Note to Grandparents

[pegkerr]

The girls' computer is down, and so they are not receiving e-mail. We will let you know when it is up again. Hard disk failure. I swear, we have the worst luck with hard disks. This one was all of six weeks old.

Comments

[cpolk.livejournal.com]

somebody probably already asked this, but:

if those hard disk failures are happening on the same computer (or the same model of computer) have you checked to find out if the power supply the computer is using iscompatible or overpowered?

because Hard disks continually failing = wrong power supply to me.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

This has happened to multiple computers in our household, and multiple hard disks.

Weird magneticism? Bad karma? The stars? I don't know, but it is REALLY ANNOYING.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Are the computers that are having trouble on good surge suppressors or UPSs? It strikes me that the power supply to the house as a whole is the obvious thing they all have in common.

[jbru.livejournal.com]

The hard drives are crashing, obviously, because the girls haven't cleaned up their room.

[laurel]

Our solution (of sorts) was to buy a big harddrive (320mb) and put it on our network so that we can backup all our computers to it. That was $200 well spent ($100 for the drive, $100 for the NAS kit thingie to put the drive in so it could be on our network and such stuff).

'Course if something crashes, there will still be a hassle restoring things and getting a new drive if need be, etc. We've been lucky so far (knock wood).

[(Anonymous)]

Actually, although the drive was purchased several months ago, it was put into service only two weeks ago, and waited until I had formatted it, loaded the factory restore disk, updated bios and drivers, updated Windows, and loaded software. Only when I had it perfectly configured, shut it down and moved it 12 feet to its final destination that it refused to boot. It had been working perfectly. Shut down, move 12 feet, reconnect, nothing. Disk analysis program reported pass on the POST, but too many errors to analyze the disk. Very frustrated. (It was the last drive that I unpacked that lasted six weeks. This one was less than two.)

Rob

[romancoat.livejournal.com]

Norton Ghost or a similar type of software might be helpful... it creates an image of the hard drive so you'd just have to pop it in and it reinstalls everything.

Weird magneticism -- I wouldn't be surprised, actually. One of my housemates during college had the most terrible trouble with printers and computers. She'd print a document from her system, it would hang or crash or print funky weird stuff. She'd call me, I'd print it out, and it would print out fine. We concluded she must be emitting some sort of electromagnetism that interfered with the equipment. :)

[tinymich.livejournal.com]

I've actually heard of that. one of my friends is a sound tech, and he talked about working with one actor who would just drain the battery on his cordless mike in a couple of hours -- and those things are supposed to go WEEKS without a recharge. It was only him -- they switched the mikes, changed the batteries, gave them to other people -- it was just his electromag field that made things wonky.

Not sure which one of you it might be, or whether it's a *spot* in the house. I wonder if there's a way to find these things out? *hmmm*

[gamps-garret.livejournal.com]

I have similar electromagnetic issues -- I could never use wireless mics in theatre without shorting them out halfway through the show, and I drain watch batteries every three to four months. I don't have problems with any other equipment, though. Wierd.