Posted on 02/17/2009 4:21:46 AM PST by Perdogg
I download some music this morning and when I removed my USB connector to my Sony MP3 player my computer went dead. I tried a hard boot, but the computer is not booting up.
I am assuming that "she's dead, jim", right? The fan won't start and my zip drive has conniption fits when I start try to start her up. My CD rom won't open either.
Is there any way I can recover the contents of my hard drive? How do I dispose of the computer and get rid of the personal information.
Is this a good computer?
When you say “fan” do you mean the power supply or the fan that cools the CPU?
Sounds simple.....new power supply. One with no dust bunnies !
S3
Yes.
I bought my computer in November of 2002, I guess it’s time to get a new one, right?
Assuming the hard drive itself is good, once you acquire a replacement, if it’s not a laptop and has room for a second hard drive, you should be able to take the old hard drive and hook it up as a “slave”, and then copy anything you want to from it to the “master” that’s the primary in the replacement computer.
Once that’s done, do a “wipe” (do a search on “disk wipe”, here’s one sample: http://www.cezeo.com/products/disk-redactor/ )on the old drive, then “beat the tar” out of it with a large hammer.
Or, you could just leave the “old” drive installed and point the Windows swap file at it, taking some of the load off the primary drive.
It sounds like it’s a power issue and not a hard drive issue. 2002, you would probably enjoy a new computer and you can get a really good one for a few hundred dollars now. (Dell is under $300 at Walmart) Geek Squad at Best Buy or a computer repair shop should be able to take your hard drive out (let them so you don’t fry it with static, they have the right flooring for that) and move the information and data to your new computer for not a high charge.
The power to the computer is fine. The green light on the back of my computer comes on then goes off.
thanks!
Funny timing?
You can always add the current hard drive as a second hard drive on your new computer. Then read or transfer the information.
Make sure you didn’t pull the power cord loose or something simple like that. Weird things happen. I’ve seen my share.
Speaking generally?
Get a unit like this one ( there are several makers of them ):
http://www.newertech.com/products/usb2_adapt.php
Universal Drive Adapter
Pull your hard drive, hook up the adapter, and borrow a friend’s computer to find & copy your files.
Or, you could get another PC and connect the old HD as a slave or secondary drive, and poke around for your stuff.
Another idea would be to blow out the case ( to get rid of dust ) and try a replacement power supply.
If you desire to replace your 2002 PC which is somewhat elderly, I would make a deal at the local dealer to transfer the data from the old Hard Drive to the new PC for no or minimal charge.
I couldn’t agree more. 64-bit Vista (ANY edition) is a P.O.S.
Most likely a power supply or cabling issue. Check the internal power connection from the power supply to the motherboard, make sure it’s seated properly. Look for a model number on your motherboard and google it.
I had a motherboard that did a similar thing to me, and it turned out that if you unhooked all external connections to it, pulled out all the RAM (except for one piece), then powered up, powered down, replace one item, power up, etc, etc, then it would work fine again.
Weird issues can crop up out of nowhere like that. It happens, unfortunately. And, unlike what some other fools are saying, your OS has nothing to do with it.
If the PC won’t power up (a box fault) then open the case, remove the hard-drive and - when you have brought a new computer - plug it in as a secondary or “slave” hard-drive. You should then be able to read the data fine.
If the PC will power up but it fails to enter Windows (or whatever your operating system is) correctly, probably due to corruption on the hard-drive - then I recommend buying “SPINRITE”. It’s not free, but it is not expensive and it is a superb little application which will serve you well through life. Stick the Spinrite application on a floppy or other bootable media, and use that to cure your hard-drive.
Hope this is helpful.
And also use it to backup the primary drive.
It took years but I have retired all my tape systems. I do backup to multiple external devices (USB and NAS) but I'm all disc backup media finally (old habits die hard).
Odd. My 64-bit Vista Home Premium is outstanding. Far superior to my XP systems.
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