it's back
I'm back. Or, more to the point, my computer's back.
After six solid days of troubleshooting, and several trips to CompUSA, I've managed to fix my corrupted hard drive without losing any irreplaceable data. I am now the proud owner of a new IDE controller, a new DVD burner, a new virus scanner, a new mouse (when it rains it pours), and two full backups of my data. Thanks to Jon for lending his ear and computer so I could burn a copy of BartPE, and thus rescue my data before blowing away my drive.
All of this because I needed a bigger hard drive for my Canon Digital Rebel. That's right: the jinx is all-pervasive.
(For you geeks, the problem was my BIOS not being able to address hard drive space above 128/137MB, while good ol' Windows XP neglected to check if it could before wrapping around to the start of the drive and overwriting the boot partition. The solution was to install a new ATA controller card, as, despite Intel's claims, Intel Application Accelerator does not solve this problem. Now the only problem is, with six disk drives, a USB card reader, and five expansion cards, I'm way over capacity on my power supply. But Dell has made it almost impossible to upgrade the power supply without tossing out most of the computer with it. Crossing my fingers it doesn't explode like my last one did.)
On the positive side, while waiting for dozens of progress bars, I learned a couple songs on my (digital piano) keyboard. I love my Casio: no hard drive.
Meanwhile, my next lens is in the order fulfillment queue at Amazon. I know what you’re thinking. I just have to keep reminding myself I don’t believe in any of this fate crap. I’m in control of my own destiny.
(At least the new DVD burner is good for watching movies without having to walk all the way to my couch.)
posted by 1600 Squirrels at 1:13 AM
I've had the same problem on my mom's computer (which I used to have), and the simple solution was to go to the MB manufacturer's web site to do a BIOS update and that did the trick. But if the MB you had was too old, then my take is that it's probably too old to do cool stuff like playing Sims 2 or do serious Photoshop editting in the first place, in which case an upgrade may not be such a bad idea.
This is the same reason why I always build my computer. I do it because I have a much better understanding for all the different components, and I like to customize it. I recently upgraded my power supply to something quiet (19db), intake fans (12db), CPU fan (21db), replaced my video card fan with a big heat sink (silent), used sound barriers for my HD, and among other things to make my PC near silent. To do something like this on a Dell is near impossible since they pack everything so tightly. I got a Dell once (2000), and I'm never getting them again.
Why do you have 6 drives? I always get double the capacity, and get rid of old drives since they eat power and they're noisy and unreliable. I've had multiple drive failures in the +2 decades I've had computers, from the awesome 5.25" 20Meg Maxtor HD all the way to my 250Gig HD. HDs are UNRELIABLE, period. Here's something I do. Everytime the HD capacity doubles I buy it and copy from 2 old HD to 1 HD. For example I had 1 100GB drive 3 years ago, and then later on bought another one for expansion. Last year I bought 1 200HD and copied everything over, and got rid of my 2 old drives... they're inactive sitting around as backup drives. If you want a new drive, get Seagate Barracuda. They're as quiet as the sound of you breathing (assuming you don't have bronchitus or lung problems).
10:21 PM
The manufacturer did not have a BIOS update available. And although the computer is four years old, but it runs Photoshop Elements 2.0 just fine.
Hard drives may be unreliable in your experience, but none of the five I've owned has failed on me. Why should I throw away a working hard drive? And, if you read my post carefully, you'd know that I just bought a new hard drive: that's what caused the problem.
Some of us have neither the means nor desire to spend hundreds of dollars every year on computer upgrades.
Oh yeah, and I do have bronchitis -- which I thought you knew.
12:01 AM
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