Your hard drive is shot!

[stevej37]

Five words that you don't want to hear.

Yesterday my 12 year old Dell laptop froze up. Was working fine one minute...then no response to anything the next. I did a hard shut-down and tried re-starting. The words 'Preparing Automatic Repair' came up with the rolling blue ball...and stayed there for a couple hours.

I brought it in to my local @Home Computer Repair Store and the guy told me the bad news. The original hard drive is shot.

The good news is that he replaced the HD with a SS HD and it's ready for me to pick-up tomorrow morning.

I'm not sure if that was the smartest thing to do...but he said the Dell's are long-living computers. I only paid $350 for it 12 years back. It's a 15.6 screen.

Would you have fixed it....or bought a new one?

[Scott Douglas]

I'd have fixed it but used another HD not SS. I'm cheap that way.

Was he able to recover your data?

[stevej37]

^^^
I'm going to see what is on there tomorrow after I pick it up.
I'm mostly concerned about the 12 years of photos. He said that I could bring the old HD back in with the computer and he could transfer anything I wanted...for a fee.

I think he mentioned $140

[Scott Douglas]

With the correct cables I bet you could do it yourself for a lot less. The HD must still spin, it just won't do it well enough to allow the system to boot.
Not all that hard to do if you want to take the time to figure it out. I've got HD cases that allow me to access old drives that connect via USB.

[stevej37]

^^^ before I took it in, I watched a few youtube tutorials on the problem.

Each was out of my range of comfort. (I wish it wasn't)

[stevej37]

[QUOTE=Scott Douglas;11779548]I'd have fixed it but used another HD not SS. I'm cheap that way.

Why not SS?...He made it out to be the best thing ever. (compared to the original)

[Scott Douglas]

Imagine how I felt 30 years ago out of a job and no computer skills at all but knew I had to learn or was going to be left in the dust. As my brother-in-law said, I tried stuff he was too scared to try because of what he knew about computers. I couldn't believe his knowledge was holding him back from trying stuff because he was afraid to screw up and fail. He had a good time helping me learn and watching me do stuff I probably had no right to try, but I did.

[Scott Douglas]

[QUOTE=stevej37;11779569]

Originally Posted by Scott Douglas

I'd have fixed it but used another HD not SS. I'm cheap that way.

Why not SS?...He made it out to be the best thing ever. (compared to the original)

Oh I'm sure he did. It's probably more $$ too but should work well for you. You should notice the speed increase, but see, I'm retired and no one is holding a stop watch on me as I play at my slow computer so why bother with SSD?

[GH85Carrera]

Did you bring you most recent backup to the repair guy? Of course you have a full backup of the entire drive right?

OOPS.

Get a backup system in place, and use it often. For the important data files, back them up every day. For the photos, copy them to an external drive.

I am belts suspenders, staples and glue overkill on backups. I have the critical data files backed up every single day to my "Cloud" One Drive in an encrypted file. I have the entire boot drive mirrored and backed up to my RAID 5 drive every three days. And I make ZIP files of important data files and use an APP called Air Disk Pro on my iPhone to copy the data files to my phone.

Sorry for your loss. Hopefully the data and photos are still there. Good Luck.

[Scott Douglas]

I felt really ignorant asking this question here - Computer question...
But in the end my 'FEAR' of having a hard time was uncalled for once I opened the case.
False Expectations Appear Real - I didn't want to have to remove the video card like the internet sites I searched said I'd have to, heck I didn't even want to unhook her computer as it's in a dual computer setup I've finally got working well for her. In the end the whole job took less that 15 minutes total, unhooking/re-hooking up included.

[stevej37]

^^^ I'm also retired..9 years in now.

The only reason I went with it was because I had to get something.
I wouldn't have upgraded if the old one hadn't died.

[stevej37]

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera

Did you bring you most recent backup to the repair guy? Of course you have a full backup of the entire drive right?

OOPS.

Get a backup system in place, and use it often. For the important data files, back them up every day. For the photos, copy them to an external drive.

I am belts suspenders, staples and glue overkill on backups. I have the critical data files backed up every single day to my "Cloud" One Drive in an encrypted file. I have the entire boot drive mirrored and backed up to my RAID 5 drive every three days. And I make ZIP files of important data files and use an APP called Air Disk Pro on my iPhone to copy the data files to my phone.

Sorry for your loss. Hopefully the data and photos are still there. Good Luck.

Yeah, I know....I should have backed it up.
What's the saying?...hindsight is 20/20

[stevej37]

The weird thing I can't figure out is....after I brought the computer in, I tried asking my Alexa "Show my photos" (which were only on the Dell)
The 10 inch Echo Show started showing all of them. Where and how?

[stevej37]

I think I'm going to be ok as far as my photos go.

The old hard drive is out of the computer and I just now asked Alexa to show my photos and they all came up on the Echo Show. That tells me that when I pick-up the computer and log into Amazon....I should be able to download all my photos.

[A930Rocket]

I lost several years of pictures when the kids were young, because I did not know the back up. I took the hard drive in to two different places and there’s nothing they could do.

I still have it just in case…

[stevej37]

^^^ I'm counting on the cloud. (Amazon)
If it doesn't come through...oh well.

[Por_sha911]

The old joke in computers: Jesus saves and so should you.

12 year old machine versus new one: if you are going online, you don't have much safety from hacks and virus unless you updated your OS. Again, no biggie if you don't care if someone gets whatever you have in there or see where you go.

SSHD? Super fast but if they crash there is NO recovery. Everything is lost. Great for a recreational machine but not for storing important info.

Get yourself an external HD that connects via USB and a backup program. Backup once a month. Its cheap to setup and easy to do.

[stevej37]

^^^ He said that the new HD will have Windows 10...the same as I had on the old HD.
Windows Defender has been great...I never have any problems with viruses.

[Por_sha911]

Win 10 is great. It hasn't been around 12 years so I suspect you updated from 7 or 8 at some point in the past.

[stevej37]

^^^ Yes...and I believe that the upgrades were free.