Computer woes

[hatman]

My laptop is getting old. There's been a green line on the screen for a couple of months now, but it's only one pixel wide and it's off most of the way to the left, so it's not too bad.

There have been some other flaky things, though, and the whole system is getting outdated.

Meantime, the price for a good system has really come down in the last few years.

So... I ordered a new one. Should be pretty spiffy, and it cost half of what this one did.

But I did something stupid. I used the laptop (as opposed to the even older -- but with less wear and tear -- family desktop) to order its replacement.

Guess what happened the very next day?

The HDD started going wonky. Once I boot up, it's fine. But 9 times out of 10 (literally. Probably less than that, even), the comp won't recognize the drive during the boot process. The system will even hang when coming back from standby.

Once I get a successful boot, the drive is fine. It scans clean. I can keep using it with no problems. Until I shut down or standby again.

Tried upgrading BIOS, but that didn't do anything.

Tried opening up the comp to look at the drive, but couldn't get the casing to open no matter how many screws I took out. (Did manage to clean some dust out from underneath the keyboard, though.)

I figured it wouldn't be a big deal. I can get it to boot up sometimes, and the new one should be here soon.

Think again. The order was put in over a week ago. Processed and accepted last Tuesday. Yesterday, a week after the order went through the processing dept, the assembly dept still hadn't started on it. Just now, I got an email saying (with no reason given) that the order will be delayed, and that it probably won't be shipped until the end of the month, if then.

The warentee ran out at least a year ago, and I haven't had the greatest experiences with tech support. Especially after everything started being outsourced.

Not sure what to do now. I've turned off standby mode. Gonna see if XPlode can manage a week of uptime (and if I can once again learn to sleep with the sound of a comp's cooling fan). If that doesn't work, I'll probably give up, leave it off, and try to work as much as I can with the desktop. (Except that all my files, including emails and GE stuff, are on the laptop...)

Should back the thing up, but Norton Ghost requires a reboot to work, and I'm afraid to do it. Not sure about trying a manual backup. Probably should one of these days.

*sigh* I just hope the new one isn't delayed any further.

Comments

[kaylle.livejournal.com]

Is it a software problem? Ie, is Windows slowly dying? Or can you hear the hard drive having problems? When my hard drive died a few years ago, I could very clearly hear it 'skipping,' for lack of a better word, so I knew it was a hardware problem. If it's a software problem you could probably reinstall Windows without overwriting your personal files (although whether or not you want to do all of that with a new computer on the way is debatable). If it's a hardware problem, however, there isn't a whole lot you can do except get as many of your files off as you can, as quickly as possible.

How big is the laptop hard drive? If it's not too large, you could probably get an external hard drive the same size or slightly larger pretty inexpensively and back up at least the important files that way. I know that Western Digital external drives come with a program to back up an entire disk onto the new drive (a la Norton Ghost but better, according to my Dad), but I haven't used it personally. Otherwise, depending on how many files you want to save, you could burn DVD backups too.

Another option would be to take the hard drive out and try to connect it to another computer. I'm not sure what brand of computer you have, but you should be able to take the hard drive out somehow. I did this with the aforementioned failing hard drive a few years ago and was able to save most of my files, although that was a desktop drive. The computer was booting up off of the original drive, so the damaged drive was only accessed when I tried to copy a file, giving me a much higher probability of success.

The problem with connecting laptop drives to other computers is that they usually don't use the same connection as a desktop drive, so you can't just stick them in a desktop drive, and a lot of laptops don't have space for more than one drive so you can't stick them in another laptop. Any computer data recovery place should be able to access it, however, or you may be able to buy an external enclosure (http://www.newegg.com/ProductSort/SubCategory.asp?SubCategory=92) to convert the drive into an external one and connect it via USB. Depending on the type of drive, you should be able to get one from Newegg or similar places relatively cheaply.

Anyway, those are my thoughts/experiences regarding hard drive failures and recovering data {g}. I hope something in there can be helpful.

[pgwfolc.livejournal.com]

Software or hardware? I'm not sure. I can't hear or see anything wrong with the drive, but Windows doesn't seem to be doing anything unusual either.

Reinstalling windows with the disks I have would almost certainly require wiping the drive. I am definitely partitioning the new drive.

The drive itself is 30 gigs. An external drive might be a pretty good thought. Thanks! :)

DVDs are not an option. I've got a CD-RW drive. The new comp has a DVD burner, but that doesn't really help.

The comp is a Dell. I'm not sure why I can't get the casing open. It should have worked, but it was still caught on something, no matter what I did. I didn't want to risk breaking it. So... I don't know how to get at the drive itself.

OTOH, I do have a dusty old pcmcia card designed to transfer data from one laptop drive to another. ... But I don't have a drive I could transfer it to, really.

Seems like CDs or external HDD are the best option. I'll have to think about that.

Thanks for the thoughts/help! :)