OT - Dude, my new Dell died today! Up and running again:-)

Aethelred

Well, my brand new almost $2000 Dell died today! I called tech support and the guy in India walked me past several tests. Turns out the hard drive is dead. They are sending someone out Tuesday to replace the drive for me but I am dead in the water until then and all of my files and data are lost, this so sucks!

Darkhorse

Shoulda got a mac.

spinaker2000

so they are sending a guy from India over??

Aethelred

Macs don't die?

Aethelred

<< <i>so they are sending a guy from India over?? >>



I don't think the guy they are sending is from India, but who knows?

Cladiator

I'd be willing to bet you the guy who comes over is from India LOL

spinaker2000

which way is Mecca from your house??

Aethelred

<< <i>which way is Mecca from your house?? >>



Are you saying I should buy a prayer rug before Tuesday?

wybrit

all of my files and data are lost

Aethelred

There was one thing I was working on that was almost done, tooks me weeks to do, I don't think I'll have the heart to start over and no, I didn't back it up.

farthing

There are companies that specialize in recovering data from dead hard drives. Depends on how valuable the data on the drive is to you as to whether it's worth looking into.

Aethelred

It is not worth the high cost of data recovery, at least not to me.

RonMan

Sorry to hear about that..

I learned my lesson a couple years ago...I'm pretty good about backing up my data now.

I think sometimes people are able to connect their dead drive up as a slave to the new one and are able to recover data....maybe one of our resident computer guru's can shed some light on it.

Ron

cacheman

I just had a local geek computer company recover 5 DVDs of data and email from my crashed hard drive...$40!!! I guess they stick the hard drive in the freezer to make the bearings contract from the cold, slave it up and put the data on portable storage. Of course this won't work if it isn't a bearing but mine was...certainly worth $40 as I had 300+ images of my collection that would have needed to be redone...

Aethelred

I was thinking something like that was a $500+ project. Doesn't really matter because Dell keeps the old drive.

AndyBruce

<< <i>all of my files and data are lost >>

cosmicdebris

<< <i>I was thinking something like that was a $500+ project. Doesn't really matter because Dell keeps the old drive. >>



So they can refurbish it and reuse it. Probably why yours died in the first place. I keep a second hard drive around and copy my "C" drive to it every 3 months. This way if mine crashes I can just swap them out. I loose 3 months of data but NOT everything if it ever happens.

rhound1977

<< <i>Macs don't die? >>



I have never had a Mac die on me, thought I know it could happen, I have given away or sold my old Macs in the past,
and my 8 year old machine is still running, as is my 5 year old, oh and the one I have had for about a year.

Steve27

After it's fixed, backup your important files to the cd/dvd writer once a month (saves a lot of grief later).

RedPenny

Losing files data expecially important data is a pain.

theboz11

This might help,,give it a try. I have not used it.

Hard Drive retrieval.

MacCrimmon

<< <i>Macs don't die? >>

DBSTrader2

DELL KEEPS THE OLD DRIVE?!

Aren't you concerned THEY have access to recovery technology & can access any confidential, personal data?!

ccrdragon

<< <i>Doesn't really matter because Dell keeps the old drive. >>



exactly the reason that I have built every computer I have used (at the house) for the last 15+ years... it's all mine and ain't nobody gonna tell me what happens to the pieces parts after I swap them out - most get used as scrap after I sand-down the media so that it cannot be recovered....

AuldFartte

Find a local geek, Æthelred ... data recovery isn't that hard. Have him put what he can recover onto CD's for you, and don't let Dell have the old drive 'til you're done with it.

CoinAddict

Yep, You shoulda bought a Mac. You could have gotten a very nice reliable system for the price you paid for the Dell. I guess you learned your lesson.

PuddlePirate

I used to be an AMIGA man myself, I had a Mac for about 2 years and hated the thing with a passion. Now I just use a generic Compaq. Data storage is important, I lost my first novel to a computer virus, six months of work - 300,000 words and all my notes. I knew better but was lazy, no backup. The rewrite took almost a year. Now I back up weekly.
Regardless of what system you have do a backup, if you have an extra computer or hard drive great otherwise get a zip drive or CDRW or even floppies, but back your system up because one day, old age, a virus, a power flux, or just bad hardware, your computer IS going to die on you.

Compa

Ah yes ... backups!

I recently bought into a new technology (new compared to my old tape drives) an external hard drive that acts as a backup destination - a nice hardware and software package from Seagate.

One button to push when you go to bed and then, in the morning, your entire system is backed up .... up to 400 gig or so. Connects via USB or Firewire - that means it works on Apples too! Really makes backups painless - as long as you pony up a couple of hundred dollars for the system.

I have thousands of MP3s, home video and 10's of thousands of photos on my machine - on 3 different hard drives. I can no longer ignore backups, there is simply too much to loose. The old tape backups just never got done - multiple tapes and it took many many hours. This new system is EASY. That means I use it! Not to mention, being a small portable drive, it is easy to store away from the computer in a cabinet somewhere in case something nasty ever happens to the computer.

And on Apples ... where I work there are 19 PCs and 8 Apples - the Apples fail (hardware) about the same as PCs (but they are much easier to work on!) - software wise OS10 vs XP-Pro it is about a draw. XP was a huge improvement for the PCs.

Aethelred

Well, I am back up and running, but now very far behind on my work, I'll be around a little over the next several days, but not very much.

Glad to see you all again!

ajaan

glkgljhjbnkljk

wybrit

At last! A quality ajaan post!!

Aethelred

<< <i>At last! A quality ajaan post!! >>



That is about as good as they get!