YESSSSSS

[PAH]

equally have had a laptop that only worked if left in a warm room for a while.

In the early '90s we had a few PCs at work (in my one and only ever permie job ) that would need a bit of warming up before they'd boot properly.

I think it may have been the hard drives refusing to work at low temperatures. I remember them being as big as a house brick (full 5.25" bay size) and about 40mb or 80mb in capacity.

We blamed it on the office being in a converted mill that not only had the odd real mouse knocking about but a winter temperature barely above freezing. Yet back then (may still be the case) there was no legal minimum temperature for work spaces so we sat around in coats until the ancient heating system cranked up.

[xoggoth]

Cryogenics for computers

Works both ways. I've had electronics stuff that died once warmed up but equally have had a laptop that only worked if left in a warm room for a while. If it was at all cold the screen was all striped and blocky like a ZX81 on acid.

[alreadypacked]

Thought I should try to become Godlike for my birthday, but I may have left it a bit late.



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Insert witty post here!

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P.S. some thread domination too.

[PAH]

Count yourself lucky.

My dad has brought his dead PC around today. Said it went bang and now smells a bit.

Turns out the PSU exploded and took out the mobo and hard drive. All dead (tried a different PSU and tried connecting the hard drive to another PC), first time I've seen such a total write-off. Usually the hard drive survives so data can be recovered from it.

Looks like the PSU generated a surge through the rest of the system when it went bang as the hard drive now has a singed chip on its circuit board.

Typically my dad has no recent backups so has lost his email and other stuff.

It wouldn't have happened if he was 'on the cloud'.

On a more positive note I've finally managed to get him to upgrade his PC, and have palmed off an old AMD Sempron based one I had lying around. Still got my old core2duo in reserve, some things are too good for amateurs who are happy with 1gb ram and Windows XP.

I'll have to set up automated backups onto a secondary drive this time.

[chef]

Are you running Windows 7?
I've had a couple of external disks like that which have then behaved perfectly well when plugged into a different USB port

yes, but the drive initially was an internal sata2 drive but after it died and was replaced I bought an ICY case to use it and try to recover it as an external drive

[Spacecadet]

I had an important VM image stored on a hard disk that decided to die on me a few months back, I could hear the disk spin up and be recognised as a USB drive but then within seconds would disconnect and spin down again.

I decided today to plug it in and give it one last go to try and retrieve it before I took the disk for recycling.. IT WORKED !!!!

I now have the 32Gb VM Image stored on my NAS under full RAID protection.. phew, that saved me hours of re-installing.

Today is gonna be a good day.

Are you running Windows 7?
I've had a couple of external disks like that which have then behaved perfectly well when plugged into a different USB port

[ChimpMaster]

Should have stuck it in the freezer overnight, within waterproof packaging. Worked on my last drive that failed on me #Cryogenics for computers.

[scooterscot]

Had a drive like that in the past.

Diskwarrior in the end saved the day, even though the drive would not spin up properly. Took an age to copy the data but it worked.

[MarillionFan]

Techies

[chef]

I had an important VM image stored on a hard disk that decided to die on me a few months back, I could hear the disk spin up and be recognised as a USB drive but then within seconds would disconnect and spin down again.

I decided today to plug it in and give it one last go to try and retrieve it before I took the disk for recycling.. IT WORKED !!!!

I now have the 32Gb VM Image stored on my NAS under full RAID protection.. phew, that saved me hours of re-installing.

Today is gonna be a good day.