My computer has died - RIP

Voxman

Typing this on a borrowed laptop as my PC has died and won't reboot - Windows boot repair doesn't work. All my data is backed up and I used to have up to date images. But over last 2 years couldn't create a back-up image because of an I/O error. So, taking it into a recommended tech tomorrow.  I had bad sectors/clusters on the disk and ran chkdsk/r - this may have removed (although its supposed to simply move data to good sectors) boot commands if the bad sectors contained these.  But it looks as if the hard disk was failing in any event,

The tech might even be able to still see the data on the hard disk which will be good as this makes life a bit easier and he can copy straight to a new drive.  Also, it might save some emails as my email back-up was 2 months ago - most I can see on-line but some were moved to storage folders. 

But before replacing the HDD and reinstalling Windows and everything else, they'll check over my PC thoroughly to ensure everything else is OK first and that the repair is economical.  Its a fast & good spec PC - 1.5TB HD, 8 Gb RAM, DVD RW, i5 processor, and 2GB graphics, so hopefully they can bring it back to life.

I'm going to see if he can also put in a couple of faster USB 3.0 ports. He also recommended installing two hard disks - one for the operating system & one for the data. Not sure how that works but we'll chat tomorrow.

Fingers crossed - pain in the arse but what can you do! 

Bridgehouse

2 HDDs is common - a small SSD for OS and a big trad (or another SSD) for your crap

bazxkr

It is possible it is just the boot side of things that is corrupted and if you view yr hard drive as a slave drive on another machine you still have all yr data that you can save. Will keep fingers crossed.

Hootsmon

My PC is old and tired too and I have never bothered with back up or anything on account that I am no good with PCs.....I do have an 2nd internal HD in the PC and lots of expensive progs like BAND IN A BOX and SIBELIUS and so on.......is there anything a dunderheid (me) can do tae copy stuff tae the free HD?

scrumhalf

I've just had my data HDD go bad on me.

CHKDSK failed. Seagte's own utilities failed. Windows Explorer kept telling me the disk was inaceesible.

Then I found Recuva, a free program that is currently allowing me to transfer pretty much everything from the "dead" HDD (Currently sitting in a USB caddy) onto a new HDD, as installed in the PC. I don't know how it does it, I'm just glad it does.

https://www.piriform.com/recuva

Hopefully this could save you a few quid at the tech's.

bazxkr

All HDDs will fail eventually, it is just a question of when. They run at 5000-7000 rpm usually....so you know failure will happen. May last 10 yrs but one day they will fry. You must have a back up strategy. Amount of people I know that have precious family images etc with n o back up. It always ends up in tears. Do it, and do it now. You can buy WD back up drives with the back up software already on it that runs automatically for perhaps £60 for 1.5gb

I've had 3 HDD fry in the last 2 yrs over about 6 machines

Thks for that link @scrumhalf I'll check that out..I don't know that one

@hootsman windows itself usually has a back up program built into the operating system...just use that to copy whatever data you want to back up onto the 'spare' drive. You would have to be bloody unlucky to have both drives fry together. But I prefer the portable back up so if there is a fire or a theft I still have the data separately stored

ICBM

My oldest computer - a 2003 Apple eMac - has just died too... or more accurately I have decided to put it out of its misery. It had been getting very unreliable and although it would work after a fashion, it was getting so temperamental that it was just a matter of time. The main fault wasn't in the computer section really, it was something to do with the CRT tube driver, but getting to it to repair it was next to impossible, even if the actual fault was something simple - Apple built them by starting with the CRT driver board, I think. Not worth the hassle anyway since the processor had been getting slower and slower and would barely run anything except iTunes and Preview, although that's really all I used it for at the end, as my workshop machine. (Fretboard browsing is now done from my phone .) But it's no good for viewing schematics if the screen doesn't work without repeatedly smacking the back of it until it comes back on - it was OK when that was once or twice a day, but not if it's every few minutes.

It will be replaced by my 2005 iBook G4, which doesn't have anywhere near as nice a screen at the old CRT but will have to do for now. I will miss the CRT static and reassuring constant fan whirr of the old one though… I think .

Bridgehouse

@ICBM - you're so steampunk

Hootsmon

bazxkr said:

All HDDs will fail eventually, it is just a question of when. They run at 5000-7000 rpm usually....so you know failure will happen. May last 10 yrs but one day they will fry. You must have a back up strategy. Amount of people I know that have precious family images etc with n o back up. It always ends up in tears. Do it, and do it now. You can buy WD back up drives with the back up software already on it that runs automatically for perhaps £60 for 1.5gb

I've had 3 HDD fry in the last 2 yrs over about 6 machines

Thks for that link @scrumhalf I'll check that out..I don't know that one

@hootsman windows itself usually has a back up program built into the operating system...just use that to copy whatever data you want to back up onto the 'spare' drive. You would have to be bloody unlucky to have both drives fry together. But I prefer the portable back up so if there is a fire or a theft I still have the data separately stored

Would the Windows prog you mention back up my purchased progs like BAND IN A BOX?

notanon

In general should always be able to get access to the data or at least a good percentage. I usually have a live boot CD/memory stick of say Puppy linux. It is only the HDD that is gone in that thing - it is still a very good spec. Stick an SSD drive as the boot drive and a large hard drive for storage it will fly along. I certainly would not decommission that machine for a good few years.

There are different quality hard drives - a Western Digital red drive is designed for 24/7 use. As soon as I see any bad sectors on a drive - it is swapped out immediately. Good luck.

digitalscream

I often find it astonishing what people are willing to chuck away. It's not uncommon for people to write off an i5 PC with 8GB RAM these days because of exactly this kind of issue, which is utterly ludicrous - that's a perfectly good machine, which just needs a new drive and an operating system reinstall.

In fact, like many others I've seen hit the skip, it's not just "perfectly good" - it's probably more powerful than at least 50% of brand new computers that are sold today.

Voxman

digitalscream said:

I often find it astonishing what people are willing to chuck away. It's not uncommon for people to write off an i5 PC with 8GB RAM these days because of exactly this kind of issue, which is utterly ludicrous - that's a perfectly good machine, which just needs a new drive and an operating system reinstall.

In fact, like many others I've seen hit the skip, it's not just "perfectly good" - it's probably more powerful than at least 50% of brand new computers that are sold today.

Exactly right - which is why I'm more than happy to have it repaired.  If it was an i3 or less with 2 or 4GB of RAM, I'd have got something better.  But i5, 8gb RAM with a 2Gb graphics means its a very fast machine (I'm not a gamer).  Plus it has a fast DVD RW drive and various reader slots. I have an excellent AOL 26" wide, LED back lit screen, and a Creative Labs 5.1 XiFi sound card with 4 good Creative Lab speakers and a bass speaker, a laser mouse and a good Logitech wireless keyboard.  I don't need a laptop and if the computer should have too many things wrong preventing an economic repair, I'd simply buy a replacement tower unit and put the Creative sound card in it, as that's all I need.  But I'm pretty sure (or at least I hope!) it can be salvaged. 

57Deluxe

How to recover data form a 32Gb Sandisk USB Cruzer stick when every PC (W98 XP W7 W10)  acknowledges it momentarily but then bombs it out??

ICBM

Well… I have to take back what I said earlier . Once I started to strip down the eMac to take the hard drive out, and given that since I was scrapping it I was less bothered about whether I could get it back together or if I broke it in the process, I found I was able to force the PCB up far enough to get a soldering iron under the edge of it, just enough to re-flow the joints. Admittedly with a slightly burned knuckle.

But it now appears to be working perfectly, so its lovely bright-but-warm CRT and familiar whirry fan has gone back to its proper place in the corner of the workshop, and the too-small iBook has been once again demoted to being a portable DVD player . I'm sure the eMac won't last for ever, but as long as it survives until I can replace it with my 21" iMac when that itself gets replaced with a new one, it's all good.

Voxman

Took it to the PC tech yesterday - lovely, helpful & very experienced guy .  Unfortunately the HD is completely fried and there is no way to access any data on it.  I was hoping that my last 2-3 months emails could be recovered, however, I do have most of these, so not a disaster.  I have all my data backed up on external HD inc all my email account settings, plus I have certain stuff double-backed up on Google Drive too. 

He's calling me on Monday with a quote for repair costs so I'll know more then - apparently I have a good PC and its well worth saving, and he's going to completely clean it out so that it will be like new - all the other components inc motherboard etc are all perfect.  The only thing is that once he's put in the new HDD and a secondary HDD (or SSD if cost permits) I'll have no more room for anything further.  Its fine because I already have slots used for 2Gb graphic and Creative sound card but I would have liked to add 2-4 3.0 USB ports (my system only has USB 2.0 ports) but he thinks there may be a way round this - something to do with using the card-multi-reader ports.

Anyway, the 'adventure' continues!

ThePrettyDamned

Voxman said:

Took it to the PC tech yesterday - lovely, helpful & very experienced guy .  Unfortunately the HD is completely fried and there is no way to access any data on it.  I was hoping that my last 2-3 months emails could be recovered, however, I do have most of these, so not a disaster.  I have all my data backed up on external HD inc all my email account settings, plus I have certain stuff double-backed up on Google Drive too. 

He's calling me on Monday with a quote for repair costs so I'll know more then - apparently I have a good PC and its well worth saving, and he's going to completely clean it out so that it will be like new - all the other components inc motherboard etc are all perfect.  The only thing is that once he's put in the new HDD and a secondary HDD (or SSD if cost permits) I'll have no more room for anything further.  Its fine because I already have slots used for 2Gb graphic and Creative sound card but I would have liked to add 2-4 3.0 USB ports (my system only has USB 2.0 ports) but he thinks there may be a way round this - something to do with using the card-multi-reader ports.

Anyway, the 'adventure' continues!

If you have space for a second hard drive, you can get ssd's very cheap. A 120gb or 256gb one will hold the operating system and important apps. I have a 256gb one with OS, Lightroom, photoshop, plugins, office software, davinci resolve and my hdd is a 2tb job with two games on it, photos and videos and work. 

It's so snappy compared to just hdd. I still have 140gb or so left on the ssd too! 

Axe_meister

Who is your email provider? All your emails are likely online anyway.

Voxman

Axe_meister said:

Who is your email provider? All your emails are likely online anyway.

Gmail & talktalk - both Imap not pop3 so in theory everything should still be there.  Only thing is I moved emails into storage folders so I'm hoping that this doesn't over-ride imap keeping everything received and sent on the server.  I do have a full b/up of emails up to Nov 16 - I'd meant to do a more recent one but just didn't, so my bad.  

Voxman

ThePrettyDamned said:

Voxman said:

Took it to the PC tech yesterday - lovely, helpful & very experienced guy .  Unfortunately the HD is completely fried and there is no way to access any data on it.  I was hoping that my last 2-3 months emails could be recovered, however, I do have most of these, so not a disaster.  I have all my data backed up on external HD inc all my email account settings, plus I have certain stuff double-backed up on Google Drive too. 

He's calling me on Monday with a quote for repair costs so I'll know more then - apparently I have a good PC and its well worth saving, and he's going to completely clean it out so that it will be like new - all the other components inc motherboard etc are all perfect.  The only thing is that once he's put in the new HDD and a secondary HDD (or SSD if cost permits) I'll have no more room for anything further.  Its fine because I already have slots used for 2Gb graphic and Creative sound card but I would have liked to add 2-4 3.0 USB ports (my system only has USB 2.0 ports) but he thinks there may be a way round this - something to do with using the card-multi-reader ports.

Anyway, the 'adventure' continues!

If you have space for a second hard drive, you can get ssd's very cheap. A 120gb or 256gb one will hold the operating system and important apps. I have a 256gb one with OS, Lightroom, photoshop, plugins, office software, davinci resolve and my hdd is a 2tb job with two games on it, photos and videos and work. 

It's so snappy compared to just hdd. I still have 140gb or so left on the ssd too! 

Yup, SSD is definitely preferable for the operating system & programs. Had a quick look - looks like a 1.5TB HDD (I really don't need bigger) is £50-75 and 256GB SSD circa £75-90.

I also think that after this experience I'm going to pay for 1TB cloud storage, to hold a full back-up & an image copy too.  I would have had an image, but my system had an I/O error so I couldn't create an up to date image (I do have an older one from 2013).  

bazxkr

If you get WD drives you can download the acronic back up software for nothing. I've used that and it's ok but all my hard drives are WD anyway so was an easy solution but may be better options I've not looked into

Voxman

bazxkr said:

If you get WD drives you can download the acronic back up software for nothing. I've used that and it's ok but all my hard drives are WD anyway so was an easy solution but may be better options I've not looked into

Thanks - I already have Acronis True Image Home 2017.  The reason I couldn't use it was because, as explained earlier, my system had an I/O (read/write) error and it couldn't finaiise the back-up/image.