OT-how to fix a computer...not a question...
 

so lately i have been having problems with my work computer. it slowly spiraled down to a slow grinding away pice of crap. called up tech support, gave them the machine, the formated the HDD and started over. got it back, all seemed good again. well over the course of only two days, the thing went straight down last night and kept giving me these very grandiose blue screens with lots of inof in regards to memory dumps and errors. the final one saying something about an unmountable boot volume...sweet. so i thought i would teach it a thing or two...never mind that i was going to lose 5 gigs worth of music, about a gigs worth i dont have backed up as i had just imported it in the past two days. out comes mister screwdriver, out comes mister HDD...search for large powerful magnet ensues...found one...my tank bag. it has lots. proceed to stick mister HDD to magnets and yes it sticks and as i move it around, i think i can feel the platters spinning from the force. go back upstairs. put it back in expecting the worst. windows loads up faster than ever with a message apologizing for the issue and to just press ok...been fine ever since, except for the cd-rom drive is acting up. it will read and play a DVD, but is very hit or miss for audio or data cd's.

talk about weird...its the machine i am typing on right now.

repoe3

Repoe3, man stay away from my boxes dude. I am willing to bet your HDD is going through the slow process of dying anyway. Eventially you will be turning the piece of crap back for another.

I have to say I am impressed that the damm thing is running after doing a job on it with the magnet. I am betting that the gap between the platters and the case is large enough to atttenuate the force (our friend the inverse square law).

I wish you luck on your next hard drive, its just a matter of time for this one......

i only resort to such force when i think it is terminal...never if there is a glimmer of hope.

looking to get an external HDD so i can throw all my personal stuff on it and work stuff ontheir server more frequently and not worry about.

repoe3

just a couple of words:
red hat linux
mozilla firefox
adaware SE
this stuff WILL mimic hardware failure-type errors (although drives still fail physically)..ever see the windows BSOD (blue screen of death) screensaver...hilarious, and has caused more than one drive to be formatted...even by people who should know better

Putting a dying drive into the freezer for a few minutes will help you recover the files WHEN it dies. (Note: I did not say "IF") IBM DeathStar drive? :D

or western digital cadavar (caviar)

Assuming you don't have a pacemaker, this is the best way to fubar your HD:

http://www.datadev.com/ge4000.html

SmileWavy

the only common denominator there was mozilla, i have stopped using it...not sure if there is anything related, but it certainly isnt worth the hassle if it was causing issues.

repoe3