The past week or so my computer has been acting funny. Super slow sometimes, running a little hot, and/or programs failing to load. Weird. I was going to run my computer nerd solution to all computer performance problems: I was going to reinstall Windows. I know its probably a little extreme, but I don't like trying to figure out which spyware is screwing up my system and I don't like having to perform a 23-step process to remove a virus. I'll just reinstall. So this morning I come home from work, check out uselessjunk.com for a second, then head to bed. I wake up around 2pm, look down the hall, and see my computer screen (yes, from 10meters away) with a message that says something like "primary slave failure". Oh crap, that doesn't sound good at all. My primary slave is that bitch in the garage closet, but my other primary slave is my second harddrive and it seems to have crapped out on me. So I disconnect it, reboot, and then think "I have some good news and some bad news. Good news: computer runs okay now, at least it'll boot up. Bad news: I don't know if I can get all the crap off this secondary harddrive, like my pictures, music, etc etc." Believe me, there was a lot of crap on that thing. There must be some super computer nerd out there reading this that can tell me if I'm screwed or if I can get my shit back. And don't tell me to take it to some shop that'll recover my data for $70/byte cuz it was an 80 fuckingGB drive. Man, computers really piss me off.
BTW, the job is going great, I really like it.
3 comments:
Tips to recover:
* Pull the drive out, stick it into an external case (~$20) and hook it up to another computer that boots and see if you can read it.
* Stick it in the freezer to chill out the mechanicals, then try reading from it again. This is a last ditch IT trick that has worked sometimes.
If it's making funny noises though, odds are all hope is lost. Only thing left is to just accept it and move on, making sure next time to backup, ensure good drive cooling, and/or utilize some form of RAID.
Did you change anything physically with the drive/computer? "Primary slave failure" is a BIOS message that usually points to poorly connected cables, improper jumper settings, or (worst case) a failed controller. And don't use cable select mode -- not really reliable.
Hope you get your data back
thanks! i'll try some of those. backup schmackup. i like to live on the edge. i pretty much waived all rights to recovery of data when i decided not to backup anything.
My 80gig slave died from mechanical failure on me a few months ago. Say good bye to all my mp3s and pictures from the last couple years. It pissed me off. I tried an external case too... but it seems my drive just isn't powering up (can't hear it spinning). I said screw it and exchanged it for a new lacie external drive.. one day data recovery will get cheaper.. and ill retrieve my old data then. I went on a back-up binge and burnt all my pictures from liv's laptop to cd and it took me a couple hours... what a pain. Now my DVD writer seems to be screwed up... i hate my windows box.
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