View Single Post
Old 11-01-2009, 10:10 AM   #10 (permalink)
Jimellow
Junkie
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wyodiver33 View Post
There's no better way to learn how to fix computers than to, well, fix a computer, Lol. If you had taken your computer to a shop for repair they would have charged you a lot and probably would have lied to you in order to coerce you into buying things you don't need. It really is satisfying to be able to fix your own stuff. You should think about eventually building your own system. As long as you take the time to do proper research it's really not that hard.

Give us an update when you get the new hard drive. Keep in mind, my recommendation of that drive was after a quick search on Newegg. It's a fine drive, I like Western Digital a lot, and I thought the price was fair. But you don't Have to get that one. Just make sure that you get ATA 100 or ATA 133, not Serial ATA (SATA.) Let me know if you have any questions.
Sounds good. I have no reason not to give the one you recommended a shot, so I probably will.

In regards to my oldest hard drive that I attempted install Windows XP on... It started clicking and not making progress at 95% of the formatting process, and I suspect its failure was ultimately what resulted in me buying a new computer (the one I use currently) so many years ago.

After discovering that the very old hard drive was essentially a paperweight, I got a hammer and screwdriver out and pried the casing apart to get a look inside. It's pretty interesting and I'm glad I did it.

The harddrive I took apart was in fact 2 GB and was made in 1996. I re-inserted the current hard drive and tried starting up the PC, but it's been a click fest lately, and occasionally I will receive a boot error before the system loads Windows.

I'm very intrigued by what specifically is causing the hard drive to try and access bad sectors, but given that the clicking occurs at no set time and often when no programs or running, it's likely something running in the background that isn't referenced/used all the time (which would explain why I can sometimes use the computer for extended periods without issues), but when it the data is attempted to be accessed, it starts clicking, and ultimately restarts the computer most of the time. Interesting stuff.

The computer and hard drive has served me well to date, especially for being over eight years old. If I can keep it going at the cost of investing in a new hard drive, I will give that a shot, as I don't use the computer for demanding things lately and it generally serves a very basic purpose.
__________________
Desperation is no excuse for lowering one's standards.
Jimellow is offline  
 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360