-307045
Posted by Grokca (Member # 722) on :
I just had a similar thing happen to me, I think I got some kind of virus or something when my daughter downloaded KAZAA. I started to have funny things happen to my comp. Then I couldn't even get it to run though Scandisk. Finally I found that my FAT table was partially gone or corrupted, doesn't matter which. I tried to format my HD and it wouldn't even do that, so I used the partion programme in the startup disk to partion my drive then it let me format these drive individually. Running defrag later I found a lot of bad sectors on my drive that were not there before. Was it KAZAA, I'm not sure I was guessing but I am still having strange errors happening to me, real pain in the ass. Has anyone upgraded to XP and has it solved any stupid problems?
[ April 05, 2002, 17:24: Message edited by: Grokca ]
Posted by U//Magnus (Member # 239) on :
Hey, at least you're not me. Dropped my P4 down the stairs yesterday. Broke the motherboard, and a GeForce3. WEhooo!
"'Tis an IBM deskstar"
The RPM can go 7200 from Earth to Klingon. You are all a bunch of gays and lesbians. This is my last data failure..
No, this is my last data failure.
[ April 05, 2002, 17:48: Message edited by: U//Magnus ]
Posted by Grokca (Member # 722) on :
Yeah, that would have helped. Two Days ago.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Looks like you need one of these too.
Posted by Vice-Admiral Michael T. Colorge (Member # 144) on :
That is why I always back up my computer with either zip files or with my new Iomega Peerless drive. With all the files I keep (and recently lost due to an earthquake) and download I need to keep them in something more durable and shock resistant to falling debris.
Posted by Vogon Poet (Member # 393) on :
I really must get round to installing my Zip drive.
Last place I worked, we were looking at a failure rate of about 10% over three years. Not sure whether that's good or not; but our pile of duff HDs grew so large I packed them all up in a box and couriered them to Hewlett Packard UK's head office with a nasty letter. Didn't get a reply. . .
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
"...I think I got some kind of virus or something when my daughter downloaded KAZAA."
One could, of course, make the arguement that KaZaA itself is a virus, but the idea that it was used to d/l one, or that it d/l'ed one itself, is not out of the realm of possibility...
Posted by akb1979 (Member # 557) on :
Mmm . . .
I'm having a problem with my printer. It's a HP Deskjet 690C and I've had it for about 3 - 3.5 years. It was working fine a week or two ago but now it keeps saying that my ink cartridges are incorrectly installed and keeps screwing up. I've taken the cartridges out, cleaned the contacts on them and in the printer, cleared all the ink, dirt, dust etc from where I can get access but still it doesn't like me.
Anyone know what's up with it. My parents have an older HP printer that's close to death at 10 years old, but it still works . . .
Posted by Balaam Xumucane (Member # 419) on :
Sorry about the loss, CC. I had a HD go about 2 weeks back. Fortunately the drives are getting so cheap now, that I had recently upgraded and had backups, but it still sucked ass.
Posted by akb1979 (Member # 557) on :
Yeah, sorry to hear about your trouble too CC, guess it's kinda pot luck as to what you get. Hope the data loss ain't too extreme for ya and you get back on track soon.
Just remembered the reason for my recent upgrade - the motherboard died on me. (It was about 3 years old, and a real crappy thing ).
Motherboards, HDDs, printers, monitors, ram, cd-roms, DVDs, floppies . . . anyone else lost in this world of ever evolving technology.
[ April 06, 2002, 14:31: Message edited by: akb1979 ]
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
Don't forget those of us with spontaneously shattering PDA screens...
Posted by Topher (Member # 71) on :
A friend of mine has a pooched HD, too. And his computer is only a few months old... half a year at most. He was trying to copy a CD for his sister and everything went to hell. His drive went from a 20 GB to a 2 GB, inexplicably.
Posted by Dax (Member # 191) on :
Although it won't help get the data back, most hard drives carry a 3 year manufacturer warranty. I know IBM does here.
Posted by Dat (Member # 302) on :
I feel really sorry for all you guys. My computer is almost 4 years old (yeah, you read correctly), and I haven't had any major problems on it. Plus my printer is probably near ten years old and also no problems. The only problems I've had are the standard Windows crashes, a cd-rom drive that no longer opened 'cause I never let it fully open before closing it, and a cd burner that no longer burned 'cause it was a refurbished drive and was probably fucked up anyway, and one last cd-rom drive that longer reads 'cause the lens probably was moving back and forth too much. But like I said no major problems.
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
Ah... the wonders of RAID
Nothing beats a 2 * 120GB drive redundancy.
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
A friend of mine has a pooched HD, too. And his computer is only a few months old... half a year at most. He was trying to copy a CD for his sister and everything went to hell. His drive went from a 20 GB to a 2 GB, inexplicably.
If that's a measure of his available space, tell him to check his Windows/Temp directory. I just fried it and freed up half my hard drive. Posted by akb1979 (Member # 557) on :
quote:Originally posted by Omega: Don't forget those of us with spontaneously shattering PDA screens...
Oh yes, we mustn't forget such people - it would be a crime.
Oh yeah, found out last night, with my Dad's help (he's kewl), that my printer is just shot & has gone kaput! So I went to PC World and got a brand new HP Deskjet 940C - HOT DAMN IT'S FAST!!!! Not to mention quiet and excellent printing quality.
I also took the liberty of getting an upgrade to Norton SystemsWorks 2002 and also purchased Norton Personal Firewall too (the family is thinking of getting into Internet banking & shopping, so we're going halves on the price - not bad at �19.99).
All in all, not a bad day. Then I remembered that I'm going back to university tomorrow.
Oh well . . .
Posted by Tora Ziyal (Member # 53) on :
My 2-yr-old PC is working okay except the Internet connection died on me. We used to have a Cannon printer that lasted a two, three trying years before it went kaput. Now I use a Lexmark, which is 3-4 years old and still going strong. Never had much problems with it either, a blessing for anyone who writes papers.
[ April 07, 2002, 12:59: Message edited by: Tora Ziyal ]
Posted by Topher (Member # 71) on :
And no, that's not his available free space. That's the total space on the drive.
Posted by EdipisReks (Member # 510) on :
quote:Nothing beats a 2 * 120GB drive redundancy.
it depends on what type of RAID system you are using. some types split the data evenly between both drives, so if one dies you lose all the data on both.
--jacob
Posted by Jeff Raven (Member # 20) on :
Luckily, the only hard drive failure I've ever had was just after it was backed up and reformatted. The company that performed the backup took it back and restored the info to a new drive free of charge- even though it wasn't related to the process of the backup at all.
All I can say is that maxtors rock.
Posted by Vice-Admiral Michael T. Colorge (Member # 144) on :
Akb, does your HP printer come with software that lets you align the cartrages? Try running that and if not... seek professional help.
Posted by akb1979 (Member # 557) on :
quote:Originally posted by Vice-Admiral Michael T. Colorge: Akb, does your HP printer come with software that lets you align the cartrages? Try running that and if not... seek professional help.
Um yeah it does. Didn't you see my previous post? I've bought a new printer that's better and faster than my old one. I am now in the process of selling my spare cartridge. Thanks for the advice though. Posted by Vice-Admiral Michael T. Colorge (Member # 144) on :
Sorry, I was running on caffine and sleep deprevation when I wrote that...
Posted by Tahna Los (Member # 33) on :
quote:Originally posted by Topher: A friend of mine has a pooched HD, too. And his computer is only a few months old... half a year at most. He was trying to copy a CD for his sister and everything went to hell. His drive went from a 20 GB to a 2 GB, inexplicably.
It is likely that your friend changed the filesystem of that HD from a FAT32 to a FAT16. I was told that FAT16 does not support drives > 2 GB or something like that.
Posted by Topher (Member # 71) on :
He didn't change the file system. He didn't fill it up with 18 GB of stuff. It just decreased in size for no apparent reason... When he tried to format, he got error messages about it being mounted and in use. Beats the hell out of me.
Posted by Matrix (Member # 376) on :
I got a really shitty CPU in my room. I got in 1999 and the only thing wrong with is 2 things: The A-Drive is incompatiable with the standard A-Drives because its a 'Super' drive. And 2 is just far slower and less memory that what is needed these days. I would buy a new one, but for what reason? So my younger brother after I leave for boot camp fries it 2 weeks later after trying to download thirty thousand porno movies off the internet?
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
I think that's the first time I've ever known someone to say "A-drive", like it was synonymous w/ "floppy drive".
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
"When he tried to format, he got error messages about it being mounted and in use. Beats the hell out of me."
Did he try and format it in DOS? Did he try and format it in DOS after using a boot disk?
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
I'm leaning towards the 16-bit filesystem explaination. Two gigs is the limit for such a system, and that's just too much of a coincidence for me to swallow.
Posted by Matrix (Member # 376) on :
I call it A Drive for a few reasons, one everyone knows what I am talking about when I do day that, its like they going to think about a car or something. Two, on all the computers I own, its always called the A drive, I never label my drives because then I would start calling them Greg drives or Jeff drives (Me and my bro). Third, I am into computers, when someone talks or writes to me about computers, I look at it like a foreigh lanuage. I only know that my computer is old, ancient in the terms of computer geeks, (hell 2 months is too old for a computer these days).
I get yelled at Best Buy for not knowing anything about a computer, telling me to go buy another computer or put in a disk burning drive or something by these a-holes who think they know everything. I gave them the finger, told them to go to hell, because I ain't paying for another computer just because my computer is old. It works fine for me, with a broken 'floppy' drive.
Sorry, this morning I had to deel with Best Buy assholes. My plan was to rip out the grey cords that connect to the 'Super' Drive and replace it with a standard one, which earlier my computer genious cousin said I could, and they tell me to go buy a $200 drive because its cool...
Posted by akb1979 (Member # 557) on :
quote:Originally posted by Vice-Admiral Michael T. Colorge: Sorry, I was running on caffine and sleep deprevation when I wrote that...
No worries mate. I've been able to swap my old cartridges for some new ones with a guy at the college where my mum works. We're also gonna take the printer to a shop to see if they can actually fix it. If they can, it goes to my sister. If not, it goes in the bin and the college get the partially used cartridges. All in all, I'm still better off as my new printer is soooooooooooooooo kewl!
Now go and get some much needed sleep Vice-Admiral Michael T. Colorge!
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Well, the thing is, a floppy drive is not necessarily the A: drive. For one thing, that letter-naming scheme exists on a Windows- or MS-DOS-based system, but not on Unix or MacOS, or various others. And even on an MS machine, it's only called the A: drive if it's the first one. If you have two floppy drives, the second one is going to be the B: drive. Back in the day, I remember having a 5.25" A: drive and a 3.5" B: drive.
Unfortunately, most people today are running Windows and have only everseen one kind of floppy disk (and not many people would have two 3.5" drives in a single computer), so many people have probably come to think of "A: drive" as the proper term for any floppy drive. I'd just never seen anyone actually display such a belief before.
Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :
when i built my computer, i went ahead and made sure it had two 3.5 drives and a 5.25 drive, for completeness sake. (i still want to be able to play pac-man and galaxians off the original disks)> Plus i had the drives lying around, which is a plus. While a lot of people have chided me for putting an 18 year old disk drive in a computer built to be high end (in early 2001, now considered middle of the road ), its made me a few real cool deals when i happen to see "The Promethean Prophecy" on 5.25 at the flea market...
Posted by Matrix (Member # 376) on :
Right now, I am talking to me computer genious cousin about helping me rebuild my computer. On Tuesday, he's bringing a crap load of computer parts to upgrade my computer. (Hell give me anything after 1999, would be an improvement)
Posted by Topher (Member # 71) on :
quote:Originally posted by PsyLiam: Did he try and format it in DOS? Did he try and format it in DOS after using a boot disk?
Yeah, I told him to try to format in DOS, seeing as where Windows wouldn't work for him. *sigh* Damned ME...
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