The End of the Hard Drive.

[The Widowed]

Well, if it isn't one thing, it's another.

Originally, our old CRT monitor burned out about a month ago when a lightning bolt took out the local power grid; The telephone and the rest of this computer (including the printer/scanner, the DSL modem and the speakers) were hooked up to the big surge protector, and with no leftover outlets the monitor had to settle for the cheapo surge protector hooked up to the other wall socket, so I think that's what saved the rest of the computer from following the monitor into oblivion. A brief courtship with another cheap CRT monitor followed, but we were stuck with a horrid and barely functional resolution. And after saving a few pennies we had just had the monitor replaced with this groovy 19" LCD monitor (which I'm still getting used to; The changing graphics "swim" a little due to the monitor's slower framerate, but at least it's a bazillion colors and a 1280x1024 resolution with little eyestrain now). Bye bye, old 17" CRT monitor. And take those crappy old speakers with you. :-P

Naturally, we had barely had the new monitor for a week when the slave drive (the D:\ drive) decided to make itself unreadable. So I paid the techies at CompUSA $200 to troubleshoot the computer, figure out why the hard drive died, salvage the contents of the D:\ drive and copy the contents onto DVD back-ups. So naturally the doofuses (doofi?) copied the contents of the functional C:\ drive instead. Not to mention the diagnosis. "Your D:\ drive went bad." Thank you, Captain Obvious. As if the Powermax application hadn't already told us that. This is the last time we trust our tech repairs to CompUSA, that's for sure. Overpaid idjits, one and all. Maybe I can get our money back for the DVD back-up. <.<

Considering how much had been stored on the huge, dumb slave drive, this hits us pretty hard. MP3 files? Gone, except for what had been saved on the Jerk's website or my Desktop Kazaa folder. MIDI's? Ditto. Three of the four MMOG's we subscribe to? Puzzle Pirates--small enough to save on the C:\ drive without problem--survived; City of Heroes, the Matrix Online and Second Life got derezzed. All of the wonderful screenshots taken from those three MMOG's? Erased. A bazillion game saves and the gazillion games they went to, including the Sims 2, Vampire: The Masquerade -- Bloodlines, Aliens vs. Predator 2, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind, No One Lives Forever 2, Max Payne, Mafia, American McGee's Alice, Clive Barker's Undying, Dungeon Keeper 2, Neverwinter Nights and Dungeon Siege? Poof. (Good thing Max Payne and Dungeon Siege save games to the C:\ drive; At least those should be salvageable.) The "Once More, With Feeling" musical episode of Buffy the Vamprie Slayer? Staked.

So if we want to get back to our usual routines of adding maps and Mood Music to play-by-email updates, getting killed off by Agents or supervillains, throwing knives at Cryo's house, loading game saves and beating Bloodlines/Max Payne/Wolfenstein/Alice/Undying whenever we get bored, moving the Jerk's Nord barbarian steadily towards the final showdown with Dagoth Ur, evolving my perfectly engineered family of superintellectual Sims or listening as Giles and Tara sing their world-famous duet, we'll just have to start from scratch. Download. Install. Unpack. Set up desktop icons.

So that's why there hasn't been any Widdy goodness to grace these forums for about four days. Maybe after each game is reinstalled and followed up with an hour or three of patches, everything will be back to normal.

The moral of the story: Get a DVD R/W drive and back up your hard drives often! If only we had figured that out before last Saturday....

[Kinetix]

That "swimming" is called Ghosting and happens in cheaper VGA LCDs. Like your new desk space? :D

Yes, be backing your stuff up constantly!

[Tarkenchi]

We have a 200 gig external hard drive, and a nother for backing up everything, I can't stress how important it is, I miss all my old screenshots because I had to reformat, and the virus was in too deep to back my screens up:(

[inkblaster]

Did you try the freezer trick? If you still have the old drive, there's the deal where you stick it in the freezer to try and get it to read one last time.

And that reminds me to backup to my external drive tonight....

[The Widowed]

Did you try the freezer trick? If you still have the old drive, there's the deal where you stick it in the freezer to try and get it to read one last time.
I haven't heard that one. How is that supposed to work? O_o

Now I'm trying to get the computer to acknowledge the new slave drive long enough to format it. What a pain it is.

[Kurai Inago]

Now you see, it's things like this that make me keep ONE harddisk and just cycle the software on it. Anywho, I've been wondering where the hell you'd been, I was almost starting to get worried. Anywho, that really sucks....

[Malibu Sally]

Well at least you made it back. You didn't miss much... well Druid married you off to Yin in that story he wrote, but that is about all. >:]

[Krypto]

Hahaha, yeah, welcome back Wids. That What If story was hilarious.

[Remianen]

Damn you, Widdy! LOOK AT MY SIG! And that's only since SUNDAY (when I installed xfire). :mad: Got a fly in amber though ;)


Sucks to hear about your tech issues. If it helps any, lemme know if you guys are still in need of stuff. I keep literally hundreds of computer parts in my computer room (think of a guy who likes working on cars. I probably have more parts than he has tools, several times over). With 8 rigs fully assembled and another 3 or 4 in various stages of assembly, it adds up. :)

Along with the regular data backup, I think it pays to think ahead and pick up some things "just in case". Monitors, UPSs, keyboards, trackmen (I don't use mice), etc can all be had at various computer shows/fairs for pennies on the dollar. This monitor (http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,117971,00.asp) is the one I use on 3 of my computers and I paid $622 each for them at a computer fair outside Philly. There were 15s for under $100 and 19s for well under $200. My Microsoft optical trackballs cost me $9-12 each, under the same circumstances. Trackman Wheel Mouse, $7. etc

Just a thought.

[Poison]

Welcome back, Widdy. I was wondering where you were at.
And it hurts to hear your story. Only a year ago my HD decided to go poof, I still have emotional scars.

[suburbanhell]

Sorry to hear Wids, welcome back, hopefully you'll be able to recover most of your files...*reminds himself to buy a box of CDs to backup stuff to*

[Krypto]

Ugh, I lost sooo much when my hard drive crashed last time...not fun. Not fun at all.

[The Widowed]

Sorry to hear Wids, welcome back, hopefully you'll be able to recover most of your files...*reminds himself to buy a box of CDs to backup stuff to*
Smart move. I bought 100 blank DVD's yesterday.

And seeing that Morrowind parody of the Moskau video gives me the urge to play Morrowind again. :)

I finally played Puzzle Pirates again last night after a month or two away. Montegalia's old crew recognized her and welcomed her back with open arms, which did my heart good. They've also added a ton of new islands, and pirates can own their own shacks or houses, add furniture to their homes and throw parties. I should play Puzzle Pirates more often. :D

[thebluecanary]

Widdy.... just call me and I'll come over and fix it best I can. All it will cost you is dinner. Got to take advantage of Nerd Boy and his contacts while you can. If all else would failed I could have got you a deal at Best Buy. =P

[inkblaster]

I haven't heard that one. How is that supposed to work? O_o

Now I'm trying to get the computer to acknowledge the new slave drive long enough to format it. What a pain it is.

The freezer trick is simply that, quote from PCWorld (http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0,aid,110320,pg,3,00.asp)Here's a last-gasp trick for copying data from a drive that won't read or spin: Place the disk in a Ziploc freezer bag and pop it into the freezer for an hour. Seriously. Cooling the disk can subtly change the geometry of the head and platters, enabling the drive to pick up data for a brief period of time. Make sure you have a new hard disk installed, as well as mirroring software like Norton Ghost ready to make a one-shot transfer of the old disk's contents.