If I disappear for a few days....

[Darrin]

... my trusty Western Digital 180GB primary HDD appears to be failing on me. The last few times I've restarted my computer it's run a scandisk on it. Well, this time there were several bad sectors, quite a bit of lost information and quite a bit of recovered files from orphaned sectors.

So, I'm backing up everything important to my external drive, and then tonight hopefully I'll be picking up a WD 320GB drive to replace it.

Guess my son's laptop HDD and CDROM wait until next payday..... :(

[Davey_Pitch]

There's some good utilities out there that can fix bad sectors. I've them before in work and it's given some machines a hugely extended life. Download the Ultimate Boot CD (http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/) and burn it to CD, then boot from it. It's got several HDD utilities which may be able to help you out :)

[Darrin]

I appreciate the info, but I need more storage space anyways and this drive must be about 5 or 6 years old now. I think it's served it's time and is due the eternal rest.

[Flibster]

I appreciate the info, but I need more storage space anyways and this drive must be about 5 or 6 years old now. I think it's served it's time and is due the eternal rest.

HDD + guns = :D:D:D:D:D:D

Go on! You know you want to! ;)

Simon/~Flibster

[Fayshun]

I may have a lappy cd rom kicking about (I *may* even have a lappy DVD drive...)

[Darrin]

Fatiain, please let me know how much you want for it and how much shipping would be to zip code 56754 in the States.

As soon as I can afford it I'll Paypal the money to you.

[Fayshun]

I'll have a look over the weekend.

I don't wan't anything for it. Call it a belated Thanksgiving present!

[Darrin]

Well, the store was out of 320GB models, so I got stuck putting in a 160GB WD Caviar instead.

It's up and operational after my little chat with the Indian call center for Micro$oft....

XP Home and all updates plus most of my original software is back in. I left a few things out, as it seems like my BIOS doesn't like the new drive. It takes about 5 times as long to get through the BIOS and to the Windows loading screen as it used to. The only things I changed were the HDD's and I put the DVDRW drive onto the secondary IDE controller to split them up.

Oh, and it seems my computer has lost track of which USB ports are 2.0 and which aren't....

Bah, maybe it's time I actually got off my arse and upgraded this stupid thing a little. Athlon 64 3000, 512MB, ATI 7500 AIW, onboard sound and LAN on a PCChips mobo. But damn, what am I going to upgrade to that I'll be able to afford? Not a whole hell of a lot.

Ah, well. Thanks for listening to me ramble on. I think I should be going to sleep. I've been up over 24 hours straight now. My mind just isn't going in a straight line anymore....
http://www.boomspeed.com/bofh1968/smilies/cheekybaby.gif

[Mark]

Did you go into the BIOS and tell it to re-detect the drives? Might help with that boot issue.