[c12mech]

Can anyone tell me how to fix this?

It has happened twice in the last couple of weeks. This computer started acting weird about two months ago and I have not been able to figure it out yet. All was good until I tried to boot with my ipod plugged in. For some reason the BIOS was set to read usb first. I have changed that but still have other issues.

The hard drive seems to run a lot. The light blinks constantly in about 1 to 2 second intervals. If I run two apps at the same time the mouse just skips all over the screen.

I know it's time for a new system it's just not in the budget right now. I'm thinking Mac next time.

Thanks for any help.

Bryant

 

[MCC]

NTFS is the filesystem your computer uses to organize data on your hard drive. Given the source of your error and the symptoms you've given I'm willing to bet that your hard drive is on the way out. Make a backup of your most important files IMMEDIATELY and find someone who can check if the issue is indeed being caused by the hard drive.

BTW, switching to a Mac would not make any difference. Hard drives fail with great regularity and the manufacturer of the machine has no influence over that. This is why I always keep two copies of all of my data and 5 copies (2 machines, 2 backups plus cloud) of my most important files.

 

[c12mech]

That's what I was afraid of. I ran a chkdsk and came up with errors that could not be repaired. Luckily I keep an external backup.

 

[Region2]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MCC /img/forum/go_quote.gif NTFS is the filesystem your computer uses to organize data on your hard drive. Given the source of your error and the symptoms you've given I'm willing to bet that your hard drive is on the way out. Make a backup of your most important files IMMEDIATELY and find someone who can check if the issue is indeed being caused by the hard drive. BTW, switching to a Mac would not make any difference. Hard drives fail with great regularity and the manufacturer of the machine has no influence over that. This is why I always keep two copies of all of my data and 5 copies (2 machines, 2 backups plus cloud) of my most important files.

Thank you! I almost winced when I opened this thread thinking the first reply would be "get a mac."

It's always good to keep an external and if possible other versions of the file (I keep DVDs, external hdds, and online clouds). C12mech, if you're not doing so I do recommend also keep hdd images so you can just go back to the same state you left it since you last backed it up. If not, a good slipstream is pretty handy. I also like ninite for grabbing a lot of commonly used apps and installing them in one go.

 

[balderon]

Damn I hate the dreaded blue screen of death. At least you have a backup and drives are not too expensive.

 

[c12mech]

Can anyone recommend a good place to buy an hdd and some ram. I have an older desktop that uses ddr which is getting expensive. It never gives me any trouble except it's slow.

Region2,
How can I make an image disk like you are talking about? This is just not my area of expertise. I can troubleshoot and change hardware all day long but software is another story. I'm learning though.

 

[MCC]

Now that we're on the topic of backups, I thought I'd mention the tool I use for my most important files- Microsoft Live Mesh. It's a free service that does two things- first, it constantly synchronizes folders you've specified to Microsoft's "cloud". All the files you've synchronized are easily accessible from any machine via Mesh.com and that alone has saved me several times (i.e., going to lecture without a hard copy of an assignment- just walk to a nearby lab and print it off). Second, it syncs the cloud copy of those files with any number of other machines. This means that I can, for example, take notes on my Laptop with OneNote and pull them up on my desktop when I get back to the dorm without having to bother with copying the files. The convenience and peace of mind are worth at least trying it out.

It's in beta so there are some bugs here and there- I had to reinstall the client on my laptop just last week because it was getting stuck endlessly indexing my files and killed my battery life. Remember that a service like this isn't a substitute for your own backups. There's always the finite possibility that something could go wrong and cause everything to disappear.

Edit:
Quote:

Originally Posted by c12mech /img/forum/go_quote.gif Can anyone recommend a good place to buy an hdd and some ram. I have an older desktop that uses ddr which is getting expensive. It never gives me any trouble except it's slow.

I use newegg.com for the majority of my computer hardware purchases. Be advised that RAM prices are sky high right now. The RAM I bought in July of 2008 for $90 was $45 last summer but currently goes for $110. I really should have purchased another pair when I had the chance.

 

[Asr]

Microsoft's info on stop code 0x7E (which is what your BSOD shows): How to troubleshoot a Stop 0x0000007E error in Windows XP

 

[Region2]

I support newegg.com as a good go to (though I'm biased their warehouse is next to my family's distro firm and I used to play baseball with the newegg employees when I lived in California). You can see some great deals pop up on sites like dealnews.com.

Five Best Free System Restore Tools - Disk image - Lifehacker

Check out that article it lists a bunch of free ones. And the programs will pretty much walk you through it. All you need to do is provide enough space to backup images (it's good to have a few copies) and a boot disc to replace the image. I like images a lot because it's a rather quick and hassle free way to deal with a new hard drive or if you find you're infected and just want to rollback to a clean copy. Just download one and run it, it's rather easy and you can schedule backups. I can't remember if Win XP had it, but Windows 7 has a decent on packaged in as well.

And I second MCC's recommendation of live mesh as well. I don't use it because my company uses Jungle Disk (a pay for service) to keep things more private. The only problem is really large files because it will act like a network drive or a removable drive, but if you have, for example, a large video file and you clicked on it to watch it, you will have to wait for it to finish downloading, but short of an activity window (not all have this) you will just think your computer is frozen. It's very good for photos, smaller music files, and absolutely perfect for documents.