Is this curtains for my PC?
Discussion
To cut a long story short...
My PC has two physical HDs, C which is 40Gb and D which is 80Gb. C is for Windows and programs; D is for data.
Last week the PC progressively became more and more reluctant to boot up, giving me black screens about 3/4 of the way through loading Windows. To start with, a reset worked, then it needed 'last known good', then system restore, until finally I had to do a parallel installation of Windows, retrieve some data, then reformat C and start again.
Yesterday I'd just got it back to how I like it. A fresh install of Windows and a nice quick boot up time. Hurrah!
But to my despair this morning on boot-up I got two black screens again. Neither 'last known good' or sys restore work. Right back to square one. Bugger.
What the heck is going on? The C drive is 6 years old - could it have developed a fault? Should I reformat and try all over again, or just swap the drive out for a new one?
All thoughts/suggestions welcomed!
My PC has two physical HDs, C which is 40Gb and D which is 80Gb. C is for Windows and programs; D is for data.
Last week the PC progressively became more and more reluctant to boot up, giving me black screens about 3/4 of the way through loading Windows. To start with, a reset worked, then it needed 'last known good', then system restore, until finally I had to do a parallel installation of Windows, retrieve some data, then reformat C and start again.
Yesterday I'd just got it back to how I like it. A fresh install of Windows and a nice quick boot up time. Hurrah!
But to my despair this morning on boot-up I got two black screens again. Neither 'last known good' or sys restore work. Right back to square one. Bugger.
What the heck is going on? The C drive is 6 years old - could it have developed a fault? Should I reformat and try all over again, or just swap the drive out for a new one?
All thoughts/suggestions welcomed!
J,
If you've already reformatted the hard drive, and it's no better, then it might suggest that the drive is past it.
And to be honest, at 6 years old - I'd personally have replaced it - but it holds no data, so not a concern as such.
How is your memory doing? ... your PC memory - not yours
I wonder if it might be a memory problem in some way?
K
P.S. - you do of course back up your data drive every week at least, onto an external source (USB drive/DVD/etc)?
If you've already reformatted the hard drive, and it's no better, then it might suggest that the drive is past it.
And to be honest, at 6 years old - I'd personally have replaced it - but it holds no data, so not a concern as such.
How is your memory doing? ... your PC memory - not yours
I wonder if it might be a memory problem in some way?
K
P.S. - you do of course back up your data drive every week at least, onto an external source (USB drive/DVD/etc)?
neilesh86 said:
Just to digress for a moment, how difficult is it to run two hard drives?
Not at all, as long as you have the relevant socketry on the motherboard. I like the idea as if one explodes in flames, the other should be OK...
My D drive is much newer and that's got all the data - esp photos - on it.
I'm considering getting one of these: www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/barebones.html - as I'm happy with the existing monitors and other bits. If I'm guessing correctly, I just need a new HD for it, and hopefully I can simply move the current D from old PC to new. Can I have a SATA and a normal (IDE?) HD on one mobo?
While you experts are reading my musings, is thre anything else I need to get the Novatech bundle up and running? I plan to move the D drive into it, plus existing CD-ROM and DVD drives.. Unless the new GFX card supports two monitors, I'll need to grab that too.
simpo two said:
neilesh86 said:
Just to digress for a moment, how difficult is it to run two hard drives?
Not at all, as long as you have the relevant socketry on the motherboard. I like the idea as if one explodes in flames, the other should be OK...
My D drive is much newer and that's got all the data - esp photos - on it.
I'm considering getting one of these: www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/barebones.html - as I'm happy with the existing monitors and other bits. If I'm guessing correctly, I just need a new HD for it, and hopefully I can simply move the current D from old PC to new. Can I have a SATA and a normal (IDE?) HD on one mobo?
While you experts are reading my musings, is thre anything else I need to get the Novatech bundle up and running? I plan to move the D drive into it, plus existing CD-ROM and DVD drives.. Unless the new GFX card supports two monitors, I'll need to grab that too.
Newer motherboards tend to have a single IDE interface for the CD Rom into which you can plug a total of two devices providing you get the master/slave bit right) then you have the SATA ports - there is no problems with co-existence.
Depending on what you want from the machine I would add some extra memory. 512MB is a bit light these days - and don't even start me on Vista. Given that its onboard graphics I guess it isn't a games machine though...
Sean
You can run SATA & IDE together, shouldn't be an issue with modern board + modern drive... (see my thread for old mobo + modern drive hilarity 
).
I regularly use those barebones packs (either with or without case) and they're pretty good. Not super uber components but they'll run quite happily at spec.
). I regularly use those barebones packs (either with or without case) and they're pretty good. Not super uber components but they'll run quite happily at spec.
Kinky said:
it's not an IBM machine by any remote chance?
If I said Yes, could you get me compensation?
Nope, it was built from Dabs bits by a friend of mine, and has had much stuff shoehorned into it since.
I've just had a lengthy chat with somebody cleverer than I, and it seems that if I start with a barebones bundle, many of my existing bits won't be suitable, and by the time I've bought new ones, it will be more expensive than just getting a ready-built one. Hence I'm considering the Novatech ready-made ones and would sell off any duplicated parts.
Something like the nForcer 4600 perhaps - pity the case is uglier than the barebone ones
Does anyone have interesting alternatives? (My monitors are VGA, currently connected to a VGA + DVI GFX card with an adaptor) Then again, how would one of these compare? The C521 is cute but might give upgrading problems one day. Not sure I like the sideways drives either. The E521 is cheap and has 2Gb RAM - what's the catch?
http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/pro
http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/pro
simpo two said:
Then again, how would one of these compare? The C521 is cute but might give upgrading problems one day. Not sure I like the sideways drives either. The E521 is cheap and has 2Gb RAM - what's the catch?
http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/pro
http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/pro
'Bob' from Mumbai and Dell will usually ship YOU the parts and have you fit it. Also the two low end ones are AMD based (nowt wrong with that) which is a much cheaper part hence the seemingly dramatic drop in price (mem/disk/mobo's are dirt cheap parts... CPU's... not so much, even when you buy by the pallet).
neilesh86 said:
Just to digress for a moment, how difficult is it to run two hard drives?
Not difficult at all, in fact I run two, and I boot from each by switching the BIOS boot order.
I run one on 64bit XP and the other on Vista 32bit, and I can seamlessly swap files from one to 'tother.
Kevin.
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