Posted on 11/23/2004 6:10:21 AM PST by ladtx
Need some help from our resident computer experts.
My computer died last night. The hard drive started making a racket and the thing locked up, so I'm 100% sure it's a mechanical problem with the drive. I know physically changing the drive is easy but then configuring it could be a real bear.
My question is how big of a problem is it to get the thing back up and running again? It's a 3-4 year old Gateway given to me by my son when he bought a Dell notebook. It has a good lcd monitor, would I be better off just going out and buying a new CPU?
That reminds me of a business associate that knew not much about computers, but loved to send and receive the smutty pics.
When an addressbook forwarding worm buzzed through our industry, he was in total panic that his "picture collection" was going to get exposed.
Then I'd buy a new drive and rebuild the system. But then I'm cheap. If you opt for a new drive - you'd have to have the OS and all of the apps. If you have irreplacable data on the old drive you can recover it (if the freezer didn't work) - but it will cost you. Seek professional help.
If money is no object then buy yourself a new box. Clean out the adware and spyware, tighten the default security (firewall and virus protection), and proceed.
There may be a local computer users group where you could get some advice. You're in Texas? What city?
You've already gotten good advice ( get a newer one, even a second-hand newer PC )-- but if you like to fiddle with hardware?
Get a known good HD, jumper & install it as a replacement, and reinstall the OS for starters.
Around here, after so many virus & hijacker adventures, I make a clone of the main and backup PC's HD about once a month, or when a signifigant upgrade is installed-- so if the HD goes West for any reason, I just pop in the backup and am ready to resume in a few minutes. If you don't know how to do this, drop me a line & I think I can explain it- it's easy.
Hey, it worked!
Whaddaya-gotta lose, eh?
Not quite true - I have gotten data off dead drives by freezing them. I think that's only worked two or three times in 8 years of fixing them for a living, but it has worked.
Hey, it worked!
Whaddaya-gotta lose, eh?
By the way, after only 6 months use, we finally gave up and trashed the cheap computer from walmart and bought from a reputable dealer.
A 40 Gb hard drive will run you ~$60, 80 Gb ~$75, if you shop carefully. If you want the cheapest fix, get a new hard drive. But realize that all your old software is gone, unless you want to spend $300-$500 to recover it. If you don't have the original disks to reload software, then you most cost effective route is to spend the $400-600 (Dell sale prices) to get a new computer with all new software. My experience with 5 year old machines, is 2 weeks after you fix one problem another crops up, and the failure will cascade through your machine until you've replaced nearly the entire computer.
Regardless of what you decide, it's a good idea to allow your CPU to run 24/7 if you can stomache a higher electric bill. Each time you power up, you send surges to your hardware. I went through 4 drives in one year until the lead tech at work told me to leave my computer running constantly. Since then -- over 6 years now -- I haven't lost a drive and my computer has been extremely healthy to a point where I haven't had to replace a single piece of hardware on the MoBo. OS crashes aren't really an issue anymore since XP is so stable.
You just want to make sure you have a nice cool tower. The newer cases typically have 4-5 80mm fans. My tower is usually cooler than the room with 5 80mm fans. It's cool to the touch. It's extremely important to have a cool tower if you run your hardware constantly.
Regarding your question, I'd say it depends on what the rest of your system is like. 4 years ago isn't too antiquated, but of course there's better. If you're a hardcore gamer, you probably want better gear. A 60 gig HD runs about 40$ now with rebates last I checked. That's over a thousand less than a new (good)system.
It's not hard to set new drives up. You just have to know how to read the jumper settings to make sure it's set to master - which it should by factory default.
There's many guides on the net you can google for that explain what files you need to make a system diskette and how to apply it. It really isn't as hard as it may seem.
Good luck.
Right Paul, I'm sure the backups are somewhere.....Now let me see........
I agree with another poster, buy new.
Wow. I love this place. I posted my problem, went to get coffee and came back to 30 responses already. Thanks everyone. I will probably just check into getting a new box. I know Fry's has a pretty good selection. I'll keep the dead one to play with and maybe teach myself a little about computers.
go to the dell outlet (on their website) for a refurbished model if you don't want to break the bank.
I agree - I was told from some techies that after 4 years computers start going downhill and the best thing is to get a new one because fixing them will cost you more in the long run.
Depends on the nature of the drive damage. If it's not pure mechanical damage, I've had success occasionally by using iRecover on an otherwise dead drive.
Trash it. Spend minimum of 500 bucks and you can get a fast CPU (> 2gHZ), 512 RAM, big GB harddrive, DVD writer and all the right ports. Cost of fixing the old one could easily be $200 (drive and sw), then you still have an old slow computer, not to mention the time involved. You can use your old monitor for a while.
THAT's a great plan.
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