Re: Replace Hard Drive After 3.5 Years?
From: Ken (user_at_domain.invalid)
Date: 03/20/05
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Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 13:54:51 GMT
James Sweet wrote:
> "Elle" <elle_navorski@earthlink.net> wrote in message
> news:eM5%d.15965$qf2.14393@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net...
>
>>I walked away from my computer for a couple of hours, tops, yesterday. I
>>came back to it and the display and mouse were frozen.
>>
>>It's a 3.5 year old personal computer (Gateway, with a 20 Gigabyte, 5M
>
> Ultra
>
>>ATA hard drive). I ended up powering down, when starting up received error
>>messages and then a failure to reach the Windows display. I ultimately
>>struggled through a Scanddisk from a Dos prompt and was able to recover
>>most, but not all, my personal files, copying them to floppy diskettes
>
> (3.5
>
>>inch type). I shoulda been backing up at least once a month, but wasn't.
>>Anyone else procrastinating: Man, don't do it. Stop now. Back up your
>
> files.
>
>>A tech support person at Gateway said hard drives don't usually last
>
> beyond
>
>>five years. Some die at three years. I've found support on Usenet for
>
> this.
>
>>My computer's running again, but to thwart another massive crash, is it
>>worth putting in a new hard drive? I've got $80 to spend, and I figure a
>>nice one will run about that.
>>
>>I installed a new power supply (that is, transformer) last summer. It's
>>power and so heat output aren't that different from the old one. It seems
>
> to
>
>>be working out fine. Otherwise, all else is original equipment.
>>
>>My last computer was a Hewlett Packard. It "died" irrecoverably after only
>>thee years. The shop couldn't fix it, though maybe I took it to a lousy
>>shop. So this is very discouraging. Throwing away $800 every three years
>>ain't gonna cut it anymore. So I've had it with these big brand names. I'm
>>ready to build my own, and think at this point I have enough expertise to
>
> do
>
>>so. I'm certainly not going to throw money away on a shop trying to fix my
>>computer again. It seems to me much of the expertise involved in a
>>successful computer repair involves simply patience and persistence.
>>
>>How about the CPU? Should I investigate replacing it, too?
>>
>>All suggestions about whether a new hard drive is worth the investment and
>>the CPU are welcome.
>>
>>TIA
>>
>>
>
>
>
> Hard drives are second only to optical drives in how often they tend to
> fail. The disk drives being fragile mechanical components are virtually
> always the first thing to go, 3-5 years is typical for one that's been
> heavily used.
>
>
I agree. If you have any time at all invested, let alone irreplaceable
data on a hard drive (and who doesn't?), cloning the HD to spare HD disk
is the most effective means of restoring from a crash. HDs today can be
purchased for very few dollars and it is cheap insurance. Getting back
to where you were can take days if you only have the critical files
saved to a CD or such. Even an image of the HD takes some time to restore.
There are even free programs that will copy even an XP hard drive. One
such program is Discwizard by Seagate.
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