Computer Boot Up problems- need help!

yoshito · Post by **yoshito** » Thu Dec 01, 2005 9:36 am

zerospace wrote:^^ Is always late.... woops, wrong thread. sorry yoshi!

Gotta remember that quote.. "leaving the OS in a state of um, hellloooooo" hahaha. nice.

>.< Yeah I'm always late.

Good luck with the HD. One good thing is that you can at least still back up your data. Mine usually ends up being taken out, put as a slave to another PC and taking off the bits and pieces till I get fed up, reimage the HD and move on.

Krafty · Post by **Krafty** » Sat Dec 03, 2005 8:15 pm

I finally backed up my files, took 21 DVDs which each took 30min to burn so it was a time-consuming job.
After running the 'chkdsk' it seemed to repair SOMETHING but it didn't solve the problem. Using Maxtor's dianosis tool (a specialist boot-up disk) it basically told me that something was wrong. I need to get a new HD. I'll try to get a new one from the store I bought it from as it's only 4 months old.

Until then, I'll continue using my back-up HD although I don't want to keep this going for too long in case THIS packs up too, heh.

Just letting those know who cared. Thanks for your support and advise! It's one of those things that keeps me agitated constantly until I know what's wrong and what can be done to remedy the situation. That's why I'm writing this at 2:15am after returning from the pub. It's been on my mind all the time. *meh*

zerospace · Post by **zerospace** » Sun Dec 04, 2005 7:14 am

Don't feel too bad Krafty... I had a western digital drive die on me back in March - one morning the system just went from Windows to a black screen that read "Disk read error" and told me to reboot. Needless to say WD hard drive diagnostics confirmed the problem - the read head was toast. I had to RMA the drive to western digital - thankfully they're wonderfully fast about it.

I hope you're able to get the drive replaced quickly!

Oh yeah, and may I make a suggestion? Since you use such a huge hard drive, why not partition it - make a small 20-30GB partition for the OS and leave the rest for your files. That way if you ever have to format the OS partition you don't have to back up all your stuff first!

Just a thought. Good luck!

Krafty · Post by **Krafty** » Sun Dec 04, 2005 9:02 am

Yeah, when hardware conks out it's the worst feeling, but it's still under warrenty so I'll be able to get a new one. Formatting the drive can't help me now as I'm sure it's a fundamental error with the disk itself.

Glad to hear that you were able to have your HD replaced, Zero. I'd imagine that after obtianing an RMA from the manufacturer they might take a couple of months to return a new drive...

Partitioning the drive in two parts is what I already do, 20gb for the OS/programme files and the rest is for my personal files such as images, music, video etc.
I had so many movies to back up since I'e been caning the torrents recently ^__^

I was wondering, should I allow a lot of disk space for the OS/programmes? When I set the partition at 20gb, I'm left with 5gb spare after everything's loaded. Do they need 'room for manouvre' or does this play no part in the efficientcy and optimal running of the applications?
Some of the apps are fairly CPU intensive such as Photoshop and other audio software so I want to make sure they don't lag or conflict with other things running at the same time.

zerospace · Post by **zerospace** » Sun Dec 04, 2005 9:12 am

Oh yeah, formatting the drive now would...well... not make any sense.

I personally have an 80GB SATA (as opposed to IDE) drive in my main machine - with a 20GB partition for the OS and software and 60GB for the rest of my stuff. Right now I have 11GB of my 20GB partition free..

That's amazing to me since I have so much software. I regularly back up the 60GB partition onto the 30GB and 40GB drives in my server (this way if my main drive fails completely, my last backup might only be missing a week's worth of data at worst). You see, 4_degree and I have 3 computers - one's his and the other two are mine - one of which acts as the server for the other two. It's an easy way to store mp3s and other files so they can be shared across my wireless network.

I see no real advantage to leaving additional space for the OS - actually I should think that would slow it down a bit, mostly because the more space the OS and software are spread across, the longer the drive's seek times to find the correct data. I mean we all know Windows is a resource hog - and just the fact alone that it uses a portion of your hard drive as virtual memory should prove that to you

. That may not entirely be correct - but hey.. it sounds right.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and if you're like me - running lots of intense apps at the same time (music, photoshop, etc, etc) you might keep an eye out for the new multicore procs coming out - I'm looking to upgrade to one next year sometime. That would help with multitasking.

shellie · Post by **shellie** » Sun Dec 04, 2005 2:30 pm

Z, I was going to ask you in a pm, but I figure if I'm interested, probably more people are too....

SO, for us computer doofus people, how exactly do you set up partitions on your HD? (If it is a difficult and labor-intensive process, please don't worry about writing it all out... feel free to tell me I'm in over my head on this one!

) I think I have 30G on my laptop here and I'd love to partition off the important stuff if it isn't too much trouble.

Cloud · Post by **Cloud** » Sun Dec 04, 2005 2:30 pm

I always feel completely free.

shellie · Post by **shellie** » Sun Dec 04, 2005 2:31 pm

Is it because you wear boxers, Cloud darling?

Cloud · Post by **Cloud** » Sun Dec 04, 2005 2:31 pm

Maybe. Ask Ally if it is.

shellie · Post by **shellie** » Sun Dec 04, 2005 2:32 pm

haha! And who is this Ally??

Krafty · Post by **Krafty** » Sun Dec 04, 2005 2:45 pm

Shellie, you normally partition the hard disk before installing the operating system. When you have an empty HD and insert the WinXP CD, you can partition it from there. It's very easy that way.

There are alternatives and software that enables you to partition drives like 'Partition Magic' but they can get too complicated for their own good- especially if you're a novice.

It's not possible to partition an HD and retain your current files/settings. Programmes have little files that save themselves to various corners of your disk and if you essentially 'cut' that disk into sections, those files can't find each other and communicate.
Try partitioning when you do a clean reinstall. It's recommended that we do a clean reinstall every 6 months or so.

Cloud · Post by **Cloud** » Sun Dec 04, 2005 2:46 pm

Very much? Do you think robots can do that way.

zerospace · Post by **zerospace** » Sun Dec 04, 2005 2:53 pm

Krafty wrote:Shellie, you normally partition the hard disk before installing the operating system. When you have an empty HD and insert the WinXP CD, you can partition it from there. It's very easy that way.

There are alternatives and software that enables you to partition drives like 'Partition Magic' but they can get too complicated for their own good- especially if you're a novice.

It's not possible to partition an HD and retain your current files/settings. Programmes have little files that save themselves to various corners of your disk and if you essentially 'cut' that disk into sections, those files can't find each other and communicate.
Try partitioning when you do a clean reinstall. It's recommended that we do a clean reinstall every 6 months or so.

Couldn't have said it better myself - and I've used Partition Magic once out of sheer laziness... and it hosed my drive (an old IDE one thankfully) - I had to run the Western Digital utility to write all zeros to the drive in order to make it usable again.

shellie · Post by **shellie** » Sun Dec 04, 2005 2:54 pm

Thanks, Krafty and z. I always buy my machines all preinstalled with everything I'll need for the rest of my natural life.

So I guess I won't worry about the partitioning thing. And doing a fresh reinstall of the OS would scare me spitless. I've never done it in my life, let alone every 6 months!! I guess it's a wonder my machines run at all.

zerospace · Post by **zerospace** » Sun Dec 04, 2005 2:59 pm

shellie wrote:Thanks, Krafty and z. I always buy my machines all preinstalled with everything I'll need for the rest of my natural life. So I guess I won't worry about the partitioning thing. And doing a fresh reinstall of the OS would scare me spitless. I've never done it in my life, let alone every 6 months!! I guess it's a wonder my machines run at all.

Heh - shell - partitioning a drive is certainly not for the faint of heart