iMac drives failing - first external, then internal. Seems to be hardware in both cases. Questions about troubleshooting or replacement inside. [more inside]
posted by tkolstee on Oct 29, 2009 - 5 answers

My DVD/CD and CD drives only work a little bit. [more inside]
posted by AllieTessKipp on Sep 4, 2009 - 10 answers

iMacFilter: Recommend a good external drive? [more inside]
posted by jammy on May 6, 2009 - 18 answers

How can I change the generic name "USB Mass Storage Device" in my Vista system tray "Safely Remove Hardware" dialog? [more inside]
posted by msbrauer on Dec 30, 2008 - 6 answers

My four year old desktop has started crashing on a semi regular basis and now I belatedly want to start backing up the things I have on it... help me choose an external hard drive [more inside]
posted by chickaboo on Dec 30, 2008 - 7 answers

What are all the things I should do to prepare an old iBook of mine before I sell it to another person (who I don't know and isn't related to me)? [more inside]
posted by micawber on Oct 27, 2008 - 3 answers

New computer, how do I keep the old programs? [more inside]
posted by Marky on Oct 22, 2008 - 8 answers

What is the highest memory storage capacity for USB portable Flash drive in the market right now? [more inside]
posted by omaralarifi on Jun 18, 2008 - 4 answers

Can an ATA-7 hard drive be used as a replacement for an ATA-6 hard drive? [more inside]
posted by stopgap on Apr 17, 2008 - 5 answers

I went to a community college and the computers they had were able to reimage them self each time you rebooted the computer. You could trash the whole OS and render it useless but when you turned it off and back on it was in an OOB state. Where can I find something like this? It would be perfect for work.
posted by KI6ILS on Apr 9, 2008 - 8 answers

Old Computer Filter: I was cleaning out a few boxes the other day from my closet and found my ST-251-1 MFM drive that I had in my first IBM based PC. It had a whopping 40MB. Even though I know it may not boot up after all this time, I still can't help but wonder if it will and would love a chance to see a snapshot of what I was doing computer-wise in 1986. Does anyone in the Hivemind know if there is an adapter/card/whatever to plug an old MFM drive into IDE or USB?
posted by damiano99 on Feb 1, 2008 - 13 answers

Here is the deal. I have a client who brought in a hard drive with a "smoked" circuit board. He is filing a claim on his insurance for it AND the data that was on it. Fine. BUT...he wants us to "prove" that the circuit board failure happened as a result of a power surge and NOT as a natural failure of the board. I don't believe that is possible at this point. I am a computer tech, so I am looking for input from attorneys, electricians, and anyone else who can proffer and opinion. Thanks in advance!
posted by titans13 on Oct 15, 2007 - 15 answers

Disk cleanup/management tool, with flagging, a la Tivo/MCE. [more inside]
posted by mphuie on Oct 3, 2007 - 0 answers

Hard drive data recovery: Possible to get a reasonable price for it? [more inside]
posted by mikeand1 on Jun 11, 2007 - 14 answers

I am trying to wipe my hard drive... [more inside]
posted by 517 on May 5, 2007 - 18 answers

I turn computer on then drive spins up and then a very low click and the machine turns off! My question is will I benefit from putting this drive (120GB) in the freezer in a plastic bag then trying again or should I try and read from Knoppix, though I don't know if the machine will even boot enough for me to get to the BIOS to change the drive order and boot from CD.
posted by thinktwice on Jan 18, 2007 - 9 answers

My CD-RW drive will not firmly attach to my Dell Inspiron 8000 laptop. If I push it with my thumbs, it will make a connection, but as soon as I remove firm pressure, it loses its connection. [more inside]
posted by UKnowForKids on Aug 10, 2006 - 3 answers

LAPTOP HELP!? I have an alienware laptop, whose warrenty just expired and am now having problems with the removable cd/dvd reader burner. [more inside]
posted by nosophoros on Jan 25, 2006 - 2 answers

How can I access my hidden external Hard Drive data? PLEASE HELP or I might have to cry my ass off, and that's harder than it sounds [more inside]
posted by angryjellybean on Jan 12, 2006 - 14 answers

How can I get an External Hard Drive to show up in WinXP SP2 again? [more inside]
posted by mdbell79 on Dec 18, 2005 - 4 answers

I have a 60gig Photo Ipod. In order to keep my computer's hardrive relative clean, I do not keep my MP3's stored in the Itunes library. All 9500 are strictly on my IPOD. I know I run the ris of losing all that upload work should my ipod get lost or break, but it was by choice. I recently bought a 250 gig external hard drive for the sole purpose of keeping all of my MP3's and important computer files on there....What I want to do and havent been able to figure out is, how could I go about transferring all the MP3 files from my IPOD to my computer and then to the external drive. (more inside) [more inside]
posted by TwilightKid on Dec 15, 2005 - 18 answers

I've overfilled my laptop and want to move files to external drives. But moving keeps getting stopped for various reasons (and what the hell is a cyclic redundancy??) and I'm going nuts. Please send me your speed tips and procedure suggestions! The specifics: Toshiba satellite running windows xp; total c drive size 55.8gb, free space 12.6. External drives: f (in fat 32 which I'd like to reformat to ntfs) has a capacity of 152gb, and has only 66.1 free. Newest drive g (i've just formatted it to ntfs) has a capacity of 111gb, with 103 left after my abortive attempts to put an image disc of c on it. Thanks ... [more inside]
posted by thewhynotgirl on Nov 1, 2005 - 14 answers

I've taken the role as a graphic designer at a small company, and I also wear the IT hat sometimes. That being said, I'm more of a Mac Guru than (blech) XP. BUT, we have a small file server (40 GB, half full) of data we would like to backup nightly. #1: What's a good tape drive (or other media) for that much data, with room to grow, of course. #2: What software? #3: What's a "typical" backup schedule. I'd prefer just to do incrementals, but how often to rotate tapes/etc...? Thanks!
posted by Wiggo on Oct 6, 2005 - 11 answers

My laptop is dead. What's the best way to dispose of the body? [more inside]
posted by CMichaelCook on Sep 27, 2005 - 13 answers

Is there any way to recover data from an external USB 2/Firewire hard drive that has apparently decided to stop working? [more inside]
posted by cathodeheart on May 11, 2005 - 7 answers

I have a MITSUMI CR-4804TE CDRW drive. While it's slow, it worked perfectly fine for me while I was running Win98SE. Now that I've got XP, it's all gone to pot [more]. [more inside]
posted by precocious on Jan 11, 2004 - 5 answers