I have two hard drives: one with windows/software and another with all of my stuff (mp3s, photos, documents, etc). I was listening to music when it suddenly stopped in the middle of a song. The computer was frozen. I rebooted and my second hard drive with all my stuff isn't recognized in windows. No error messages, the drive just doesn't show up. Reinstalled windows. Still nothing. The hard drive is recognized fine by the BIOS. I was running XP, now I'm running 2000. I haven't cried yet becuase I'm not convinced that all of my data is gone forever. What can I do?
posted by TurkishGolds
on Sep 15, 2004 -
6 answers
You know those fun little addicting Java games on the web? Is there any way to snatch them out of whatever buffer they reside in, and save them to your hard drive for future offline play?
posted by mecran01
on Sep 14, 2004 -
3 answers
WindowsXP, 250 gig shared backup hard drive, and a lab full of people with sensitive information that needs to be backed up on said drive but shouldn't be accessible by anyone other than the user who put it there. Security is giving me fits and I'd appreciate some helpful advice. [more gory details inside]
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posted by caution live frogs
on Sep 13, 2004 -
5 answers
I have a new 160 gig HD that I partitioned into two drives. One of the partitions is exclusively for mp3s. Unfortunately, when I open the drive, XP treats it as a "My Pictures" folder. How do I change it to a "My Music" folder? Ordinarily, I'd go Properties>Customize, but when I go Properties on the root folder, I get hard drive properties. (General / Tools / Hardware / etc.)
posted by keswick
on Aug 28, 2004 -
3 answers
Really this is my last resort. I recently built myself a new computer (Asus K8N-E Deluxe) and everything's fine except I'm trying to transfer my old harddrive to my new harddrive. I had a slave in the old computer (Asus CUSL2 for those keeping score). It's 40GB and has ALL my important data. I think you can see where this is going. If it's plugged in and running, even set as slave, the computer won't boot. Obviously, more inside.
posted by geoff.
on Aug 27, 2004 -
13 answers
Having trouble setting up 2 SATA hard drives as a stripe set in WinXP Pro. (more inside)
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posted by Ynoxas
on Aug 23, 2004 -
4 answers
Yet another boring tech question: my main hard drive died on me. It's a Seagate, so I ran their diagnostic tool and it tells me I have 2 critical structure errors. What does this mean? Is there a way to fix it, or do I have to reformat, or worse, toss it out? Vielen Dank!
posted by muckster
on Aug 20, 2004 -
9 answers
Using XP Pro 2002. Main HDD dies, replace C:, now can't get out of BIOS without unplugging D: (storage). Actually, D: works occasionally, but during those regular operations it sometimes bluescreens and on reboot I get BIOS errors for *all* drives. Wha?
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posted by petebest
on Aug 20, 2004 -
6 answers
I've just bought and installed a new hard drive. At the moment, it's bolted to the drive bay by only two screws, along one edge. The drive bay that it's in is too big, and I don't have anything that could be used as a shoring bracket (the machine itself is a crappy OEM, and the case is built so that I've no way of approaching the drive from another direction to install one, anyway). Is there any real danger that my drive might damage itself by resonating?
posted by Jongo
on Aug 2, 2004 -
4 answers
What's the best way to make a perfect mirror of my computer's hard drive? (more inside)
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posted by luser
on Jul 30, 2004 -
7 answers
I am going crazy about this, and google won't turn up anything useful. Laptop with no CDrom or floppy: Took HD out and installed XP using my desktop. Freezes loading mup.sys. I already installed the MB swap patch.
Basically what I am asking is: Can you copy the entire XP Pro CD onto your Hard drive, and set it as a boot option? Can it work? Does anyone have any ideas?
posted by Keyser Soze
on Jul 22, 2004 -
5 answers
Would installing a new (smallish) hard drive in my machine and dedicating it solely to the Windows swap file (i.e., instead of having it on C:) improve performance?
posted by oissubke
on Jun 26, 2004 -
13 answers
What do I need to do before I format my HD and reinstall windows? [more inside]
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posted by trharlan
on Jun 17, 2004 -
8 answers
so i'm cleaning up the HD after another school year and i know that i have a lot of duplicate file names on this computer. is there an easy, automated windows program that will allow me to scan for these duplicates and erase them?
posted by ronv
on Jun 14, 2004 -
3 answers
I have one hard drive installed in my computer, and it shows up as E: . There is no C:. How can I tell the computer that the installed hard drive E: should be C:?
posted by alball
on Jun 1, 2004 -
13 answers
Ok, I've blown up another hard drive...even knoppix can't help me get the data because the first few sectors are hosed and knoppix can't determine what the file structure is/was. Do anyone of you godlike system gurus have any suggestions that can help me pull data off this poor, corrupted drive?
posted by dejah420
on Jun 1, 2004 -
11 answers
I have a Hard drive question, using XP Pro SP1, 3 hard drives, last one is a Western Digital 160GB special edition. MI (partition and file corruption)
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posted by Keyser Soze
on May 28, 2004 -
5 answers
Can I access a Windows 2000 formatted hard drive in an external hard drive enclosure with an Apple computer? [m-to-the-i]
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posted by plemeljr
on May 25, 2004 -
8 answers
Another boooooring computer question - sorry!
How do I clone a HD in a win2k system? My system's boot hd is a 20g 5400 rpm. I'd like to swap it for a 20 g 7200 rpm which is sitting at the moment in an external firewire enclosure. I also have 150g in an internal RAID array.
More inside ...
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posted by magullo
on May 20, 2004 -
5 answers
I just finished putting a computer together for my sister... a fresh install of Windows 2000 Pro. Every time iTunes or WinAmp accesses the drive (during playback), I can hear the crackly drive noise coming through the external speakers (left-side only in fact). As soon as I stop iTunes, the noise stops. Restart iTunes, the noise isn't there until it starts reading the drive again. This only happens when using either of those two pieces of software (meaning I haven't been able to reproduce the problem in any other way). What is the best way to go about troubleshooting this?
posted by Witty
on May 10, 2004 -
6 answers
I backed up my /library/webserver/documents folder to a firewire HD. When I dragged it back, the permissions went all kablooey:
drwxr-xr-x 36 root admin 1224 16 Jan 16:58 Documents
sudo chmod 755 Documents does not give groups write privileges.
1. Do I just need to go read a good chmod tutorial, or is something aberrant happening here?
2. Is there any way to apply appropriate permissions recursively?
Many thanks.
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posted by mecran01
on May 3, 2004 -
8 answers
I just did a full WinXP reinstall. In the process, I took an 80 gig drive which was partitioned to 10/30/40 gig partitions and repartitioned it to 10/10/20/15/25 partitions. Unfortunately, that 40 gig partition held my "My Documents" holding a bunch of Word documents spanning the years and a lot of digital photos that are irreplaceable.
I've tried a few file recovery programs with limited success (recovered around 20% of my files) however I think the problem is the repartitions have split a lot of the files across two or more partitions. Is there a way I can recombine these partitions and try the file recovery programs again??
posted by PWA_BadBoy
on Apr 21, 2004 -
3 answers
Yet Another Hard Drive Failure: My laptop started hanging periodically, and eventually stopped booting. Suspecting a hard drive failure, I swapped drives, and sure enough, it works fine now. Except, of course, for the old hard drive. I've put that in a USB enclosure and I've been able to recover some of the data in fits and starts. However, it continues to lock sporadically while the data is being read, and XP will occasionally drop the drive, no longer showing it in explorer. Is there a better way to recover my data, given the inability to stay connected to it via USB?
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posted by monju_bosatsu
on Apr 20, 2004 -
8 answers
Continuing with my
stupid computer.... I bought a new Gateway since they're closing their stores. I then put the old hard drive in the new computer. Then the computer wouldn't start. Is this a function of a bad hard drive? It didn't fit in the drive bay, so did I ground it out (I sat it to rest on the case.. is that a bad thing?)? When I took the old hard drive out of the computer, it booted up fine, which leads me to think that it's the hard drive that's causing both systems to lock up. Do I just need a new hard drive for my old computer? Thoughts?
posted by ajpresto
on Apr 9, 2004 -
6 answers
For a radio piece I have to record, I'd like to get a digital recording device that I can hook up to a nice microphone -- something with Flash memory or a hard drive, rather than DAT or minidisc. Can someone recommend one? Some guy at Radio Shack suggested the iPod itself, but it doesn't seem to have a mic jack.
posted by inksyndicate
on Mar 31, 2004 -
15 answers
I'm a Mac head formatting a partition on my Windows 2000 Prof box - What's the difference between NTFS and Fat32? Which should I choose?
posted by jalexei
on Mar 12, 2004 -
8 answers
I have 100GB and 160GB hard drives in my XP computer. I tried using Norton Ghost to move the 100GB info to my latter drive, and it worked but with serious partition errors (windows not booting). I then moved a large amount of data to my 160, the 100 not really having changed. Everything in windows functions, but when I use Partition Magic 8 I get the following error: "Disk 1 appears to have partitions created using a different drive geometry (255h 63s original, 240h 63 current) You should back up...." etcetera. More inside.
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posted by Keyser Soze
on Mar 7, 2004 -
2 answers
Disaster Strikes! I just managed to wipe out my C: drive with all my data -- is there any way to recover it, or will I just have to get very very drunk tonight?
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posted by muckster
on Mar 6, 2004 -
14 answers
Oh dear. Mac data recovery question. One of my coursemates accidentally deleted her final year degree coursework when trying to free up some disk space on her G4. [More Inside]
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posted by armoured-ant
on Mar 3, 2004 -
6 answers
Large external drive on ancient laptop: I've got a 160 gig USB drive I'm trying to access from a laptop running Windows ME.
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posted by muckster
on Mar 2, 2004 -
13 answers
I need help in formatting a hard drive that's running Mac OS 8.1. I can't find the boot CD that came with it and I will be donating/trashing the computer so all I am looking to do is wipe the hard drive. All help is appreciated.
posted by CoolHandPuke
on Feb 25, 2004 -
5 answers
Windows XP question... My parents computer is set up that most items are stored on a 20 GB harddrive (or possibly a partition- listed as c:) while they have 100 GB available on d:... When I install software, is it perfectly acceptable to run it off the D drive, and is there a way to switch the set up so most items save to the d drive?
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posted by drezdn
on Feb 23, 2004 -
8 answers
I just got a new computer. I would like to transfer multi-gigs worth of stuff to my new computer. Windows 98 to Windows XP. Can I do this through USB cables and just send it? Any advice on best ways to transfer large amounts? (Keep in mind that my old comp's cd burner doesn't work which is partly why I got a new comp.)
posted by Seth
on Feb 23, 2004 -
13 answers
I want to know if I run the risk of Hard Disk damage by having large (8 inch sub+midrange) speakers near my computer. I have a Western Digital 100GB 7200 and a 160GB 8MB cache disk installed.
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posted by Keyser Soze
on Jan 21, 2004 -
2 answers
Does anyone know how to erase the master boot record from within Windows XP? [you're gonna love this...]
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posted by soplerfo
on Jan 17, 2004 -
9 answers
I have a WinXp machine with three hard drives, each one holding 100GB. I'm researching backup alternatives, and there are tons these days (tape drives, external firewire drives, jazz drives, etc.). I'd like to find a solution that strikes a nice balance between ease of use, cost and durability. Any suggestions?
posted by grumblebee
on Jan 8, 2004 -
8 answers
I'm looking for a new portable hard-drive MP3 player. Requirements: 1. At least 30GB storage 2. Long battery life (at least 8 hours, real-world not theoretical) 3. Doesn't suck 4. Not gigantic, I want to be able to hold and control it w/one hand and fit it in my oversized pockets. Price matters not. I'm especially interested in hearing from people who own a player which meets these requirements. [more]
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posted by punishinglemur
on Dec 24, 2003 -
20 answers
What's a good program to automate backing up one hard drive to another one on the same box in Windows XP?
Something that made a complete backup of certain folders every morning would be ideal.
posted by signal
on Dec 15, 2003 -
19 answers
