Damned Computers

[SeaCat]

Well, I just finished reloading everything onto my computer. Let me tell you that sucked.

Last night we had a power outage, crashed my computer but good. Windows XP with all of the new software packages Miroshits thoughtfully sent me over the past year decided it didn't like being shut down rather abruptly so it didn't want to restart last night. No problem I hissed to myself as I turned off all power to the machine and went to bed. During the night we had another power out, which woke me up. (The lack of sound from the stereo and the radio, as well as the sound of glass shattering amid the curses of my neighbor tripping over his feet and dropping a case of beer in the suddenly dark hallway woke me up.) Getting up from bed to use the Human Litter Box I tripped over the damned computer, (Which I had forgotten to slide back under the desk,) knocking it over. My hard drive didn't like that. Well neither did my toes.

This afternoon I got home from work and tried starting the computer. Hah! Purchased and installed a new Hard Drive, then dug out all of my disks and replaced all of the programs in the computer. Ahh well, I now have a Hard Drive twice the size of my old one. (No crude puns please, I have already heard them from my wife.) Several new magnets on the fridge, and a renewed respect for my system of writing down URL's and E-Mail addresses. (I think I need to get me a UPS though.) Unfortunately I lost a lot of data I hadn't gotten around to backing up yet. Several stories as well as a bunch of pictures. Ahh well, that's life with computers.

Cat

 

[Bridget69]

You should always save your valuable files onto discs. I've often learned that the hard way.

 

[EmeraldKitten]

Well, I just finished reloading everything onto my computer. Let me tell you that sucked.

Last night we had a power outage, crashed my computer but good. Windows XP with all of the new software packages Miroshits thoughtfully sent me over the past year decided it didn't like being shut down rather abruptly so it didn't want to restart last night. No problem I hissed to myself as I turned off all power to the machine and went to bed. During the night we had another power out, which woke me up. (The lack of sound from the stereo and the radio, as well as the sound of glass shattering amid the curses of my neighbor tripping over his feet and dropping a case of beer in the suddenly dark hallway woke me up.) Getting up from bed to use the Human Litter Box I tripped over the damned computer, (Which I had forgotten to slide back under the desk,) knocking it over. My hard drive didn't like that. Well neither did my toes.

This afternoon I got home from work and tried starting the computer. Hah! Purchased and installed a new Hard Drive, then dug out all of my disks and replaced all of the programs in the computer. Ahh well, I now have a Hard Drive twice the size of my old one. (No crude puns please, I have already heard them from my wife.) Several new magnets on the fridge, and a renewed respect for my system of writing down URL's and E-Mail addresses. (I think I need to get me a UPS though.) Unfortunately I lost a lot of data I hadn't gotten around to backing up yet. Several stories as well as a bunch of pictures. Ahh well, that's life with computers.

Cat

LOL!!!!!! I'm sorry Cat.
I got a tickle over the "Well neither did my toes." comment

Computers are sometimes more hassle than they're worth.
Sorry to hear of the problems, loss of stories and pictures. Bummer.

Last summer, my computer got struck by lightning.
It came in through the phone line, fried my computer.
My mom happened to be awake, saw the flash, and came running to make sure I wasn't on fire.
My computer was definately fried. Later on, when I turend it on, it started smoking through the back of the tower.


I have a new one though, even if it did have viruses and spyware on here for a while, lol.

I hope things get sorted out soon.

From one Cat to another,
~Kitten

 

[rgraham666]

Back when I was a computer programmer, every, and I mean every, client had to learn the hard way to back up.

Kitten? Living in the country, you should have a UPS with surge protection. That will stop high spikes from frying your computer.

And you might want one too, SeaCat. They keep power running to your system long enough for you to shut it down properly.

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

When I bought my first computer, the store offered a couple of "Introductory Courses" on how to operate it.

One of the first things they taught me was that there are only two kinds of computer user — ones who have suffered through a computer crash, and ones who have not, yet.

 

[R. Richard]

Not only do UPS with surge protectors keep the computer running long enough to shut down properly, they also protect against voltage spikes that can fry your computer. They also protect aganst 'negative voltage spikes' where the power drops below acceptable limits for a brief period. The latter do not fry the computer, but they can scramble data.

If you live in an area where they have thunderstorms or the local power is not reliable, you need a UPS with surge protection.

 

[Lisa Denton]

Just a thought, shove your old drive in as a secondary and attempt to drag any files not corrupted to your new drive. If that don't work put in the XP Disc as if you were gonna install it on your secondary drive but do the repair instead. You should at least get an unstable partially fried drive to look through and grab what you want. If its too corrupted it won't copy to your new drive.

Then delete your old drive and reload XP, drag or copy everything to it, unplug the power and ribbon and its untouchable. Plug them back in occasionally and copy stuff to it, then unplug. You have two OS's with all data and seperate from each other when unpluged. One goes down, unplug it and plug in the other and go.

Next time you crash from power source just re-set CMOS on your momma board, pop the battery and move the jumper for ten seconds, get a diagram of it, it'll be in your mother board specs on-line from mother board manufacturer. I have fried two power supplies from different causes and that worked, sometimes unstable but always able to save anything before re-loading OS.

I was computer illiterate when I first started looking at this stuff on-line and it was easy. I got tired of the computer shop charging me and saying I wouldn't understand what they had to fix.

 

[The_old_man]

I have a very weird system, two processor's, had two hard drives with different systems on three partitions. I live in a house a bit more than half my age, Ungrounded power circuits!

Regularly suffer brownout when the ; refrigerator, washing machine, microwave, or any one of several other appliances start up.

Last week the second drive got scrambled, nothing worked.

Cannot use any UPS because of the ungrounded power, this goes for Surge protection as well.

A wonder I am up as much as I am.

 

[SeaCat]

Hmmmmm, picking up a UPS tomorrow evening. That will last until I have my father make me a real one. (Electrical Engineers with too much time on their hands can be fun to have in the family.)

I'm looking through the book (and I do mean book,) on the newest version of Norton. I know they have a way to do regular back-ups in there somewhere. It will be done no matter how many CD's it takes.

Thankfully most of my stories were printed out. Now comes the fun part of scanning them in, and trying to decipher what the OCR Software thinks it sees.

Some of the pictures are being sent back to me by friends and family. Unfotunately I lost all of the pictures of the hurricanes and of my wife. Oh well, the hurricane ones weren't that good and this gfives me a good reason to take more pictures of the wife. (Like I ever needed a reason.)

Does anyone have the web page where I can get AdAware again?

Damn it, why didn't it just fry my monitor? Then I would have an excuse to get me one of those neat LCD Monitors.

Oh and Kitten, the toes are healing. I ended up breaking one of them though. OUCH!

Cat

 

[cheerful_deviant]

I think AdAware is on Lavasofts webpage... or maybe Noadware.net.

 

[SeaCat]

Okay, I found the program I was looking for on Cnet.com. (AdAware personal SE.)

Cat

 

[JRaven]

You should always save your valuable files onto discs. I've often learned that the hard way.

If you've often learned it the hard way, something tells me you're going to learn it again.

 

[cantdog]

Bingo.

 

[SeaCat]

Okay, UPS is plugged in and charging. Toes are healing, and the files are slowly being restored. (Those that I can either find or have sent to me.)

Checked out Windows XP Home Edition, which is what I have, in a couple of books. MicroShaft got me again. They don't include a backup in their home edition. Now I have to pick up a third party program so I can back up my system. Any ideas on a good one?

Cat