Lost_Warrior Posted March 19, 2007 Report Share Posted March 19, 2007 Sorry guys, my lemon...erm...I mean, my computer...is broken again. I tried everything I could, but the restore disks won't even work. I guess I should order that Dell I've been wanting after all. I am so sick of sudden hard drive failures. This week sucks. And damnit, I knew I should have gotten it way back when! All I can get now is Windows Vista, which is known for it's problems (like being able to read my blog). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Julius Ratus Posted March 19, 2007 Report Share Posted March 19, 2007 Yeah, I feel your pain. My hard drive turned traitor a few months ago. It took me forever to scavenge pieces to build a new one. Microsoft sucks, eh? Most of my problem was that I couldn't find a boot disk to load my copy of 98, which I needed to load my copy of 2k upgrade. I ended up finding XP laying about somewhere. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pantagathus Posted March 19, 2007 Report Share Posted March 19, 2007 LW, since I didn't want to go off topic in that 'other place' let me just say that if its working randomly again you may be lucky in that it's not your hard drive but your power supply. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lost_Warrior Posted March 19, 2007 Author Report Share Posted March 19, 2007 (edited) Yea, I don't know. I did have to mess with the surge protector to get it to unfreeze. But it did *exactly* what it did the last time. I do hope you're right, although it looked pretty grim when I got "kernel errors" and "unmountable boot volume". I've never known a hard drive to fail, and then work perfectly again so suddenly?? well whatever the case, I hope that it remains working as well as it is now. The first thing I did when I got it up and running again was to backup all my artwork that I had on my comp and didn't want to lose. I consider it a wonderful bit of fortune that I was able to do that even if it does go down again. My instant messenger seems to be gone though. No big deal. That may have been the problem, I'll just reload it. Edited March 19, 2007 by Lost_Warrior Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pantagathus Posted March 19, 2007 Report Share Posted March 19, 2007 I do hope you're right, although it looked pretty grim when I got "kernel errors" and "unmountable boot volume". I have had both of those error messages when a power supply is failing. Basically the hard drive isn't getting enough juice to read/write properly which causes those errors. How old is the computer (power supply specifically)? Also, if you have an older house you run the risk of having 'dirty power' that's not voltage regulated properly which can flux, putting a strain on the power supply. I've had this happen to me twice Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lost_Warrior Posted March 19, 2007 Author Report Share Posted March 19, 2007 Oh really?! That's a relief! The computer is new, a little over a year old, however I've had numerous problems with it. My house was built in 1910, and I'm using a cheapo surge protector. My neighbor's computer was having problems about the same time mine was. We live in "the boonies" and there was a snowstorm recently. Old lines+snow...I wonder... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M. Porcius Cato Posted March 19, 2007 Report Share Posted March 19, 2007 Get a Mac. According to c|net, they run Windows faster than PCs. And, yes, when running Windows on your Mac, you can still play Rome: Total War (sadly, I know this first hand). Even better, you'll learn to ditch Windows, the blue screen of death, viruses, and all the sundry hardware failures that plague PC systems (i.e., software + hardware) because they were never built to work together in the first place. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antiochus of Seleucia Posted March 19, 2007 Report Share Posted March 19, 2007 (edited) I've only had one problem- ever, and I use Windows 2000. It was solved by just popping in my "backed up" *cough cough* reboot disk. I don't know why I never have all these problems... Btw macs can die. They can't even open a simple AVI file. I'm not even sure if they can even play WAV files. They have a one button mouse. Uhg. Edit: Ps. Don't get me started. Edited March 19, 2007 by Antiochus of Seleucia Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M. Porcius Cato Posted March 19, 2007 Report Share Posted March 19, 2007 They can't even open a simple AVI file. I'm not even sure if they can even play WAV files. They have a one button mouse. Uhg. I'm typing this on a Mac with a ZERO button mouse that allows right clicking, left clicking, scrolling, and more. It also plays avi and wav files just beautifully. In customer satisfaction, Apple leads over HP, Dell, and all the rest, year after year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moonlapse Posted March 19, 2007 Report Share Posted March 19, 2007 What exactly is your computer doing? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
docoflove1974 Posted March 20, 2007 Report Share Posted March 20, 2007 I'm typing this on a Mac with a ZERO button mouse that allows right clicking, left clicking, scrolling, and more. It also plays avi and wav files just beautifully. In customer satisfaction, Apple leads over HP, Dell, and all the rest, year after year. Please do not turn this into a Mac vs. PC (vs. Linux...I'm sure that opinion is coming soon!) debate...there is usually very little give by either side. I've used both systems extensively, and the only reason I tend to use PCs more than Macs is just personal preference. It's not that I don't like Macs, but that I like PCs more. But they are essentially equal; it all comes down to what one wishes to use the computer for, and what their personal preference is. Personally, I've had zero issues with the Dells that I've bought; if a glitch happened, it was usually my fault, or in the case of my laptop, I used it to death. Some people have the same luck with HPs, while others don't. Same have the same luck with Macs, while others don't. It's just the way it goes, I guess! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lost_Warrior Posted March 20, 2007 Author Report Share Posted March 20, 2007 (edited) Macs are out of my price range, and I remember freezing three of them within 10 minutes at school one time. My computer is doing wonderfully now. But before, when trying to read an "in browser" PDF file, it froze. CTRL+ALT+DEL would not work, nor would the off button, so I switched off the surge protector, and switched it back on. I restarted it, and I went back to try to read the file. It started to freeze, then went "internal page kernel data error" (or those words in a different order) then restarted. I tried restoring to an earlier time and it did the same kernel error thing. I tried doing "restore" from the black startup screen (F11) and it did "unmountable boot volume". I tried using the restore CD and it would not do it, I got some error again and then it said "unreadable boot disk" or something. After much switching off and on and retrying, I gave up. Basically, it did everything that it did before when the HDD and motherboard died. To a T. So I gave up on the thing and went to the neighbors to use their comp and post these messages. I come home and think "oh just for kicks and giggles I'll try it again". I turn it on, it's running beautifully. It says that the system restore I attempted (to an earlier time) was unsuccessful because it was interrupted by an improper shut down. The first thing I did was back up my art and such that was on my hard drive. Then I undid the partial restore like it recommended. It restarted, as it was supposed to, beautifully. I then did a virus scan which turned up nothing, and I defragmented the disk just to be safe. I noticed my messenger wasn't responding when I clicked the icons to start it, so I just deleted it, and uninstalled it, and reloaded it from the website, thinking it would be safer than trying to get the possibly corrupted file to work. The computer, is running fine now. It's not slow, or anything. My friend asked if the HD is making a high pitched whine (meaning it's about to blow) and it's not. It's making a quiet "mid frequency" hum, which I assume is perfectly normal, at least it does not seem out of the ordinary. This thing always was louder than most, when my mom turned it on the first time she thought she'd broke it! It's still making all the normal (for this computer, anyway) noises and nothing unusual. I'm hoping that when I shut it down tonight and we try to turn it on in the morning, it will work OK. Mom has been using it all night and she says it has performed without a glitch. Edited March 20, 2007 by Lost_Warrior Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antiochus of Seleucia Posted March 20, 2007 Report Share Posted March 20, 2007 If anything is noisy it would just be your fans. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lost_Warrior Posted March 20, 2007 Author Report Share Posted March 20, 2007 It's not the fans, I know what sound they make lol. All HD's make noises, just usually not a lot of noises. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lost_Warrior Posted March 20, 2007 Author Report Share Posted March 20, 2007 Actually the one noise is a fan I didn't know I had...I've got more than one or it's got more than one setting, because it's very loud when it's "running". It started up and is running beautifully. I still don't know what happened. Someone else suggested something might have overheated, I don't know it didn't have that "computer fart" smell that it occasionally gets when something starts getting hot (this happens rarely...about once every three months or so...for a few minutes.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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