Fixing your hard drive by Geezer

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Fixing your hard drive

POSTED BY: GEEZER
UPDATED: Sunday, July 18, 2010 14:48
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Thursday, July 15, 2010 3:14 AM

Keep the Shiny side up

The last couple of weeks my laptop, which is just used for internet access and on-line gaming, has been acting pretty bad: slow to run and load or won't load up at all, and freezes up a lot. Checking error logs, seems the hard drive wasn't working properly. I tried the simple stuff like pulling it out, cleaning the contacts, and checking the cooling, but no improvement. Checked with a couple of folks in the know, and the opinion was that this particular hard drive had a 3-4 year life and at 5 years was going South.

So, Monday I ordered a new drive. Later that day I decided to start the laptop up one more time to see if it'd run long enough to copy off some files. It did. In fact it has been running fine ever since I ordered the new drive. Guess I scared it straight. I suppose that when the new drive arrives, I should put it near the laptop as a sort of talisman to prevent another failure.

This is not the first time such "magic" has worked. Madame Geezer's MG Midget used to eat coils and starter solenoids like candy until I got two of each to keep in the trunk with the tool kit. Problem solved.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Thursday, July 15, 2010 6:56 AM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)

MGs are quite famous for that kind of behavior. My sister had an MG-B which is what I learned to drive on. When she got it, my dad told her to be sure and take the local British car specialist to dinner, quick, because that would be the very last time she could afford to buy someone dinner. He was pretty much right. Thing is, most of the time when she'd take the car in, it would stubbornly REFUSE to act up at all - until she gave up, drove away, and got a few miles down the road, of course!

Keep the hard drive handy. You'll need it sooner or later. I keep a couple externals around for backup, after having lost one computer completely when the hard drive melted down. Nothing quite like losing some 30Gb of music and having none of it backed up... :(

AURaptor's Greatest Hits:

Friday, May 28, 2010 - 20:32 To AnthonyT:
Go fuck yourself.
On this matter, make no mistake. I want you to go fuck yourself long and hard, as well as anyone who agrees with you. I got no use for you.

Friday, May 28, 2010 - 18:26 To President Obama:
Mr. President, you're a god damn, mother fucking liar.
Fuck you, you cock sucking community activist piece of shit.
... go fuck yourself, Mr. President.

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Thursday, July 15, 2010 7:03 AM

RIVERLOVE

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:

I keep a couple externals around for backup, after having lost one computer completely when the hard drive melted down. Nothing quite like losing some 30Gb of music and having none of it backed up...

I can't even imagine the horror of what you must have gone through. All that work you did building a collection of Amy Winehouse, Pink, and Simply Red songs! All gone in an instant. You poor thing.

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Thursday, July 15, 2010 7:05 AM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello,

Replace the drive anyway. No sense in having a piece of technology performing an essential function if you don't trust it to do so.

Hey, anyone have one of those solid-state drives? No moving parts? I was wondering if those work well. I saw Dell selling them last year with some of their computers.

--Anthony

Due to the use of Naomi 3.3.2 Beta web filtering, the following people may need to private-message me if they wish to contact me: Auraptor, Kaneman, Piratenews, Wulfenstar. I apologize for the inconvenience.

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Thursday, July 15, 2010 1:16 PM

FREMDFIRMA

Lucky you - when MY stuff goes it doesn't do it halfway!

My main PC power supply went with a sizzle and a cloud of smoke this morning, and was then replaced with the only one available for miles, which is serious overkill, but hey, maybe it'll last me four more years, neh ?

As for magic talisman stuff... ok, the lawnmower me and the ex had, which she kept since she has a house, stopped working when I moved, there's NOTHING wrong with it, not a bloody thing, but it WILL NOT START unless I come over there and fiddle with it, which drives her batshit cause she's a dependancy hating control freak, and worse, having to ask ME for a favor makes her crazy.

So she goes out and buys another, brand new, lawnmower.

Which WILL NOT START, unless I come over there and fiddle with it - I hadda restrain her from takin an axe to it, this one seems a QC problem, weak compression caused by blowby, valve slip or loose head bolts, which I'll check into eventually - but I CAN get it started with a little fiddling of the air intake.

What really drove her batty, and convinced her to buy the second one, was when she called, and I drove up there, and just as I stopped to turn into the driveway, she glares at me and yanks the pull starter to demonstrate - and it fires right up, neat as you please, to which I smirk and drive off while she blisters the paint off the garage with profanity I could hear down the street with the windows up, heheheh.

Last weekend, just to be a smartass, once I got the new one started for her, I went and started the old one too, heheh.

I wonder if next time I get a haircut I should save a lock or two and just duct-tape em to the goddamn mowers, for all I know that might WORK.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Thursday, July 15, 2010 1:42 PM

KIRKULES

Ever since a good friend lost all of his final paper for an important class in school I've been a believer in backing up important files. Now days you can get a decent sized USB external drive on Ebay for $30 with free shipping.

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Thursday, July 15, 2010 4:11 PM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up

I had a co-worker who could not wear a battery-powered watch. If she got one, no matter the price or quality, it'd die within a few weeks. Mechanical watches - windup or self-wind - would work fine, but anything electrical on her wrist was doomed. Makes you wonder if some folks generate fields of some sort.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Thursday, July 15, 2010 4:23 PM

IREMISST

Hubby does that! Seriously, he can frequently stop ANY tv signal or restart machines at work that the mechanics can't...

And by they way RIVERLOVE, WTF do you have against Pink, 'cause baby, I AM a ROCKSTAR!!

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Saturday, July 17, 2010 5:04 AM

DREAMTROVE

Never put anything you care about on a windows machine, nor rely on one to be reliable. I generally keep a few around to run windows programs, and I never use them to go to websites other than those I already know very well, like this one, or yahoo. Use a Mac or Linux if you want to avoid this problem.

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Saturday, July 17, 2010 5:10 AM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important

"Never put anything you care about on a windows machine, nor rely on one to be reliable. I generally keep a few around to run windows programs, and I never use them to go to websites other than those I already know very well, like this one, or yahoo. Use a Mac or Linux if you want to avoid this problem."

Hello,

Is there a special feature about Mac or Linux that makes hard drives more reliable? Or do you mean that because Mac and Linux computers are such a small fraction of the market, hackers and virus freaks haven't devoted much time and energy to infiltrating them yet?

--Anthony

Due to the use of Naomi 3.3.2 Beta web filtering, the following people may need to private-message me if they wish to contact me: Auraptor, Kaneman, Piratenews. I apologize for the inconvenience.

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Saturday, July 17, 2010 6:15 AM

KANEMAN

Quote:
Originally posted by Riverlove:
Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:

I keep a couple externals around for backup, after having lost one computer completely when the hard drive melted down. Nothing quite like losing some 30Gb of music and having none of it backed up...

I can't even imagine the horror of what you must have gone through. All that work you did building a collection of Amy Winehouse, Pink, and Simply Red songs! All gone in an instant. You poor thing.

It's to bad he didn't learn to back up his hard drive as quick as he learned to back dat ass up.....

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Saturday, July 17, 2010 9:11 AM

KWICKO

Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
"Never put anything you care about on a windows machine, nor rely on one to be reliable. I generally keep a few around to run windows programs, and I never use them to go to websites other than those I already know very well, like this one, or yahoo. Use a Mac or Linux if you want to avoid this problem."

Hello,

Is there a special feature about Mac or Linux that makes hard drives more reliable? Or do you mean that because Mac and Linux computers are such a small fraction of the market, hackers and virus freaks haven't devoted much time and energy to infiltrating them yet?

--Anthony

Due to the use of Naomi 3.3.2 Beta web filtering, the following people may need to private-message me if they wish to contact me: Auraptor, Kaneman, Piratenews. I apologize for the inconvenience.

It's the second part. There are no successful widespread Mac viruses that I've ever heard of or encountered.

I *DID* lose a Mac hard drive, though, so it's not like they're special or immune. They die just like other hard drives do, but not from viruses.

AURaptor's Greatest Hits:

Friday, May 28, 2010 - 20:32 To AnthonyT:
Go fuck yourself.
On this matter, make no mistake. I want you to go fuck yourself long and hard, as well as anyone who agrees with you. I got no use for you.

Friday, May 28, 2010 - 18:26 To President Obama:
Mr. President, you're a god damn, mother fucking liar.
Fuck you, you cock sucking community activist piece of shit.
... go fuck yourself, Mr. President.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, July 18, 2010 2:48 PM

DREAMTROVE

Quote:

Is there a special feature about Mac or Linux that makes hard drives more reliable? Or do you mean that because Mac and Linux computers are such a small fraction of the market, hackers and virus freaks haven't devoted much time and energy to infiltrating them yet?

The latter, mostly. The viruses, even when they don't kill your computer, put much wear on the system, as do the virus protection programs, actually, virus killers killed my last windows computer.

The former, though, is that both Mac and Linux contain the Key Chain, a wonderful feature where no program can be installed and executed on the system without an actual person entering an actual password to okay the specific program. I love having the setup when it happens that my computer asks me "Do you want to install and run DeathWorm Spyware?" and I can say "No, I think I'll pass" ;)

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