Reply to: Help! I've killed my desktop! :-(

[cojak]

Thanks Clippy. If I manage to format it the drive I'll PM you.

[Clippy]

At least I know what I did but not why what I did borked it.

Cojak - it's quite possible you didn't do anything out of the ordinary.

My memory is a bit vague as it has been so long since XP was released, but I installed it on day one.

Not long after, one day when I booted my PC, I got an error saying something like OS missing.

Turns out it was an issue with XP, which I didn't know at the time, so I re-formatted my drive and re-installed XP.

Anyway, I got this error a couple of times again by which time I was aware it was an XP issue and so was able to follows MS's advice to resolve.

If your disk is OK, I would format and re-install everything and would also use the opportunity to upgrade to Windows 7 (I can do you a good price on a genuine copy ).

[Sysman]

With the exception of the IBM Deskstar of course - the weren't dubbed Deathstars for nothing:
Hitachi Deskstar - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Without admitting responsibility, they settled this lawsuit in 2005, agreeing to pay $100 to every user whose Deskstar 75GXP drives had failed.

Time for a dig in the cellar. I've certainly got an IBM drive from that era which was DOA.

I had two or three of them as well. Cost me a lot of time trying to recover data. Have my OTT backup systems to thank them for though...

Every cloud has a silver lining.

[cojak]

At least I know what I did but not why what I did borked it.

[cojak]

Oh Dear.

Seatools has given the disk a clean bill of health

So it really is a new computer, but now Mr C wants to know how I could have borked.it, to stop me from doing it again, the problem is I have no idea.

This could be the beginning of a frosty week in the Cojak household...

[cojak]

Problem is, I don't have any access into it, the OS is buggered and I can't reinstall Windows on it. (Seatools needs XP*).

I only have a limited amount of knowledge to get it up and running and I've used all I know.

I can't see how I'm going to prove that the Seagate is duff so I'm just going to buy another one. It's cheaper than a new computer after all.

*Just noticed Seatools for DOS. I'll give that a go...

[administrator]

Wrt, drive recommendations, to me, they are much of a muchness in terms of reliability - you will always get people swearing by Maxtor drives because they've had a bad experience with Seagate drives and vice versa. I'd just go with whichever offers a good combination of size/speed/price.

With the exception of the IBM Deskstar of course - the weren't dubbed Deathstars for nothing:
Hitachi Deskstar - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I had two or three of them as well. Cost me a lot of time trying to recover data. Have my OTT backup systems to thank them for though...

[Clippy]

Well, I've used a Knoppix live CD and it's looking like I made a bad decision buying a Seagate Barracuda hard drive 7 months ago.

So now I have to get another drive.

Any suggestions on a reliable hard drive?

I'm not familiar with Knoppix or Linux Live so not too sure what they do but am assuming they have run sort of disk diags prior to installation and your HDD has come up with errors.

As a suggestion, I'd head to the Seagate website and download a relevant disk check utility for your drive and run that to see what that says.

You'll need to run that anyway if you wish to get an exchange/refund for your drive (if not, why not??).

Wrt, drive recommendations, to me, they are much of a muchness in terms of reliability - you will always get people swearing by Maxtor drives because they've had a bad experience with Seagate drives and vice versa. I'd just go with whichever offers a good combination of size/speed/price.

[administrator]

What size was it? I would not worry too much about it being Seagate, they have always been reliable for me. The trouble that I have found with hard drives of late - Seagate and others - is that the two platter set up of TB hard drives makes them more prone that usual to an early demise. I now limit O/S disks to 500GB and only use TB drives if I really need to. Anyone else got this train of thought or and I being silly?

[cojak]

Well, I've used a Knoppix live CD and it's looking like I made a bad decision buying a Seagate Barracuda hard drive 7 months ago.

So now I have to get another drive.

Any suggestions on a reliable hard drive?

[cojak]

OK - will do.

[TheFaQQer]

(I'm now trying to delete the partitions, I might just give up and buy another hard drive...)

I'd do as NF suggests and do a disk health check first - if the disk is healthy but you are still having problems, then buying a new hard drive isn't going to help the situation.

[cojak]

(I'm now trying to delete the partitions, I might just give up and buy another hard drive...)

[cojak]

Thanks norrahe, I might well take you up on the offer...

[norrahe]

Didn't this happen before?


If you PM me I can get Mr N to give you some teccy help tomorrow, if need be.