Liz & I stopped by BestBuy today where I saw a deal that was almost too good to be true (yeah yeah, I know what they say about deals too good to be true). It was a 120GB Hard Drive for just $50. No Mail-In Rebate. No Gift Card. It was a straight up $50 (+tax) Hard Drive. By comparison most hard drives in the 100 to 150GB range are $100 to $150. It was the last one on the shelf so I bought it.
Got it home, opened my case, hooked up the hard drive, started Windows but the new hard drive could not be found.
I booted off the CD that comes with the hard drive and noticed in the startup that there was no Primary Slave Drive (which is where the new hard drive was supposed to show up). After fooling around with the hard drive cables and rebooting my computer several times the new hard drive finally showed up and I was able to format and partition it.
I restarted the computer but now it claims it can't find a necessary system file. WTF? I check the cables..."They're ok, folks!"
I reboot the computer but it still can't find the necessary system file and refuses to start up.
I disconnect the new hard drive and reboot, nada, zip. No signal from the box to the monitor. WTF?
The lights are on the box, there's whirring coming from the hard drive. Fan is running. CD drive works. The keyboard & mouse lights are on. But the monitor says it's got nothin'.
Reboot.
Nothing.
WTF?
Have I managed to fry something in my computer? Now it's only my computer. The new hard drive is nowhere near the box and I'm pissed.
Reboot.
Nothing.
I disconnect my hard drive and connect an old hard drive we have lying around.
Reboot.
Nothing.
I try different hard drive cables.
Nothing.
Maybe it's my video card, which is very close to the hard drive bays, and could have taken a bump while I was fooling around. I make sure the video card is seated properly. Reboot. Nothing.
I have a spare video card but when I locate the adaptor plug to switch between DVI and VGA signals, the adaptor plug won't work. It's an adaptor plug, but it's male-to-male, I need a female-to-male adaptor plug. WTF?!?!
In frustration (and concerned that maybe I've killed my computer and it will cost me a fortune to replace it) I return my computer to it's old configuration. Original old hard drive, etc, plug everything back in and toss it under my desk.
Liz and I go out to dinner. I tell her the damn thing will probably boot up tomorrow night as if nothing ever happened.
We get home from dinner and I decide to hit the power button, just for the hell of it.
My computer boots up.
Bastard!
Have I learned my lesson?
Hell no! Tonight, I give the new hard drive another try!
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6 comments:
i had the sort of thing happen to me with an on sale webcam. but it was just the webcam that broke not the whole computer lol.
as a new reader of your blog you shoudl know i found a link to your blog from tobolds most recent entry to his blog. i notice you say you have a Bc beta key that you intend not to use. seems a bit of a waste :p GIEF. anyways if ya wanna chat sometime my email address is Bonno2@hotmail.com
good luck with the hard drive lol
I tried the new hard drive again tonight. It's a no-go. Gonna return it this week. I'm off Friday (for some reason) and was gonna return it then, until I realized that's the Day After Thanksgiving. No way in HELL!!! am I going near a shopping center on Black Friday.
I think my system just doesn't like a second hard drive :(
Maybe I need a new, beefier power supply. Current one is only 350W. 400W might get two Hard Drives running. Then again, I might just wait a little while longer and get a new PC altogether.
Bonno, thanks for stopping by. I passed my BC Key onto my brother-in-law but I think he's been busy PvPing, Raiding and Twinking. I'll check with him if he's used it or not, and if he hasn't it's yours.
Arrrgggghhh! Computer problems make me want to throw my laptop out the window which is why I usually purchase everything that I think I might need for the next two years, at the initial point of purchase.
I've only had one problem with my laptop not running software, and my buddy who does IT consulting for a living, had it cleaned up in 5 minutes. Having a true computer geek for a good friend comes in handy.
John.. did you try this.
Put your old hard drive on IDE1 and make sure that its set to "master" Disconnect the CD rom, but if it's also on IDE1 make sure its set to "slave".
Get the new hard drive and put it on IDE 2 set it to master, then boot your pc up.
If the new drive appears in the post screen on boot and you get to windows and don't see the drive in my computer, check for it in device manager.
If you see it in device manager then go "disk management" and make sure it's not set to dynamic. (as this sometimes makes it retarded)
You don't need a new power supply 350W is fine.
Rock, the only time I got the PC to boot into Windows was when I forgot to plug in the power cable for the new Hard Drive. With both drives powered up the computer flat out refused to boot, or at least wasn't sending a signal to the monitor. After disconnecting the new Hard Drive the computer would boot up just fine. Even with just the new Hard Drive in I couldn't even get the PC to boot from my Windows CD.
I think there was only one time I got the PC to "see" the new drive and it was booting off the Install CD that came with the drive. At that time I was able to format and partition the new drive, but after rebooting that was when the computer claimed to be missing system files. I think the PC was looking on the new Hard Drive even though it was my Primary Slave.
I've given up on it now. Returned it and got my money back, and am resigned to having a 40GB hard drive.
Why the fuck am i called "Rock" hmm weird, ok just a thought anyways.
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