Boomer's PC Dead

[Boomer]

Yup, I no sooner get it back to normal and it takes out the mother board and HD. I lost all on Dec 27. Monday, Dec 29, I was going to do a back-up. The led City of Duluth computer nerd, who works for the city on their PC's, who is also my neighbor, that just moved in next door, said it is a no-go

He took my HD home and spend a day scanning it and said all my info is there but there are no folders. He said there was 200 gigs of data on a 40 gig HD. I asked him can he at least find my prize possession, my Opera Bookmarks ? There was like 2,000 of them. I told him the name off the file but so far the file looks blank. I'm in Texas for two months and have no contact with but I doubt it matters. He told me he would call before I go if he found the Opera BM file called opera6.adr. He said he found 6 so far and all where MT

But I do have one 1.5 years old so that is better than nothing.

This is or was almost a new Dell, i.e. 14 months old and the second one in 2 years where both where the MB and HD

So, I get to Texas and my buddy tells me his just went also

He lost power in the park when it was running. All it does is go in circles trying to reboot itself. We had to go find a old Keyboard to just see if I could get something in Safe Mode, notah but at least the keyboard got me there. You can't even pull up the Bios, as USB Keyboards just don't work for problems like this, they are dead in the water. I took a look at it and it seems to be his PS got toasted. So we went and got him a new PC

 

[windwaterwaves]

Get a Mac, after being a network engineer for 20+ years and supporting them (and providing psychotherapy for 100's of victims) I am DONE with pc's, the time machine automated backup is cool, you plug in a large usb drive and it just backs up, if the entire machine fails, you get a new mac, plug it in and it restores and you are where you were 10 minutes before it died. If you need a pc, you run VMWare or Parallels where you can keep windows where it belongs, in a BOX.. Then you can watch it blow with no affect on you..

Ray

 

[Willy]

Get a Mac, after being a network engineer for 20+ years and supporting them (and providing psychotherapy for 100's of victims) I am DONE with pc's, the time machine automated backup is cool, you plug in a large usb drive and it just backs up, if the entire machine fails, you get a new mac, plug it in and it restores and you are where you were 10 minutes before it died. If you need a pc, you run VMWare or Parallels where you can keep windows where it belongs, in a BOX.. Then you can watch it blow with no affect on you..

Ray

Time machine is a nice feature. I am going to end up getting a network hard drive that I can attach to my router just for that reason.

 

[Katchupoy]

If the time machine is the only reason to switch to mac then I think this can also be done on pc very easily.

Boomers problem was hardware. Both mac and pc uses almost the same hardware. So there is no way you can say that it wont happen to mac. HD fails and its already a given.

Now I admit that mac OS is way diff than PC OS. but that was not the issue with boomer.

Backing up pc is the key.

 

[Curtswearing]

Wow....sorry to hear this Boomer

It seems like retirement is agreeing with you. Two whole months in TX. I guess it's just a little warmer down there.

 

[Boomer]

Yes Curt that is true. Guys it is not the OS system that is failing, it is as stated the cheap hardware. The new one will b a custom build one by a friend. A ~ $700 CPU that would be on the order of ~$3,000 if bought in a store

Backing up pc is the key.

I agree 100 % and I always USE to do this but failed in the last year. And to me the only real back-up is a DVD, which holds~ 4.5 gigs and any HD of any kind can fail. Last year I had a storage 40 gig HD as an F drive. Well, it crashed and took all. You could not even reformat it

 

[Katchupoy]

My 02 cents. since hard drive is crazy cheap, then the next step to backup is redundancy.

the reason you call a backup a backup is because its a duplicate of something you are using. Now if you moved the file from the source to the target then that is no longer a backup but an external storage maybe. This is still scary and dangerous. The idea is to have a duplicate of your files.

Then make another copy of the backup. so its like a backup of a backup.

Maybe it sounds so hard and expensive. Maybe I can help. Hard drive now a days is almost 1 dollar pet GB or even less. I was able to score an external 1.5 TB HD for 100 dollars. Then on the software side that will take care of all of these backups, then i can suggest "xxcopy". Its a DOS based program that runs in the background. Or if your not a code guy then i can suggest to you the free "synchback" software that can do append/backup or mirror/backup that can be schedule daily, weekly or whatever desired.

I have a very old 286 pc headless computer that i use for this purpose only. It can even be an old laptop that has usb on it. It does not need to be fast since its just copying. But the hassle to this is you need to network your system. Which i think you are already in your setup. To remote control the 286, I use "tightvnc" to make it headless. Yes hard drives fails but since its just a copy, then if one dies then just copy it over from the remaining working hard drive.

just 2 cents.

 

[Scooterman]

Boomer sorry to hear you loose your Opera faves. I recently purchased Carbonites back-up plan, which backs up your pc to an off-site protected security encrypted & does it automatically. It took several days to back up my machine all of 18 gigs of data I don't want to loose. Recently I had to replace my HD, got scared because it was 7yrs old & making bearing noises. I restored the operating system & basic programs, then loaded up the carbonite program & let it restores the files which it did in one day as opposed to the initial back-up, guess uploading is limited on my part because of the services i use.
Anyway, $50 a year & not worry about stuff on my puter is a great feeling.

 

[Willy]

Yep, the hardware is about the same from PC to Mac. I am on a mac laptop that I just replaced the 2nd Hitachi hard drive on since this time it was on my dime I went with good ole Seagate.

Boomer maybe Nikki will have at least half of your bookmarks:lol: she is the link queen yanno

 

[Boomer]

Scott

She gets her BM form me

Cesar

Yes, that is the plan from now on an external back-up that redose the system ever day. I'm really not all the worried about back-up that much it is all the pics, links and programs I have saved. Program are easy to find bu the 4,000 pics though are a loss That HD had $20,000 (not a typo) worth of programs on it that I will now have to go reget

 

[Katchupoy]

That HD had $20,000 (not a typo) worth of programs on it that I will now have to go reget

Outch!! Thats going to hurt!

Another tool that you can use is the "Ghost" tool from norton. Or just simply use the "Backup" feature of Windows under "system Tools"

I feel you man.... Outch!!!

 

[G&NSalty425]

Boomer I completely understand I had a Dell and went thru I think like 3 fans on it, it really sucked so.... Hubby built a custom rig and I so love it will never go back to the Run of the Mill stuff well maybe if my laptop dies but that would be the only thing. You will save a ton of $ having one custom made.

 

[Boomer]

Cesar

Regetting the programs won't cost me anything. It is the regetting them and all that download time, with phone calls to allow me to reinstall them. 2 of them are ~ 1 gig each, compressed in a zip file and the zip file has compressed file after it is uzipped. They are like 1.2 -1.5 gigs each. Ohters are the Adobe CS4 programs and Window's programs like Exel/Office etc and a crap load more of other similar ones. It will take days to do all this and all the updates

I going to get a "real" external pack-up

 

[NaH2O]

Scott

She gets her BM form me

Holy smokes - a girl could take this comment the wrong way. BM???!!! :lol:

Sorry about your computer issues. A lot of the links I have you can find in the library.

 

[Boomer]

It is about time you woke up Nkki

 

[NaH2O]

Well, you know....nothing like a BM to get me on a thread lolol

 

[Boomer]

I had to ask Mark the guy I'm visiting in Texas what the heck is with Niki's remark. He then informed me BM = :lol: as he started to spin out his mouth full of coffee from laughing so hard ...........BM = .................:lol:......................BM = &&%^* *&^^%

 

[Willy]

I had to ask Mark the guy I'm visiting in Texas what the heck is with Niki's remark. He then informed me BM = :lol: as he started to spin out his mouth full of coffee from laughing so hard ...........BM = .................:lol:......................BM = &&%^* *&^^%

Don't fell bad I was right next to her as she replied to this thread and had to ask as well :lol:

 

[NaH2O]

ROFL - I thought everyone knew what BM was . I was chuckling when I read the comment on getting my BM from you, Boomer, so I had to say something. :lol: :lol: Its almost like I'm 12 again.......

 

[Barbie]

This will do you absolutely no good now, but if you use firefox you can add a plug in called foxmarks that stores them online so you can then log in and load them onto any computer you're using. I too am lost without all my references when I log on from work and what not. I thought this was quite the nifty tool.

Barbie