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Geek Culture / Busted computer

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Dazzag
22
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Joined: 26th Aug 2002
Location: Cyprus
Posted: 21st Jul 2004 05:39
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Ok, heres the thing, my computer seems stuck. Am normally totally fine with this (9X gets a format as soon as it raises it's buggy head for instance), but is XP Pro (never had one go wrong in XP) and I really really don't want to format this one. Am hoping it isn't hardware as it's only a year old. Bloody things are supposed to go wrong after 3 years, as everyone knows.... always when you are thinking of getting a new one... hmmm, am thinking of a new laptop...

When I boot it up everything is fine until it gets to a complaint screen, about how it all went wrong last time blah blah blah. Now no matter what I choose, safe mode or not, it gets to the loading screen then sits there totally stuck. Annoyingly it doesn't say your disk drive is stuffed or anything. I haven't installed any new hardware or software in at least 2 weeks BTW, and my virus killer didn't mention anything. I did however leave it on for about a month constantly. This is a pretty regular effort though for about it's whole life. Then when I came back today it was frozen on the desktop.

Ok, so normally with 9X I would bung the windows disk back in and let it sort itself out, with the extreme option of letting it format everything and start again. Normally this is fine. However my XP pro disk just tells me if I want to do an automated recovery (of course I never used the backup option in the first place), then installs the usual million drivers, and then says something like "Setup now starting windows", and then sits there. It leaves the DVD light on, but you can eject it, put it back in, the light goes out, no complaints. Hmmm.

Now I left it an hour in case it needed cooling down or something, and I've run a NTFS disk scanning DOS program to check I can actually see the drive. Which I can. Or at least it looks alright.

So, any suggestions before I do the next step and buy a new hard drive in the hope I can recover (NTFS DOS program outputs look promising) most stuff from my old hard drive?

Oh, and another clue is for the last few weeks I've noticed it has been running quite slow sometimes. Especially when accessing the hard drive after spin down. And I mean real slow.

So, 300Gb effort on order in about half an hour, unless I can be talked down. Hmmmm... 300Gb.... gibber...

Luckily I could make a Wendy house from my computers, so I'm not exactly killing myself. But still, it's the best one for UT2004, and I keep getting stared at by some weird cat out of the window on this machine....

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
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Surreal Studio IanG
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Location: Cyberspace...I think
Posted: 21st Jul 2004 06:22
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try re-installing windows over the top of the current installation - but not reformating, it sometimes works, but can be more hassl than its worth

overall - reformat

PC Spec- AMD Athlon 2.0Ghz, GeForce FX5200 128mb, 512MB of ram, Win XP Home SP1

Error 0 = no error - how is this an error the???
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Dazzag
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Posted: 21st Jul 2004 07:09
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Yeah, I tried that. But the XP Pro disk (full version), instead of offering a re-install just stalls after a while.

Really don't want to format. Is my main email PC and has several emails with registrations for shareware etc. I stupidly forget to print or back them up. Sigh, even with a DVD burner. Never learn...

So, anyone recommend a decent hard drive? Hmmm, include SCSI ones if you want. And anyone have any reasons (not including hardware failure - I now plan to backup a lot more) not to get 2 IDE 100gb drives and bung them in a RAID 0 configuration, rather than 1 200gb IDE drives.

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
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Surreal Studio IanG
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Posted: 21st Jul 2004 07:12
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you can access your files from the recovery console, then you can copy them onto some removeable media (floppy disks *shudder*) using the recovery console, though it is a tedious task

PC Spec- AMD Athlon 2.0Ghz, GeForce FX5200 128mb, 512MB of ram, Win XP Home SP1

Error 0 = no error - how is this an error the???
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Dazzag
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Posted: 21st Jul 2004 07:21 Edited at: 21st Jul 2004 07:22
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I was thinking of hooking the drive into another computer and backing up that way. I've done similar things before. Am seriously planning a RAID 0 array, and since you can only have RAID or IDE (rather than both at the same time) on my motherboard then is best to use another machine.

Anyone have any decent reasons apart from monetary or hardware failure (RAID 0 goes down the swanney if one drive dies, even if the other is fine) why a fast SCSI would be better than RAID 0?

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
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Emperor Baal
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Posted: 21st Jul 2004 07:51
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If you have an old hd somewhere, you could throw it in (as primary master drive), install win xp on it and copy-paste all files you need.

But if it's just gets stuck, it could be spyware
(I actually had a spybot that prevented win xp from loading. Why? Because zone alarm was asking permission for the spybot and I could NEVER see the zone alarm warning screen! ARGH)
so, you could just scan it for virusses / spyware and try booting it again.


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Dazzag
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Posted: 21st Jul 2004 08:04
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Hmmm. Perhaps. But it never gets past the initial stages. Most of the time the XP horizontal scroller doesn't even appear. And on top of that the XP Pro disk freezes after a while, doesn't even get going really. Even safe mode stalls before windows loads (I mean you don't even see the front screen). Never even seen a virus, let alone Spyware, do that before. Could always recover just about anything without mucking around with hardware. And it's not something like a new soundcard causing conflicts etc, as I've not installed anything hardwarewise since my IPAQ.

Also, bit hard to scan the drive for viruses/spyware when you can't even get into windows. Apart from transplanting the drive into another machine. Which I really can't be bothered to do at the minute...

That 500Gb RAID 0 array is looking mighty fine....

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
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Dazzag
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Posted: 21st Jul 2004 08:09
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Nah, will do the old copy from one drive to another effort. Simply bunk the old one in another machine as a slave, and copy all the required files. Out of interest, does anyone know how to extract email files (Outlook 2003 if it helps) from another drive? This is obviously without previously making an archive on that drive first. Piffle, wouldn't do that....

Oh, and how does this drive look? http://www.dabs.com/uk/productview?quicklinx=2PHQ Was thinking of getting 2 of them into a raid 0 array. Mmmm... half a terrabyte in one personal computer.. nice... And am I right in thinking it should get something like double it's data rate from raid 0? Double nice

Almost glad I'm going to flip the old 80Gb Maxtor effort out the window.

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
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Dazzag
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Posted: 21st Jul 2004 08:38
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Ah, stuff it. Just ordered 2 of those ones. According to my motherboard manual should be a piece of cake to handle a RAID 0 array.

Cheers

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Emperor Baal
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Posted: 21st Jul 2004 09:18
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Oh, not a bad deal. But 2 WD raptors would've probably been better and WAY faster


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Dazzag
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Posted: 21st Jul 2004 17:10
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As far as I can see Raptors are only SATA (36Gb) or SCSI (76Gb). My computer only handles upto ATA100, and SCSI drives cost a bomb. Fair enough on the disk speeds. Still doesn't beat those 15kRpm drives though. Still, 2 7200Rpm IDE drives should take some beating in a raid 0 array.

Cheers

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Dazzag
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Posted: 22nd Jul 2004 07:25
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So the one time I actually read a manual and I read the wrong bloody one. Sigh. So is ATA133 rather than ATA100 as max, and it *doesn't* have a built in RAID controller like the other computer. S**te... Oh well, cancelled those. The manual indicating only a max of 4xAGP should have been a close. Doh...

Raptor aye? Perhaps I will get a SCSI. Have seen some seriously fast 15k ones around. And they may be small in size, but can get a second IDE for laughable cash (200Gb for under a hundred - Nice).

Cheers

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Dazzag
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Posted: 22nd Jul 2004 09:34 Edited at: 22nd Jul 2004 09:36
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Quote: "Oh, not a bad deal. But 2 WD raptors would've probably been better and WAY faster"
Heh, fair enough. Ended up getting two 74Gb Raptors with a SATA controller (plus RAID). Was only a little more than the original order. Fair enough, is like 3 times smaller compared to the half a terrabyte, but I realised I don't use tonnes of hard disk space normally (DVD burners) and got by on 100Gb efforts. Can always get a slower 250 or 300Gb effort on EDI later on if I need more. But speed is another kettle of fish all together. Presumedly then, with 2 74Gb 10kRPM raptors, you should get the performance of something like a 148Gb 20kRPM drive using RAID 0. Ish. And you got to love that seek time. Think only a 15kRPM SCSI drive was faster (3.9ms compared to 4.5ms - 7200Rpm EDI are around 9ms).

Thanks for the suggestion Baal.

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
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Dazzag
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Posted: 24th Jul 2004 04:16
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Sigh. I really hate computers. So my dining room now looks like an scene out of Terminator with all the electronics hanging around. Tops.

So I've got the disks and controller in the drive eventually (you know how annoying hardware can be) and all the SATA and RAID stuff is going fine, all is good. Then once Windows XP disk loads all it's drivers it says "Setup is starting Windows" or words to that effect. Fine again. Except it stays that way for like ever. Disks wind down, fans slow etc. This is for either DVD drive too.

Now this happened before. Basically as soon as it was ready to do anything windowsey (like starting it) it would completely stall. So what the hell is that all about? My computer doesn't like windows anymore?? Hell, even the RAID controller had a GUI interface with USB mouse control and everything. Just not windows. Erm.

I'm at a bit of a loss here. All I can think is it is perhaps the temperature management stuff. Y'know, everything is pretty idle, but Windows kicks it off and pushes it over the edge. Or perhaps the memory is screwed. I dunno. Not amazingly techy me.

So c'mon someone, what do you reckon, before I take it to the harware shop tomorrow and admit my shame, then fork out a fair bit of money to watch them slot a cable back in.

Cheers

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