PC major nightmare

[Liteace]

Ive been using for the last 5-6 years an old AMD socket A 2800 with 2 x 360 Gb hard drives. This PC had been rock solid and never let me down, when I built it I didnt go for the shite cheap components that you can get, I spent a lot more quids to make sure it was going to be reliable. Over the last 2 months Ive been buying high end PC components to build a newer system as the old one was just a little slow opening automotive SW and could not, like meself multitask very well. I now have all the components to build a new system with 2 x 1Tb hard drives and was going to build it at weekend and transfer everything across from old to new and keep the old as is for back up. I am typing this from tiny screen and k\board of CF-18 as me desktop with 750Gb of programs and data has just died and it dead, been trying all afternoon to revive it with no luck, why the ~~~~~ could it not have lasted 5 more days

[manxspud]

There may be a good chance the data on your hard drives is still ok. When you build your new pc try connect your old hard drives ( i would buy a cheap external caddy just in case lol )

Just cause the pc has died does not mean that all the data on your hdd is lost.

Good luck @manx

[the_riddler]

definatly agree with MAXSPUD,

fire up new pc and iron out any issues,
once your happy with new machine then connect as said above with External hard disc caddy (USB Mostly),
use your new pc to explore "old" disk drives. and recover any files / programmes, any drive that cant be explored can still have its data recovered,

a good software for doing this is called Recover My Files
used to be here ok DK somewhere.

believe me i feel your pain.
i too have just suffered hard disk failure on my Vaio

Good luck M8
just give a shout out for anything that you are missing...:top:

[thewizardofodds]

is it totally dead?

[Liteace]

is it totally dead?

Yep, there's a nasty electrical fizzing from motherboard \ CPU area. I do have caddy and also the new mother board does have 7 sata connectors so the data can be transfered when it all up and running but the programs not as they have to be run from setup. My missis co. got her a new PC for work as they need another so she got the new one. I am always the one that has to sort it out for them, before when they've had like hard drive problems or whatever, new hard drive load all programs (not that many) and data, loads of that, then she says "wheres that, wheres this, that icon was there, that wasnt there" this time (as the old one was still up and running) I transfered everything using file and setting transfer wizard (over network) it was fantastic,
the new one was set out exactly exactly the same as the old one, that was the plan for me but thats not going to happen. Still, mustn't grumble :motz:

[dik]

Tip - when building a new system 1 drive 80 gb or so for operating system then 2 identical drives running mirrored raid for the data so no chance of losing if you get a disc fail

[deacea1]

i agree with dik, im running 4 mirror raids in my system right now, check to see if your new computer has onboard raid, most newer ones do, if not look into getting a raid1 system or mirror

[Liteace]

Problem is if you have m\board or processor failure you still cant just bolt in and connect up your h\drive to a new system as that has to be or the replacement m\board or processor has to be identical to the one thats failed

[dik]

Problem is if you have m\board or processor failure you still cant just bolt in and connect up your h\drive to a new system as that has to be or the replacement m\board or processor has to be identical to the one thats failedNo m8, thats only the operating system drive that's affected by changing mobo/processor, and if you use windows 7 you can just bung it in another set up and it's good to go, the drives with your data on can also just go in another set up

[Liteace]

Im nearly up and running again, just waiting for main 1Tb western digital WD RE4, twice the price of the norm BUT its been built to run in 24/7 servers. I have also got today 2 x 1Tb western digital Caviar Green for storage, going to set up the mirror raid on these 2 so I dont lose it all again, not only did my motherboard fail but both me hard drives so I lost the lot. I have to say a

MASSIVE THANKS
to Patrian for all his help

[Liteace]

If anyone is interested:

WD RE4 WD RE4 2 TB SATA Hard Drives ( WD2003FYYS ) (http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=732)

Caviar Green WD Caviar Green 1.5 TB SATA Hard Drives ( WD15EARS ) (http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=772)

The WD RE4 is the one to go for, for reliability it's got very good reviews, time will tell

[del635]

Sorry if this is condesending I dont know how much you know about computers but did you calculate which psu you need powerwise? If you got a free one with your case bin it btw, Ive learnt the hard way too, and before installing any softs or even os leave to burn in on bios screen a good while then stress test it after os install carfully watching all temps.

[Liteace]

I learnt the hard way as well was buying what I thought was good PS's and they was shite I was always changing popped caps in them, Ive now got a 550w Antec

[paro44]

Were the 2x 360gb hdds set up as raid? If yes, there is a good chance to get the data back if the hdds are spinning up. You need a similar (used but working) mainbord as your defective. Important is the raid controller, this should be the same (promise, silicon image, ...). Set up the same raid level as before (mirror, stripe, ...).
To be save you should do an image from the 360gb hdds before connect and power up. If windows won't start up you can try "safe mode" or a repair install. If chipset is different, windows needs driver for it sometimes.

If the 360gb hdds were set up with no raid level, you can simple connect it to a new computer to copy data from.

If the hdds are damaged and don't spin up and are not recognised in bios, then only data recovery experts (ontrack...) maybe can do something for a lot of money...

[Liteace]

Were the 2x 360gb hdds set up as raid? If yes, there is a good chance to get the data back if the hdds are spinning up. You need a similar (used but working) mainbord as your defective. Important is the raid controller, this should be the same (promise, silicon image, ...). Set up the same raid level as before (mirror, stripe, ...).
To be save you should do an image from the 360gb hdds before connect and power up. If windows won't start up you can try "safe mode" or a repair install. If chipset is different, windows needs driver for it sometimes.

If the 360gb hdds were set up with no raid level, you can simple connect it to a new computer to copy data from.

If the hdds are damaged and don't spin up and are not recognised in bios, then only data recovery experts (ontrack...) maybe can do something for a lot of money...

No they wasnt set up as raid, the problem was that the hard drive were fine and then they both just gave up, one of them that had all me program setup files on just started clicking and It cant be read now and the other one I had to format to get it to work but Ive run the seagate disk tools on it and it on its way out, they can all go in the bin now as I have 3 new ones and going to get another WD RE4 put everything on it and put it somewhere very safe