Barrister73
04-18-2009, 07:04 PM
My girlfriend's computer (my old computer before I built my great system) just entered a coma.
I was listening to internet radio via iTunes on her computer while ironing some shirts. The music stopped and the screen went to screen-saver. I went over to get the music playing again, but the screen kept giving me error messages. After several attempts of restarting, resetting, unplugging, ect., nothing worked.
I put the hard drive into my computer (as an additional drive) to see if I could get anything. It caused my computer to start very slowly. In fact, my computer didn't want to start at all until it tried to repair the drive. Since there are a lot of pictures on there that my girlfriend cares about, I didn't allow my computer to attempt to fix anything for fear that it might further harm the data. The drive makes a lot of clicking and chirping sounds. I believe that it is spinning, but I cannot get any information from it.
Due to the sounds of the drive, I think the problem might be mechanical. At any rate, I cannot get my computer to do anything useful with the drive, so I haven't been able to see if there is a software fix for it.
Questions;
1) Any ideas on how to attempt getting the photos? Luckily, all other important data is on an external drive. But there are 12 months of photos that didn't get backed up.
2) That computer is a low-end three-year-old Compaq. I might be able to find the install disks. If not, should I get a new hard drive and OS? If so, which OS (she uses it only for email, photos, music, Internet)? Should I buy a new low end computer? Should I build another? If I should build, what's my best option? I planned on building a new computer after this latest generation of chips became less expensive and DDR3 dropped more. Is it more cost effective to build a low end that will be useful for two years and then pretty much get thrown out, or is it time to build a new mid-range ($800, not including OS or monitor) to last at least four years?
Hopefully I'll find those disks so that second rambling question becomes moot.
MRR
I was listening to internet radio via iTunes on her computer while ironing some shirts. The music stopped and the screen went to screen-saver. I went over to get the music playing again, but the screen kept giving me error messages. After several attempts of restarting, resetting, unplugging, ect., nothing worked.
I put the hard drive into my computer (as an additional drive) to see if I could get anything. It caused my computer to start very slowly. In fact, my computer didn't want to start at all until it tried to repair the drive. Since there are a lot of pictures on there that my girlfriend cares about, I didn't allow my computer to attempt to fix anything for fear that it might further harm the data. The drive makes a lot of clicking and chirping sounds. I believe that it is spinning, but I cannot get any information from it.
Due to the sounds of the drive, I think the problem might be mechanical. At any rate, I cannot get my computer to do anything useful with the drive, so I haven't been able to see if there is a software fix for it.
Questions;
1) Any ideas on how to attempt getting the photos? Luckily, all other important data is on an external drive. But there are 12 months of photos that didn't get backed up.
2) That computer is a low-end three-year-old Compaq. I might be able to find the install disks. If not, should I get a new hard drive and OS? If so, which OS (she uses it only for email, photos, music, Internet)? Should I buy a new low end computer? Should I build another? If I should build, what's my best option? I planned on building a new computer after this latest generation of chips became less expensive and DDR3 dropped more. Is it more cost effective to build a low end that will be useful for two years and then pretty much get thrown out, or is it time to build a new mid-range ($800, not including OS or monitor) to last at least four years?
Hopefully I'll find those disks so that second rambling question becomes moot.
MRR