RIP, my hard drive
Sunday, I hauled my computer over to Spetti House to try and nurse my HDD into condition for being imaged. Bill was gracious enough to help. I started out the day with elaborate enthusiasm, and I was going to take the opportunity to do a number of improvements to my computer, including installing a Blu Ray drive and possibly upgrading the RAM. The trip to Fry's was amazing, and I totally understand how people go there, scoop up massive amounts of gear, and turn their homes into workshops. I suddenly had the urge to case mod even though I don't care how my case looks.
Anyway, a couple hundred bucks later, I had a Blu Ray drive and a 1.5TB HDD to show for it. We'd left Spinrite to diagnose my old HDD while we shopped, and when we returned, it was still grinding away. In fact, it was even having trouble predicting how long it would take to scan the drive. Since it wasn't turning up surface errors (and I had suspected it would not), we decided to just cut the scan short and move on to the next step, which was booting a Ubuntu live CD to copy the old drive to the new one.
Only problem...the CD wouldn't finish booting because the HDD driver went into an infinite loop as it failed to interface with the dying controller on my HDD. Bad news. On a wing and a prayer, I tried booting Windows off the HDD with the hopes of using a disc copy system that came with the new HDD. Windows would boot, but it wasn't functional enough to copy the disc.
Then, finally, my BIOS stopped wanting to even boot from the old HDD. It was over. The drive is dead.
Sadly, this also means that I am without....
...Windows Vista
...Adobe CS4
...my iTunes library
I'm hoping I can get all my iTunes purchases back off my iPod. As for CS4, I have the install DVD in the storage unit, so maybe I can limp by until June (I'm supposed to start doing derby video again in a couple weeks). I also found my computer's product key for Vista, so if I can just come up with a Windows Vista Home Premium DVD, I'll be somewhat on the road to recovery.
Lesson learned here. Just because it took this many years for me to encounter a hard drive failure doesn't mean they don't happen suddenly and without warning.
I hate computers most of the time. Funny, given my career choice.
In other news, I also am trying to get Xandros off my EeePC. That project has been only modestly better, given that I've spent a day just trying to collect the tools to make a bootable USB stick.
Anyway, a couple hundred bucks later, I had a Blu Ray drive and a 1.5TB HDD to show for it. We'd left Spinrite to diagnose my old HDD while we shopped, and when we returned, it was still grinding away. In fact, it was even having trouble predicting how long it would take to scan the drive. Since it wasn't turning up surface errors (and I had suspected it would not), we decided to just cut the scan short and move on to the next step, which was booting a Ubuntu live CD to copy the old drive to the new one.
Only problem...the CD wouldn't finish booting because the HDD driver went into an infinite loop as it failed to interface with the dying controller on my HDD. Bad news. On a wing and a prayer, I tried booting Windows off the HDD with the hopes of using a disc copy system that came with the new HDD. Windows would boot, but it wasn't functional enough to copy the disc.
Then, finally, my BIOS stopped wanting to even boot from the old HDD. It was over. The drive is dead.
Sadly, this also means that I am without....
...Windows Vista
...Adobe CS4
...my iTunes library
I'm hoping I can get all my iTunes purchases back off my iPod. As for CS4, I have the install DVD in the storage unit, so maybe I can limp by until June (I'm supposed to start doing derby video again in a couple weeks). I also found my computer's product key for Vista, so if I can just come up with a Windows Vista Home Premium DVD, I'll be somewhat on the road to recovery.
Lesson learned here. Just because it took this many years for me to encounter a hard drive failure doesn't mean they don't happen suddenly and without warning.
I hate computers most of the time. Funny, given my career choice.
In other news, I also am trying to get Xandros off my EeePC. That project has been only modestly better, given that I've spent a day just trying to collect the tools to make a bootable USB stick.