Up there goes my darned hd

[PeOfEo]

Ever heard of a hd spontaniously dieing? Thats what happened to mine yesterday. I would have posted this last night during the off topic time but I was trying to do some data recovery. What happened was It said corrupted file bla bla bla run the setup disk and hit are hit f1 to continue f2 for bios. Anyways I went into the boot menu because windows would not load (I am runnign xp pro ntfs, not fat32) and I tried to run the repair utilities and the dskchk bootscn (i think those were the keywords, but I forgot exactly what I was typing last night) but those would not work. I tried to run a data recover app that boots off of disk that will let you upload files to the network or to a server but it needed a setup and the thing would not work I got errors when I tried to access the data. I eneded up having to reformat my hard drive once, tried to reinstall xp, boom stop error, reformat again, another error, same thing 4 times right when the xp setup is finished and you computer is restarting thats when it looses a bunch of files. I talked to the dell rep (this is actually my moms comp not mine, I built mine but hers is dell) and he told me to switch all of my ide cords and all this other stuff then finally said its broken well have to send you a new hd. I did not loose many programs but the files I lost, oh man this will take a while. They were not my files they were more like my mom and dads address books for outlook and a bunch of excel docs that they did. Becuase I am a faster typer then both of them combined and I know more about comps then them they will probably have me replace it all. Now I am going to have to spend a few hours doing that and saving it to my shared docs so I can copy it to the new hd when it gets here on like wendsday. Atleast it was covered by warrantee, Good thing they did not have to buy another 80 gig hd (I dont know why they want one that big they only use it for their word and excell and email, but I save my movies on it through the network half the time since I have 20gig of media on my hd already.

[Charles]

I had a hard drive die on me once, well twice really. I bought a replacement and then two months later the replacement died. I called the company and they wanted to know if I had checked their web site to see if it was one of the ones that had been recalled. Now how on earth did they expect me to check the web site if my hard drive was down?

Anyway, I've learned the hard way. I found an old 270M drive that was being discarded and popped it in under the hood. Now every night at midnight a little Perl script that I wrote backs up all of my data folders.

[PeOfEo]

Its not loosing programs that I am worried about for this comp, its my code. The new site layout I am working on and new asp.net scripts that I have not uploaded and tested yet are sitting on my hd, no backup. It would be nice If I could figure out a way to automatically upload them to some of my space on comcasts ftp when I save... I am going to start doing this manually though just incase the one in my computer goes the way of the one in my moms as I mentioned above. (I get a bunch of free space on their servers because they are my cable provider, but I cant run a site off it because no server side languages are supported)

[Charles]

I'm compressing each folder and my data is now only taking up 30M. And that includes not a few installer programs that I keep forgetting to clear off of my desktop.

[Khalid Ali]

I think I saw some freware/shareware other day on downloads.com for data recovery.Try one of those,they might be of some help....

[PeOfEo]

Well, Its too late now lol. The hd has only been formated 4 times now.

[DaveSW]

What sort of format? low level or standard? If standard then it doens't make any difference. Good data recovery software will still recover your files, because normal format doesn't write data to every sector of the drive. Which is how the police examine pcs belonging to suspected criminals...

If low level, then yes, you've lost it!!

Charles, Does 270M include your O/S?

[Charles]

There is no OS on that drive but the 270 includes the reserved track so I really only have 254 M available. Which is still a good bit more than I really need.

[DaveSW]

Thought so. I've got an old 200M, but couldn't fit an OS on it. And couldn't put it on the same IDE controller as my main drive without forcing the whole lot to run in PIO mode.

[PeOfEo]

3 of them were standard and I started a low level one but figured it would take days to finish so that was only partially done. But you see the hd isnt storeing any data, well very little it just seems to not be saving. So I bet the files would be lost anyway because right when the computer would reboot nothing would be there. The only things that were lost that I wish I had recovered were some address books of my mom and dads. They already had me retype those so it does not really matter anymore.

[James L.]

What's that old expression:

"There are only 2 types of computer users, those who have had a hard drive fail, and those who will."

I back up my user directory once a week onto a 40gig external firewire drive, and once every month or two I burn a dvd with the majority of my user directory and store it at my friends house. This way I always have a current back up at home, and a relatively current one off premises.

In the event of a failure, I would just reinstall the OS, my apps, then copy my user folder back over and I am done.

If I am working on something very important I might even back it up nightly to my server before I finish up.

It is ironic that the people who use their computers the most casually (i.e. my mom and dad), are the ones who NEVER seem to back up. They have so little info it would be a quick back up too!

[pyro]

Originally posted by James L.
It is ironic that the people who use their computers the most casually (i.e. my mom and dad), are the ones who NEVER seem to back up.True, but they don't have as much to lose as we do... I mean, sure they might be a bit disappointed if all their emails are gone, but they wouldn't have that sinking feeling that you get when you think that thousands of lines of code could be gone forever... :p

[PeOfEo]

Like if mine failed, thats why I put my code on my regular cable providers ftp, I keep all of my code in a folder on my desktop titled work and in it I have the sub dirs with the different stuff so I just copy paste it to the ftp. My regular host is free trial hosting for asp.net and if something went wrong they don't guarantee my data I could loose my account if I violate an aggree ment without any notification too (thats why I abide by the rules ;)), they do not have all of the safe guards that some host you pay $10+ a month to use has (The is about the cheapest you can get a mssql server account on a host that has other decent features, that is the cheapest I ever list hosting ) :). Anyways comcast seems more secure ish so I put my files on there my backups.

[pyro]

Why not CDRWs? Seems like most, if not all hosts (at least free ones) wouldn't not smile on you using the space to store data backups...

[PeOfEo]

Comcast isnt free, I pay for it, they are my cable provider so therfore i pay for it.

[Khalid Ali]

Originally posted by DaveSW
I've got an old 200M, but couldn't fit an OS on it.
If I remember correctly...windows95's first versions were less then 50Megs,don't remember exactly

[DaveSW]

Yes? My oldest OS is 98, which needs just over 200M. I haven't got a code for my 95 disk - it came with a new pc in the days before they invented sticky labels for the case...

[PeOfEo]

I have an 8 gig hd that I can run xp off of no problem :) when I get around to doing that Ill have my os and my files on separate drives itl be nice but it is bound to cause problems because the drive with windows will need to be the c drive and the other the slave from the way it looks now.... Thats the problem I do not feel like reinstalling some of my stuff.

[soccer362001]

I have 2 dells in my house one of which is losing its video card and has crash too many times, and the other has also crashed a few times. So I really don't like Dells.

[PeOfEo]

Out of all the mass comp builders I would give dell the highest rating though. I mean they are much better then gateway or hp. Dell used RD ram on our computer came with an 80 gig hd (even though it died) and had a p4 2.0ghz proc. Its the 8200 basically the top of the line model but still its pretty nice for something that came out of a mass maker. I could have gotten a better system for 700 bucks though. My parents who bought it only trust the big corps though even through they rip you off running on board video or, lol, our dell came with a geforce2. They really scam you on the video card. I kind of wish more companies would move to amd because it is cheaper and it seems to be almost as good as intel (you cant over clock it as much but its just as fast in actual processing power). I can get for 90 bucks with amd what would cost around 200 with intel, its insane.

[soccer362001]

We also have a HP celeron that has maybe crashed once or twice. Both of our Dells are p4.
But the only reason I dont like the hp is because its too slow.

[PeOfEo]

I dont like hp because they suck. Their motherboards are down right crappy. The layout stinks. I have an hp mother board and used to be on an hp system (Because it was cheap and when I first bought this i had no cash) I have speant months and months replacing everything on this comp and by this weekend I will be on a nice new msi mother board and my computer will be insane after that.

[DaveSW]

It's easier to build the thing yourself at the end of the day.

[soccer362001]

The only other thing about our hp is it had a bad monitor.

[PeOfEo]

I basically did build my own computer over time lol. I mean I have bought and installed jsut about everything on my machine again. I have also taken it completly apart and rebuilt it a few times like for case switching etc. This mother board is sweet, here are the specs

MSI Motherboard for Intel Processors SiS 648FX Model 648F Neo-L Retail
Specifications:
Supported CPU:Intel® Socket 478 for Pentium® 4 processor
Chipset:SiS® 648FX + SiS® 963L
FSB:400/533/800 MHz
RAM: unbuffered DIMM DDR266/333 or 2 unbuffered DIMM DDR400 Max 3GB
IDE: Ultra DMA66/100/133 up to 4 Devices
Slots:1x AGP 2.0 4X/8X and 6 PCI 32-bit Slots
Ports:2xPS2,1xLPT,1xCOM,6xUSB,1xLAN and Audio
Onboard Audio:RealTek ALC655
Onboard LAN: RealTek 8201BL PHY 10/100Mbs More... Model#: 648F Neo-L Special Free FedEx Saver Shipping

Its only 71 bucks too!!! It is extreamly stable and basically has a great layout. http://www.newegg.com/app/Showimage.asp?image=13-130-429-05.JPG/13-130-429-03.JPG/13-130-429-04.JPG/13-130-429-02.JPG is the pic.

right now my proc is only 400mhz bus but this board supports up to 800 so after I get this board I am going to borrow 170 bucks from my dad and get this

Intel Pentium 4 / 2.4CGHz 512k socket 478 Hyper Threading Technology 800 MHz FSB - RETAIL
Specifications:
CPU: 2.4GHz
Type: Pentium 4 Northwood
Cache: 512K
BUS: 800 Mhz
Socket: 478
Retail box (with Heatsink and Fan)
3-year MFG. Warranty- Model#: BX80532PG2400D Special Free FedEx Saver Shipping

Then after I get that ill sell the mobo and the proc i am running now, I can probably get 110 to 120 for them together at this local store because they are in good condition, no damage or anything different on them, I took good care of them. After that Ill just pay back the other 30 to 40 bucks.
EDIT:I know this isnt web design but I would really like to just have a forum devoted to computer hardware lol. We could call it the server forum. That way I could talk about modding my server with cathods etc :)

[djmax]

Try Xosoft's DataRewinder...it continuously captures application or database-specific write and update events, journals them for recovery. If corruptions happen, it does instant recovery by rewinding damaged data to the latest normal state. www.xosoft.com

[PeOfEo]

I have a version of linux that runs off of a cd, konnopix, and a micro version or windows (windows pe) that runs off a disk. I can do all of my data recovery from hd from cd, and I have 3 cd OSs to choose from.