Stupid Computer

[90GTVert]

I don't even know enough about Macs to make fun of them. I used a few in school, and I didn't like 'em much then... but that was a while ago. lol

[Goosey]

When you boot up the Bios will look for the hard drive automaticaly, if you were in the middle of installing windows it may be checking for installed software to continue what it was doing. The , usualy, red light on the front of the computer blinking or on indicates that it is accessing your hard drive.

Reign, can you get him to CHKDSK to run a scan on the drive so he can find out if there are bad sectors there? Havn't done it through Windows 7 disk yet. But I'd bet the hard drive is toast too.

[WT100]

Which is good couse i would probably be worse at that.
My MACs do break BTW but usually from nervous exhaustion.

[stepthrutuner]

Jul 6, 2010 20:06:33 GMT -5 90GTVert said:

Could it still be a hard drive even though it never gets to any hard drive operations? I mean if I'm trying to load from a DVD, is the hard drive doing anything right then?

You're probably right but I can't say for sure.

[Goosey]

This may not make sense, but when you boot to the DVD, you were able to reformat, and partition, so you should be able to do a CHKDSK, if you can get to a comand prompt run chkdsk on the hard drive, it takes a long time, but if you find any bad sectors on it, you can choose to repair, which may let you install windows. It doesn't really repair, as much as bypass the bad parts though. So the software avoids that part of the hard drive. But If it does have bad sectors replace the hard drive as soon as possible before it dies any more, inevitable.

[90GTVert]

I should be able to get to a command prompt from the Win7 DVD, but it freezes when I choose anything other than a little popup info box on the DVD's menu.

Now I'm thinking it is the hard drive. When I start the computer I get a screen about RAID setup and it shows both drives. If I hit the space bar at that screen it says something like "ROM will not be loaded" and it turns off the hard drives and goes immediately to check the CD/DVD drives. When I turn the hard drives off that way I can get Windows setup to load. Of coarse I can't do anything because then neither drive shows up to repair, format, install, etc... I guess I will be buying another hard drive. I think I might see if I can find a deal on a bigger case online while I'm at it. This thing is sorta stuffed. I know last time I had a hard drive go bad I kept it. It's the 2nd hard drive in this PC. It's been reliable as a data storage drive, but it won't function as a system drive. Seems odd to me, but maybe that will work with this one too.

[Goosey]

Sounds right. Hope you back up regularly Well have fun shopping, sounds like you know what to do from there. I've been using a laptop so long I havn't gotten back to rebuilding my last tower system since the hard drive died. Winter project maybe?

[Reign]

Too bad it didnt die a couple of weeks ago. Tigerdirect had a deal on 1TB hard drives for $40 ;D I ended up ordering a few of them. I actually have to head to work... 3 minutes ago But I'll help you through running a CHKDSK later today if you want. If the CHKDSK fixes the disk, you might not need to buy a new one. I usually find it to work best if I run a CHKDSK, let it fix the issues, and then format the drive with a Linux disc, then re-format it with a Windows disc. For some reason, formatting it to Linux seems to fix almost every problem

[90GTVert]

I almost bought one of those 1TB drives too. Thought I didn't really need it though. That's what I get for thinking.

I did chkdsk last time i installed windows a week or so ago. Apparently my drive is beyond the practical limits of that. Maybe the Linuxx format would do it. I dunno, I,m not sure how I'd get to run chkdsk becasue it just quits whenever anything with a disk is involved right now.

I'm gonna look around tiger direct and newegg and see if I can find a good deal on a case and a hard drive. I was thinking about just getting a cheap little baby 50 gig hard drive as a system drive and prog drive. I had been using a 250GB drive with 50GB for system and the rest for data. Then I had another 250GB for data, plus 750GB and 250GB of external drives for backup. Luckily I had backed up pretty much everything I did this last week. I think I can probably get it anyway once I install the old C drive as just a data unit. We'll see.

Thank you for everyone that has helped me out here. I will let you know when I get it going again. Most likely early next week.

[90GTVert]

I ordered a full tower case and a 500GB drive to replace this one (250GB). I was gonna get a smaller one, but an 80GB was about $40 and a 500GB was $45.

[Goosey]

I do my shopping at Tiger most of the time. The refurb laptops are a pretty good deal. I got one for each of my kids last tax season ( one is still hidden for next X-mas ) , like em alot

[90GTVert]

I ended up finding the best deal on this laptop from Toshiba Direct. Normally I buy from Tiger Direct for PC stuff though. When I was looking around for this laptop I saw that lot sof Tigers stuff was off lease. When I read reviews there I saw people complaining about flaws and poor cleanup and things of that nature with off lease machines. This refurbished Toshiba could easily be sold as new. I'd never know the difference, other than a big price drop.

[Goosey]

I bought Refurbished, I don't think I'd go for off lease either. The refurbs were like new, with something very minor if you look real close. One had a tiny scratch by the microphone plug in, one has a slight indent on the top cover, if you look at it under the right light...once in awhile they have a refurbished laptop sale so it was like getting 3 for the price of one. Really, the kids were always borrowing mine, now they don't have to. Now my son compains his girlfriend keeps using his to play WOW, poor baby. Hmm, I think that Gateway is now under $500 with blueray...No, I think I have bought enough computers I do not like fixing laptops though. I always end up with extra screws.

[drawkward]

My guess - Failing power supply, and or overheating.

My power supply is failing (its an "upgraded" power supply). First thing that happened is my video card stopped working. Then everyonce in a while, it wouldn't turn on. After that, my wireless card would turn off randomly. Now, my computer is very weak. If I play music, watch a movie, or open more than 5 tabs on my browser, or even if I leave one tab open for too long, it will start moving v e r y s l o w l y. Sort of like freezing, but not. I can move the mouse, but it takes a few seconds to respond.

I don't think it's your hard drive, if you have the problem when booting from DVD. Download a copy of Linux that you can run from a disk. It doesn't use the hard drive when running.

[Goosey]

Hm, I've only seen power supply failures, all at once. As in one day it works, next day it doesn't. Usually die after a summer electrical storm. Not hard to replace though.