I walked away from my computer for a couple of hours, tops, yesterday. I
came back to it and the display and mouse were frozen.

It's a 3.5 year old personal computer (Gateway, with a 20 Gigabyte, 5M Ultra
ATA hard drive). I ended up powering down, when starting up received error
messages and then a failure to reach the Windows display. I ultimately
struggled through a Scanddisk from a Dos prompt and was able to recover
most, but not all, my personal files, copying them to floppy diskettes (3.5
inch type). I shoulda been backing up at least once a month, but wasn't.
Anyone else procrastinating: Man, don't do it. Stop now. Back up your files.

A tech support person at Gateway said hard drives don't usually last beyond
five years. Some die at three years. I've found support on Usenet for this.

My computer's running again, but to thwart another massive crash, is it
worth putting in a new hard drive? I've got $80 to spend, and I figure a
nice one will run about that.

I installed a new power supply (that is, transformer) last summer. It's
power and so heat output aren't that different from the old one. It seems to
be working out fine. Otherwise, all else is original equipment.

My last computer was a Hewlett Packard. It "died" irrecoverably after only
thee years. The shop couldn't fix it, though maybe I took it to a lousy
shop. So this is very discouraging. Throwing away $800 every three years
ain't gonna cut it anymore. So I've had it with these big brand names. I'm
ready to build my own, and think at this point I have enough expertise to do
so. I'm certainly not going to throw money away on a shop trying to fix my
computer again. It seems to me much of the expertise involved in a
successful computer repair involves simply patience and persistence.

How about the CPU? Should I investigate replacing it, too?

All suggestions about whether a new hard drive is worth the investment and
the CPU are welcome.

TIA

I had a similar experience recently. My hard drive gronched and I hadn't
backed up much on it, either. Dumb ol' me. It was about four years old,
too, and in fact when I checked the warranty date on the drive itself, I
found that the warranty had expired about six months previously.

I don't think it's related, but the power supply in my computer failed at
about the same time. I ended up buying a new hard drive and a new computer
at the same time.

I should probably look into upgrading the motherboard and processor soon,
too, but I'm not asking for the system to do very much in the way of
graphics, so that's on the back burner.

Like yourself, I'm slowly teaching myself more about computer hardware and
software. Some local friends have been very helpful, and so have more
distant ones on the Usenet groups. There's a lot to learn...

In article k.net,
"Elle" wrote:

I walked away from my computer for a couple of hours, tops, yesterday. I
came back to it and the display and mouse were frozen.

It's a 3.5 year old personal computer (Gateway, with a 20 Gigabyte, 5M Ultra
ATA hard drive). I ended up powering down, when starting up received error
messages and then a failure to reach the Windows display. I ultimately
struggled through a Scanddisk from a Dos prompt and was able to recover
most, but not all, my personal files, copying them to floppy diskettes (3.5
inch type). I shoulda been backing up at least once a month, but wasn't.
Anyone else procrastinating: Man, don't do it. Stop now. Back up your files.

A tech support person at Gateway said hard drives don't usually last beyond
five years. Some die at three years. I've found support on Usenet for this.

My computer's running again, but to thwart another massive crash, is it
worth putting in a new hard drive? I've got $80 to spend, and I figure a
nice one will run about that.

I installed a new power supply (that is, transformer) last summer. It's
power and so heat output aren't that different from the old one. It seems to
be working out fine. Otherwise, all else is original equipment.

My last computer was a Hewlett Packard. It "died" irrecoverably after only
thee years. The shop couldn't fix it, though maybe I took it to a lousy
shop. So this is very discouraging. Throwing away $800 every three years
ain't gonna cut it anymore. So I've had it with these big brand names. I'm
ready to build my own, and think at this point I have enough expertise to do
so. I'm certainly not going to throw money away on a shop trying to fix my
computer again. It seems to me much of the expertise involved in a
successful computer repair involves simply patience and persistence.

How about the CPU? Should I investigate replacing it, too?

All suggestions about whether a new hard drive is worth the investment and
the CPU are welcome.

TIA

I have several computers around the house, and have had for well over
fifteen years (not the same ones, of course). In all that time, I have
had exactly *one* verified hard drive failure -- on a Linux system, BTW;
the drive actually just stopped spinning.

Could it be that you are having *software* problems?

Seriously, I think that Windows does things to disks that makes them
*appear* to be bad -- clogged up with old files or something. Several of
the disks I have used successfully came for free, removed from Windows
systems because they were "dying". I reformatted them, installed them,
and used them for years without problems.

I should mention that my "non-failing" disks are all installed on Macs,
some of which are still working just fine nearly ten years after they
were manufactured.

Isaac

On Sun, 20 Mar 2005 03:05:46 GMT, "Elle"
wrote:

I walked away from my computer for a couple of hours, tops, yesterday. I
came back to it and the display and mouse were frozen.

It's a 3.5 year old personal computer (Gateway, with a 20 Gigabyte, 5M Ultra
ATA hard drive). I ended up powering down, when starting up received error
messages and then a failure to reach the Windows display. I ultimately
struggled through a Scanddisk from a Dos prompt and was able to recover
most, but not all, my personal files, copying them to floppy diskettes (3.5
inch type). I shoulda been backing up at least once a month, but wasn't.
Anyone else procrastinating: Man, don't do it. Stop now. Back up your files.

A tech support person at Gateway said hard drives don't usually last beyond
five years. Some die at three years. I've found support on Usenet for this.

My computer's running again, but to thwart another massive crash, is it
worth putting in a new hard drive? I've got $80 to spend, and I figure a
nice one will run about that.

I installed a new power supply (that is, transformer) last summer. It's
power and so heat output aren't that different from the old one. It seems to
be working out fine. Otherwise, all else is original equipment.

My last computer was a Hewlett Packard. It "died" irrecoverably after only
thee years. The shop couldn't fix it, though maybe I took it to a lousy
shop. So this is very discouraging. Throwing away $800 every three years
ain't gonna cut it anymore. So I've had it with these big brand names. I'm
ready to build my own, and think at this point I have enough expertise to do
so. I'm certainly not going to throw money away on a shop trying to fix my
computer again. It seems to me much of the expertise involved in a
successful computer repair involves simply patience and persistence.

How about the CPU? Should I investigate replacing it, too?

All suggestions about whether a new hard drive is worth the investment and
the CPU are welcome.

TIA


If that computer suits your needs, by all means replace the HDD.
My current computer is a year newer (new HDD last year though,
previously running on my then 1998 bought drive, which is working fine
in my other older computer)

Thanks Matt, Isaac, and Gary for posting your thoughts on this so quickly. I
have an update (already) below. Dunno if I'll be able to keep posting much
longer, since I can't say how serious this problem is, or whether it's
getting worse. Regardless, I feel like I have a better grasp on the problem,
due to your posts, some googling, and a guzillion hours working on this now.

"Isaac Wingfield" wrote
I have several computers around the house, and have had for well over
fifteen years (not the same ones, of course). In all that time, I have
had exactly *one* verified hard drive failure -- on a Linux system, BTW;
the drive actually just stopped spinning.

Could it be that you are having *software* problems?

Yes. I just experienced another, identical looking crash a few minutes ago.
This time, I found a quick temporary fix. Namely, I "messed up" last night
and most of today by not just putting in the 2nd (of 3) "Gateway System
Restoration Kit" CDs. There are no darn directions that say to put the 2nd
one in first, for criminy's sake.

Re the hard drive:
The Scandisk command yesterday from Dos alleged it was doing all sort of
repairs. It took hours. Gateway's tech support person said the Scandisk
feature would ultimately indicate whether the hard drive was fried or not.
Dunno whether that's so, but it said yesterday it had fixed everything on
the drive. Still, I had this second crash a little while ago.


Better news: An hour ago I simply did a search for some keywords and found
the last of the personal files I was missing. They seem to be all there. I'm
feeling a lot better. Some of these were very important documents, and I'd
been kicking myself since last night about being so casual about them.

Of course, due to my first incompetent recovery attempt, many of the
personal files are in Outlook Express's .dbx format. Which means I so far
can't just slip them back into the Outlook Express directory I re-installed
earlier today and have them come up as usual. I am experimenting now with
recovering them in a "clean" way. I googled and see one can purchase
software to do so, or it seems there may be some freeware about to do the
trick.

There's some file that, on some startups, is said to be missing on the quick
display that flies past. I'll try to get that file name and post it here.

Seriously, I think that Windows does things to disks that makes them
*appear* to be bad -- clogged up with old files or something. Several of
the disks I have used successfully came for free, removed from Windows
systems because they were "dying". I reformatted them, installed them,
and used them for years without problems.

I should mention that my "non-failing" disks are all installed on Macs,
some of which are still working just fine nearly ten years after they
were manufactured.

Huh.

I don't think this is a virus, as I have always used a modem. I do scan
weekly for viruses, too.

I reckon I'll backup like mad in the next few days or so and then come up
with a plan. Sure seems like a lot of folks on Usenet over the years report
that failure at 3-5 years is pretty usual. Are many of us being fooled?

"Elle" wrote in message
hlink.net...
I walked away from my computer for a couple of hours, tops, yesterday. I
came back to it and the display and mouse were frozen.

It's a 3.5 year old personal computer (Gateway, with a 20 Gigabyte, 5M
Ultra
ATA hard drive). I ended up powering down, when starting up received error
messages and then a failure to reach the Windows display. I ultimately
struggled through a Scanddisk from a Dos prompt and was able to recover
most, but not all, my personal files, copying them to floppy diskettes
(3.5
inch type). I shoulda been backing up at least once a month, but wasn't.
Anyone else procrastinating: Man, don't do it. Stop now. Back up your
files.

A tech support person at Gateway said hard drives don't usually last
beyond
five years. Some die at three years. I've found support on Usenet for
this.

My computer's running again, but to thwart another massive crash, is it
worth putting in a new hard drive? I've got $80 to spend, and I figure a
nice one will run about that.

I installed a new power supply (that is, transformer) last summer. It's
power and so heat output aren't that different from the old one. It seems
to
be working out fine. Otherwise, all else is original equipment.

My last computer was a Hewlett Packard. It "died" irrecoverably after only
thee years. The shop couldn't fix it, though maybe I took it to a lousy
shop. So this is very discouraging. Throwing away $800 every three years
ain't gonna cut it anymore. So I've had it with these big brand names. I'm
ready to build my own, and think at this point I have enough expertise to
do
so. I'm certainly not going to throw money away on a shop trying to fix my
computer again. It seems to me much of the expertise involved in a
successful computer repair involves simply patience and persistence.

How about the CPU? Should I investigate replacing it, too?

All suggestions about whether a new hard drive is worth the investment and
the CPU are welcome.

TIA




Hard drives are second only to optical drives in how often they tend to
fail. The disk drives being fragile mechanical components are virtually
always the first thing to go, 3-5 years is typical for one that's been
heavily used.

"James Sweet" wrote in message
news:Yc9%d.9706$GI6.6804@trnddc05...

"Elle" wrote in message
hlink.net...
I walked away from my computer for a couple of hours, tops, yesterday. I
came back to it and the display and mouse were frozen.

It's a 3.5 year old personal computer (Gateway, with a 20 Gigabyte, 5M
Ultra
ATA hard drive). I ended up powering down, when starting up received
error
messages and then a failure to reach the Windows display. I ultimately
struggled through a Scanddisk from a Dos prompt and was able to recover
most, but not all, my personal files, copying them to floppy diskettes
(3.5
inch type). I shoulda been backing up at least once a month, but wasn't.
Anyone else procrastinating: Man, don't do it. Stop now. Back up your
files.

A tech support person at Gateway said hard drives don't usually last
beyond
five years. Some die at three years. I've found support on Usenet for
this.

My computer's running again, but to thwart another massive crash, is it
worth putting in a new hard drive? I've got $80 to spend, and I figure a
nice one will run about that.

I installed a new power supply (that is, transformer) last summer. It's
power and so heat output aren't that different from the old one. It
seems
to
be working out fine. Otherwise, all else is original equipment.

My last computer was a Hewlett Packard. It "died" irrecoverably after
only
thee years. The shop couldn't fix it, though maybe I took it to a lousy
shop. So this is very discouraging. Throwing away $800 every three years
ain't gonna cut it anymore. So I've had it with these big brand names.
I'm
ready to build my own, and think at this point I have enough expertise
to
do
so. I'm certainly not going to throw money away on a shop trying to fix
my
computer again. It seems to me much of the expertise involved in a
successful computer repair involves simply patience and persistence.

How about the CPU? Should I investigate replacing it, too?

All suggestions about whether a new hard drive is worth the investment
and
the CPU are welcome.

TIA




Hard drives are second only to optical drives in how often they tend to
fail. The disk drives being fragile mechanical components are virtually
always the first thing to go, 3-5 years is typical for one that's been
heavily used.


Regardless of the equipment, if ya doing something that ya don't want to do
again, or its data thats not replaceable ya have to back it up a couple of
times. Keep a copy of site too !
Just dont be lazy then we wont have to hear yet another "Oh dear I havent
backed up and now I want to get my data back" messages :-)

--
Regards ..... Rheilly Phoull

James Sweet wrote:
"Elle" wrote in message
hlink.net...

I walked away from my computer for a couple of hours, tops, yesterday. I
came back to it and the display and mouse were frozen.

It's a 3.5 year old personal computer (Gateway, with a 20 Gigabyte, 5M

Ultra

ATA hard drive). I ended up powering down, when starting up received error
messages and then a failure to reach the Windows display. I ultimately
struggled through a Scanddisk from a Dos prompt and was able to recover
most, but not all, my personal files, copying them to floppy diskettes

(3.5

inch type). I shoulda been backing up at least once a month, but wasn't.
Anyone else procrastinating: Man, don't do it. Stop now. Back up your

files.

A tech support person at Gateway said hard drives don't usually last

beyond

five years. Some die at three years. I've found support on Usenet for

this.

My computer's running again, but to thwart another massive crash, is it
worth putting in a new hard drive? I've got $80 to spend, and I figure a
nice one will run about that.

I installed a new power supply (that is, transformer) last summer. It's
power and so heat output aren't that different from the old one. It seems

to

be working out fine. Otherwise, all else is original equipment.

My last computer was a Hewlett Packard. It "died" irrecoverably after only
thee years. The shop couldn't fix it, though maybe I took it to a lousy
shop. So this is very discouraging. Throwing away $800 every three years
ain't gonna cut it anymore. So I've had it with these big brand names. I'm
ready to build my own, and think at this point I have enough expertise to

do

so. I'm certainly not going to throw money away on a shop trying to fix my
computer again. It seems to me much of the expertise involved in a
successful computer repair involves simply patience and persistence.

How about the CPU? Should I investigate replacing it, too?

All suggestions about whether a new hard drive is worth the investment and
the CPU are welcome.

TIA





Hard drives are second only to optical drives in how often they tend to
fail. The disk drives being fragile mechanical components are virtually
always the first thing to go, 3-5 years is typical for one that's been
heavily used.



I agree. If you have any time at all invested, let alone irreplaceable
data on a hard drive (and who doesn't?), cloning the HD to spare HD disk
is the most effective means of restoring from a crash. HDs today can be
purchased for very few dollars and it is cheap insurance. Getting back
to where you were can take days if you only have the critical files
saved to a CD or such. Even an image of the HD takes some time to restore.

There are even free programs that will copy even an XP hard drive. One
such program is Discwizard by Seagate.

Elle wrote:

I reckon I'll backup like mad in the next few days or so and then come up
with a plan. Sure seems like a lot of folks on Usenet over the years report
that failure at 3-5 years is pretty usual. Are many of us being fooled?

Not really, it's an illusion so to speak. You have to look
at the number of drive failures in the context of how many
are in operation. You only see the people who say they have
drive failures since they're the ones motivated to post that
they had a failure. The ones that didn't have a failure don't
post because there's no reason to do so. As a result it seems
like there's a lot of drive failures when in reality drives
are very reliable.

The only drive failure I've ever had was in an old piece of
junk notebook I had once. I got angry and slammed the lid
down after the battery started acting up yet again, and
the drive spun down that instant and never worked again.

I've never had a drive fail otherwise.

JazzMan
--
************************************************** ********
Please reply to jsavage"at"airmail.net.
Curse those darned bulk e-mailers!
************************************************** ********
"Rats and roaches live by competition under the laws of
supply and demand. It is the privilege of human beings to
live under the laws of justice and mercy." - Wendell Berry
************************************************** ********

Elle wrote:

(snip)

Re the hard drive:
The Scandisk command yesterday from Dos alleged it was doing all sort of
repairs. It took hours. Gateway's tech support person said the Scandisk
feature would ultimately indicate whether the hard drive was fried or not.
Dunno whether that's so, but it said yesterday it had fixed everything on
the drive. Still, I had this second crash a little while ago.

Scandisk tries hard to read fading sectors and if successful, relocates the
saved data to more reliable real estate. It then marks the bad spots as
such and the operating system ignores them from then on. Actually, the
hard drive controller is doing this continually, swapping in sectors from a
reserve the manufacturer set aside for this purpose. Even a brand-new HD
has bad sectors.

Seems like your HD is failing faster than the controller can keep up. This
happens when a bit of dirt gets loose inside ... maybe a head briefly hit
the disk surface and launched a chunk of coating. In any case, the crud
sails around and gets under a head now and then to do more damage. The
process escalates until the drive is totally shot. That may be hours or
days or weeks away.

Buy a new hard drive. Back up your valuable data (or everything) regularly.
Keeping a backup off-site is great protection against a real disaster. At
least keep a recent backup *away* from the computer. A backup written to
an internal drive is fast and very convenient, but not very safe.

Roby

On Sun, 20 Mar 2005 13:09:44 -0500, Roby wrote:


Seems like your HD is failing faster than the controller can keep up. This
happens when a bit of dirt gets loose inside ... maybe a head briefly hit
the disk surface and launched a chunk of coating. In any case, the crud
sails around and gets under a head now and then to do more damage. The
process escalates until the drive is totally shot. That may be hours or
days or weeks away.



The best way to evaluate a hard drive is to download the diagnostic
utility from the hard drive manufacturer. This will test the
electronics and complete disk surface including things like the spare
sectors that DOS/Windows can't access. Sometimes it can even repair
problems such as sectors that were incorrectly marked bad, or bad
sectors that weren't detected by the drive yet. If the drive doesn't
pass the most thorough test, replace it.
Andy Cuffe

-- Use this address until 12/31/2005

-- Use this address after 12/31/2005

When your computer is running well make an image of the complete hard
drive on an external hard drive (USB) and when things go wrong you
have the pleasant surprise to be able restore your computer to the
conditions that existed when you did the cloning. Into the same hard
drive or a new one.
A hard drive that isn't running will last a lot longer than 5 years.
Also install extra fans to keep your drives cooler. Heat is the main
enemy of electronic equipment failures.
Cooling your failing drive in the fridge may give you sufficient
operating time to create a clone or copy the most important files


Vlad

On Sun, 20 Mar 2005 03:05:46 GMT, "Elle"
wrote:

I walked away from my computer for a couple of hours, tops, yesterday. I
came back to it and the display and mouse were frozen.

It's a 3.5 year old personal computer (Gateway, with a 20 Gigabyte, 5M Ultra
ATA hard drive). I ended up powering down, when starting up received error
messages and then a failure to reach the Windows display. I ultimately
struggled through a Scanddisk from a Dos prompt and was able to recover
most, but not all, my personal files, copying them to floppy diskettes (3.5
inch type). I shoulda been backing up at least once a month, but wasn't.
Anyone else procrastinating: Man, don't do it. Stop now. Back up your files.

A tech support person at Gateway said hard drives don't usually last beyond
five years. Some die at three years. I've found support on Usenet for this.

My computer's running again, but to thwart another massive crash, is it
worth putting in a new hard drive? I've got $80 to spend, and I figure a
nice one will run about that.

I installed a new power supply (that is, transformer) last summer. It's
power and so heat output aren't that different from the old one. It seems to
be working out fine. Otherwise, all else is original equipment.

My last computer was a Hewlett Packard. It "died" irrecoverably after only
thee years. The shop couldn't fix it, though maybe I took it to a lousy
shop. So this is very discouraging. Throwing away $800 every three years
ain't gonna cut it anymore. So I've had it with these big brand names. I'm
ready to build my own, and think at this point I have enough expertise to do
so. I'm certainly not going to throw money away on a shop trying to fix my
computer again. It seems to me much of the expertise involved in a
successful computer repair involves simply patience and persistence.

How about the CPU? Should I investigate replacing it, too?

All suggestions about whether a new hard drive is worth the investment and
the CPU are welcome.

TIA

Thanks to all of you who have continued to post in response to my query.

I think I'm going to just buy a new hard drive at this point. I want it to
fit into my computer casing. Do I have to take special care that it will?

Is there anything special I should look for when I get to the computer shop?
I'm not going to someplace like CompUSA but instead one of the many
independent shops in my area.

I figure I just specify how many gigabytes I want and maybe access speed (I
think) and otherwise get what I pay for.

Any brand names to favor? Ones to avoid?

"Elle" wrote in message
ink.net...
Thanks to all of you who have continued to post in response to my query.

I think I'm going to just buy a new hard drive at this point. I want it to
fit into my computer casing. Do I have to take special care that it will?

Is there anything special I should look for when I get to the computer
shop?
I'm not going to someplace like CompUSA but instead one of the many
independent shops in my area.

I figure I just specify how many gigabytes I want and maybe access speed
(I
think) and otherwise get what I pay for.

Any brand names to favor? Ones to avoid?



Have a look here
http://www.xpbargains.com/best_deal....rive_deals.htm to see what the
latest bargains are if you wanna buy it locally. Looks like if you hurry you
can get a WD 160GB drive for only $40 from Staples after the silly rebate
things. I have the same drive in my PC and got it for a similar deal but had
to wait a few months for the rebates. Sizes are pretty standard, desktop
PC's almost exclusively use normal 3.5" drives so finding one that fits
shouldn't be an issue.

Brands I've personally had good luck with are Seagate and Western Digital
and I've heard a lot of praise for them from others. Brands I've had lousy
luck with include Maxtor (avoid them like the plague) and to a lesser
extent, Quantum, Fujitsu, and the larger IBM drives.

As far as size, there's usually a "sweet spot" where the price per GB is the
lowest, don't even worry about access speed, the number can be misleading
and *any* drive you can buy now should be plenty fast in that respect. Cache
helps noticeably and drives with 8MB or more will usually be quicker.

One big gotcha, depending on the age of your computer, the BIOS may not
properly recognize drives larger than 147GB, you'd have to look up the
specific computer (in the case of an OEM box like Dell) or motherboard in a
noname/custom box to see if they have a BIOS update. Another option is to
simply get a new interface card which plugs into a PCI slot which opens up
the possibility of using a SATA drive giving you nice tidy wires instead of
the big wide ribbon cables used by normal IDE drives.

Check this site out.
http://www.driveservice.com/bestwrst.htm
I'm also have 3 W' Digital drives on my junk shelf in the last 3 months
and I only do this as a hobby.
Richard

"spudnuty" wrote in message
oups.com...
Check this site out.
http://www.driveservice.com/bestwrst.htm
I'm also have 3 W' Digital drives on my junk shelf in the last 3 months
and I only do this as a hobby.
Richard


That's the same long obsolete site that was posted a while back...

Huh.

I don't think this is a virus, as I have always used a modem. I do scan
weekly for viruses, too.

I reckon I'll backup like mad in the next few days or so and then come up
with a plan. Sure seems like a lot of folks on Usenet over the years
report
that failure at 3-5 years is pretty usual. Are many of us being fooled?





Elle,

From a lot of experience as a PC technician I can assure you that although
undoubtedly there is such a thing as "average life" for hard disks, a hard
disk can last anything from 5 minutes to 5 years or more. The basic thing to
realise is that if there is the slightest indication that your hard disk is
defective (such as reported bad sectors, bad clusters, i/o errors,
'operating system not found' errors) you cannot trust it with your data and
you need to think very seriously about replacing the hard disk.

Unlike a CPU or system board, the hard disk is very easy to replace - simply
plug in the new one just as the original one was. If the original was the
only hard disk you had, then you don't even have to worry about master/slave
jumpers. If the original hard disk is still working, you or a PC savvy
friend could try to use a program such as Ghost to clone the hard disk onto
the new one. This way you won't have to reinstall everything.

I would be hesitant about upgrading the CPU. It is rare to be able to buy
another CPU and just put it inot the system board slot. You need to do a lot
of researchning about compatability first. You might find yourself in a
chain of upgrading the CPU, than having to upgrade the system board, then
the RAM, etc. Eventually it may cost you more than a complete new system.
And then you'll have to reinstall the Operating System and find the correct
drivers for everything.

My 5 cents worth.

Henry.

Since you mention that the machine is 3 years old, be aware that it may
be subject to one of the size lines being crossed. There was one at
32gb, and one at 128gb. Drives larger than that may cause the machine
to not boot, in the easiest case, or lose data when you cross that
line, in the worst case. Anyway, drives of near that size often have a
'32gb clip' jumper or something like that. Other than that, the hard
disk should be a Lego - they're all a standard size, they all have the
same connectors, there's nothing special.

Hard disks will often outlive their useful life. In other words, they
are too small before they break. But they die. All brands. At any time.
If your data is important, back it up. There's no reason not to put a
new drive in a 3yo machine for most use. Add some memory at the same
time and you'll really think the machine boogies.

Is there an authoritative site on the web that discusses which computers
have this hard drive memory threshhold problem?

Some specs:
Make: Gateway Essential 900C
CPU: Intel 900 Mhz Celeron
Original hard drive: 20 Gigabyte 5M Ultra ATA

I have never gone over 10 Gigabytes of memory. I suppose because I don't do
any serious graphics work or play video games. I use the computer mostly for
word processing, spreadsheets, the internet, and faxing.

This morning after making some calls and checking the internet a bit, I
settled on a Seagate 80 Gigabyte Ultra ATA/100, 8 Mb cache, 7200 RPM drive,
for $90 at Best Buy.

Coulda had a similar Western Digital for about $70, but Seagate seems to get
better reviews. Also, this Seagate hard drive has a 5-year warranty (whose
details I have not read yet).

I can return it easily, should problems like the one you mentioned become
insurmountable.

I won't get to installing it until tomorrow, at the earliest.

"Keith Jewell" wrote
Since you mention that the machine is 3 years old, be aware that it may
be subject to one of the size lines being crossed. There was one at
32gb, and one at 128gb. Drives larger than that may cause the machine
to not boot, in the easiest case, or lose data when you cross that
line, in the worst case. Anyway, drives of near that size often have a
'32gb clip' jumper or something like that. Other than that, the hard
disk should be a Lego - they're all a standard size, they all have the
same connectors, there's nothing special.

Hard disks will often outlive their useful life. In other words, they
are too small before they break. But they die. All brands. At any time.
If your data is important, back it up. There's no reason not to put a
new drive in a 3yo machine for most use. Add some memory at the same
time and you'll really think the machine boogies.

"Elle" wrote in message
nk.net...
Is there an authoritative site on the web that discusses which computers
have this hard drive memory threshhold problem?

Some specs:
Make: Gateway Essential 900C
CPU: Intel 900 Mhz Celeron
Original hard drive: 20 Gigabyte 5M Ultra ATA

I have never gone over 10 Gigabytes of memory. I suppose because I don't
do
any serious graphics work or play video games. I use the computer mostly
for
word processing, spreadsheets, the internet, and faxing.

This morning after making some calls and checking the internet a bit, I
settled on a Seagate 80 Gigabyte Ultra ATA/100, 8 Mb cache, 7200 RPM
drive,
for $90 at Best Buy.

Coulda had a similar Western Digital for about $70, but Seagate seems to
get
better reviews. Also, this Seagate hard drive has a 5-year warranty (whose
details I have not read yet).

I can return it easily, should problems like the one you mentioned become
insurmountable.

I won't get to installing it until tomorrow, at the earliest.


There's no official database on it, but you have an OEM box so a call/email
to Gateway or look on their site for a BIOS update. Personally if in doubt I
would just check to see if there's a PCI slot free then pick up a new
interface card as they're not expensive. Get the largest drive you can for
the $, you can always transfer it to a newer faster machine later.

Also if you keep an eye out for killer deals it's not a bad idea to get two
drives and use one to backup the other.

On Tue, 22 Mar 2005 02:59:10 GMT, "James Sweet"
wrote:


"Elle" wrote in message
ink.net...
Is there an authoritative site on the web that discusses which computers
have this hard drive memory threshhold problem?

Some specs:
Make: Gateway Essential 900C
CPU: Intel 900 Mhz Celeron
Original hard drive: 20 Gigabyte 5M Ultra ATA

I have never gone over 10 Gigabytes of memory. I suppose because I don't
do
any serious graphics work or play video games. I use the computer mostly
for
word processing, spreadsheets, the internet, and faxing.

This morning after making some calls and checking the internet a bit, I
settled on a Seagate 80 Gigabyte Ultra ATA/100, 8 Mb cache, 7200 RPM
drive,
for $90 at Best Buy.

Coulda had a similar Western Digital for about $70, but Seagate seems to
get
better reviews. Also, this Seagate hard drive has a 5-year warranty (whose
details I have not read yet).

I can return it easily, should problems like the one you mentioned become
insurmountable.

I won't get to installing it until tomorrow, at the earliest.


There's no official database on it, but you have an OEM box so a call/email
to Gateway or look on their site for a BIOS update. Personally if in doubt I
would just check to see if there's a PCI slot free then pick up a new
interface card as they're not expensive. Get the largest drive you can for
the $, you can always transfer it to a newer faster machine later.

Also if you keep an eye out for killer deals it's not a bad idea to get two
drives and use one to backup the other.

Yes and install the second on an external USB box with the image
(Ghost or equivalent) of the first one.

Vlad

James Sweet wrote:

"Elle" wrote in message
nk.net...

Is there an authoritative site on the web that discusses which computers
have this hard drive memory threshhold problem?

Some specs:
Make: Gateway Essential 900C
CPU: Intel 900 Mhz Celeron
Original hard drive: 20 Gigabyte 5M Ultra ATA

I have never gone over 10 Gigabytes of memory. I suppose because I don't

do

any serious graphics work or play video games. I use the computer mostly

for

word processing, spreadsheets, the internet, and faxing.

This morning after making some calls and checking the internet a bit, I
settled on a Seagate 80 Gigabyte Ultra ATA/100, 8 Mb cache, 7200 RPM

drive,

for $90 at Best Buy.

Coulda had a similar Western Digital for about $70, but Seagate seems to

get

better reviews. Also, this Seagate hard drive has a 5-year warranty (whose
details I have not read yet).

I can return it easily, should problems like the one you mentioned become
insurmountable.

I won't get to installing it until tomorrow, at the earliest.



There's no official database on it, but you have an OEM box so a call/email
to Gateway or look on their site for a BIOS update. Personally if in doubt I
would just check to see if there's a PCI slot free then pick up a new
interface card as they're not expensive. Get the largest drive you can for
the $, you can always transfer it to a newer faster machine later.

Also if you keep an eye out for killer deals it's not a bad idea to get two
drives and use one to backup the other.

Probably the best idea, and keep transferring the dat to new drives as
you go.

For the original poster:

Don't make the mistake of thinking that archiving to CD's is any kind
of archiving! If a person does a lot of research (to be sure to buy the
correct ones and to learn the proper handling), never marks on the CD's
ever,(store them in a jewel case and mark on that - go figure on what to
do if they get mixed up) stores them under ideal conditions, handles
them only with gloves, and prays daily to the CD gods, they just *might*
last 10 years.

I've had a number of Archive CD's fail after a year. I now to backups
to two separate Hard drives. One on the computer, and the other to a
firewire drive.

- Mike -

On Wed, 23 Mar 2005 21:45:16 -0500, Mike Coslo
wrote:

James Sweet wrote:

"Elle" wrote in message
nk.net...

Is there an authoritative site on the web that discusses which computers
have this hard drive memory threshhold problem?

Some specs:
Make: Gateway Essential 900C
CPU: Intel 900 Mhz Celeron
Original hard drive: 20 Gigabyte 5M Ultra ATA

I have never gone over 10 Gigabytes of memory. I suppose because I don't

do

any serious graphics work or play video games. I use the computer mostly

for

word processing, spreadsheets, the internet, and faxing.

This morning after making some calls and checking the internet a bit, I
settled on a Seagate 80 Gigabyte Ultra ATA/100, 8 Mb cache, 7200 RPM

drive,

for $90 at Best Buy.

Coulda had a similar Western Digital for about $70, but Seagate seems to

get

better reviews. Also, this Seagate hard drive has a 5-year warranty (whose
details I have not read yet).

I can return it easily, should problems like the one you mentioned become
insurmountable.

I won't get to installing it until tomorrow, at the earliest.



There's no official database on it, but you have an OEM box so a call/email
to Gateway or look on their site for a BIOS update. Personally if in doubt I
would just check to see if there's a PCI slot free then pick up a new
interface card as they're not expensive. Get the largest drive you can for
the $, you can always transfer it to a newer faster machine later.

Also if you keep an eye out for killer deals it's not a bad idea to get two
drives and use one to backup the other.

Probably the best idea, and keep transferring the dat to new drives as
you go.

For the original poster:

Don't make the mistake of thinking that archiving to CD's is any kind
of archiving! If a person does a lot of research (to be sure to buy the
correct ones and to learn the proper handling), never marks on the CD's
ever,(store them in a jewel case and mark on that - go figure on what to
do if they get mixed up) stores them under ideal conditions, handles
them only with gloves, and prays daily to the CD gods, they just *might*
last 10 years.

I've had a number of Archive CD's fail after a year. I now to backups
to two separate Hard drives. One on the computer, and the other to a
firewire drive.

- Mike -




Creating an image (ghost) of your system drive is the way I have
resigned to do and as an external drive it can be used to back up
several computers.
Vlad

"Vlad" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 23 Mar 2005 21:45:16 -0500, Mike Coslo
wrote:

James Sweet wrote:

"Elle" wrote in message
nk.net...

Is there an authoritative site on the web that discusses which
computers
have this hard drive memory threshhold problem?

Some specs:
Make: Gateway Essential 900C
CPU: Intel 900 Mhz Celeron
Original hard drive: 20 Gigabyte 5M Ultra ATA

I have never gone over 10 Gigabytes of memory. I suppose because I
don't

do

any serious graphics work or play video games. I use the computer
mostly

for

word processing, spreadsheets, the internet, and faxing.

This morning after making some calls and checking the internet a bit, I
settled on a Seagate 80 Gigabyte Ultra ATA/100, 8 Mb cache, 7200 RPM

drive,

for $90 at Best Buy.

Coulda had a similar Western Digital for about $70, but Seagate seems
to

get

better reviews. Also, this Seagate hard drive has a 5-year warranty
(whose
details I have not read yet).

I can return it easily, should problems like the one you mentioned
become
insurmountable.

I won't get to installing it until tomorrow, at the earliest.



There's no official database on it, but you have an OEM box so a
call/email
to Gateway or look on their site for a BIOS update. Personally if in
doubt I
would just check to see if there's a PCI slot free then pick up a new
interface card as they're not expensive. Get the largest drive you can
for
the $, you can always transfer it to a newer faster machine later.

Also if you keep an eye out for killer deals it's not a bad idea to get
two
drives and use one to backup the other.

Probably the best idea, and keep transferring the dat to new drives as
you go.

For the original poster:

Don't make the mistake of thinking that archiving to CD's is any kind
of archiving! If a person does a lot of research (to be sure to buy the
correct ones and to learn the proper handling), never marks on the CD's
ever,(store them in a jewel case and mark on that - go figure on what to
do if they get mixed up) stores them under ideal conditions, handles
them only with gloves, and prays daily to the CD gods, they just *might*
last 10 years.

I've had a number of Archive CD's fail after a year. I now to backups
to two separate Hard drives. One on the computer, and the other to a
firewire drive.

- Mike -




Creating an image (ghost) of your system drive is the way I have
resigned to do and as an external drive it can be used to back up
several computers.
Vlad

Until recently, I've gotten away with using a Conner Peripherals hard drive
of ~820 MB and even a 127MB drive from a PC/AT and the current stable is 2/3
1998 and before and includes ISA cards in some cases. I believe the high
RPMs and increased stress brought along by improved storage technologies
bring on an earlier demise. Few of my devices or cards are newer than 1999
or 2000. I've never had a CD data backup fail. and I believe such problems
are analogous to the CD rot troubles of the commercial audio industry. I am
certainly not so cavalier as to leave them out and about like some audio CD
consumers. I HAVE had CD failure and haven't gotten around to investigating
it with the mfg. That disc took about 8 years to fail also. Proper
maintenance is always a good thing but proper selection of suitable
equipment seems more so.

Attach bullseye here wrote:
Until recently, I've gotten away with using a Conner Peripherals hard
drive
of ~820 MB and even a 127MB drive from a PC/AT and the current stable
is 2/3
1998 and before and includes ISA cards in some cases. I believe the
high
RPMs and increased stress brought along by improved storage
technologies
bring on an earlier demise. Few of my devices or cards are newer than
1999
or 2000. I've never had a CD data backup fail. and I believe such
problems
are analogous to the CD rot troubles of the commercial audio
industry. I am
certainly not so cavalier as to leave them out and about like some
audio CD
consumers. I HAVE had CD failure and haven't gotten around to
investigating
it with the mfg. That disc took about 8 years to fail also. Proper
maintenance is always a good thing but proper selection of suitable
equipment seems more so.

CD-R quality really does matter. I haven't had any problems with the
gold discs I bought for a dollar a piece 8 years ago, but a few of the
silver uncoated ones that friends have given me have become completely
blank. Also, had my first DVD-R fail the other day, a cheap unbranded
one that someone sent me. Those are supposed to be more durable because
they're enclosed entirely in acrylic.

However, as to hard disks, I'll take the faster, fails more often
drives any day. For one, I've got 400 gigs of data online (entire CD
collection ripped losslessly, digital photos), and that's just not
possible with the smaller drives. But for two, the new drives are so
fast and so cheap - most of the new motherboards will do hardware
mirroring, so for around $100 you can have 40 gigs of totally
redundant, very fast storage (2x40g 7200rpm drives). They don't even
use a proprietary format, so if the motherboard dies, you can retrieve
the data with any machine, since each hard disk is just a duplicate of
the other. And by fast, I mean transfer rates 10x faster or more than
those old drives, and seek times almost twice as fast. But they do fail
more often. Still, using RAID and decent backup strategies, I haven't
lost a significant amount of data since I was using a 2gig HP SCSI hard
disk.

-Keith

On 29 Mar 2005 09:41:55 -0800, "Keith Jewell"
wrote:


Attach bullseye here wrote:
Until recently, I've gotten away with using a Conner Peripherals hard
drive
of ~820 MB and even a 127MB drive from a PC/AT and the current stable
is 2/3
1998 and before and includes ISA cards in some cases. I believe the
high
RPMs and increased stress brought along by improved storage
technologies
bring on an earlier demise. Few of my devices or cards are newer than
1999
or 2000. I've never had a CD data backup fail. and I believe such
problems
are analogous to the CD rot troubles of the commercial audio
industry. I am
certainly not so cavalier as to leave them out and about like some
audio CD
consumers. I HAVE had CD failure and haven't gotten around to
investigating
it with the mfg. That disc took about 8 years to fail also. Proper
maintenance is always a good thing but proper selection of suitable
equipment seems more so.

CD-R quality really does matter. I haven't had any problems with the
gold discs I bought for a dollar a piece 8 years ago, but a few of the
silver uncoated ones that friends have given me have become completely
blank. Also, had my first DVD-R fail the other day, a cheap unbranded
one that someone sent me. Those are supposed to be more durable because
they're enclosed entirely in acrylic.

However, as to hard disks, I'll take the faster, fails more often
drives any day. For one, I've got 400 gigs of data online (entire CD
collection ripped losslessly, digital photos), and that's just not
possible with the smaller drives. But for two, the new drives are so
fast and so cheap - most of the new motherboards will do hardware
mirroring, so for around $100 you can have 40 gigs of totally
redundant, very fast storage (2x40g 7200rpm drives). They don't even
use a proprietary format, so if the motherboard dies, you can retrieve
the data with any machine, since each hard disk is just a duplicate of
the other. And by fast, I mean transfer rates 10x faster or more than
those old drives, and seek times almost twice as fast. But they do fail
more often. Still, using RAID and decent backup strategies, I haven't
lost a significant amount of data since I was using a 2gig HP SCSI hard
disk.

-Keith

I just got a Maxtor 120 GB 5200 for about $30.00 from Tiger. Low
speed but probably more reliable then a 7200. Ideal for an image HD
Vlad

My Seagate 7200.7s have been working fine. I bought a quality case that
has good cooling for all the drives and didn't stack any of them
together. So far, the only failure was a Maxtor, which threw a SMART
code before failing so I was able to pull the data that wasn't backed
up off of it. Of course, in retrospect, it wasn't backed up because I
didn't need it, but I hardly knew that at the time.

Thanks to the new FDB tech and lighter platters, the new 7200s run as
cool as any of my old 5400s ever did. And they're quieter, too. Anyway,
I'm out of space at the moment (2x120, 1x160). Is that $30 after a
rebate? I do need to build a couple of media boxes and those might be
ideal in mirrored pairs.

-Keith

In article .com,
"Keith Jewell" wrote:

My Seagate 7200.7s have been working fine. I bought a quality case that
has good cooling for all the drives and didn't stack any of them
together. So far, the only failure was a Maxtor, which threw a SMART
code before failing so I was able to pull the data that wasn't backed
up off of it. Of course, in retrospect, it wasn't backed up because I
didn't need it, but I hardly knew that at the time.

Thanks to the new FDB tech and lighter platters, the new 7200s run as
cool as any of my old 5400s ever did. And they're quieter, too.

I don't understand why platter *weight* would have anything at all to do
with the amount of driving power the spindle required. Once it's going,
it's only air resistance and bearing friction (very low) that slows
things down. Heavy platters might take a bit longer to accelerate up to
speed, but that's a different issue.

Faster rotation, larger diameter platters, more platters in the stack --
all those things could take higher spindle power, but not platter weight.

My bet is on higher areal densities allowing more storage on a smaller
stack of platters to reduce spindle power.

Most decent drives these days have well over a million hours MTBF; at
under ten thousand hours in a year, that's over a century of 24x7
operation. Wearout (bearings, almost entirely) is not considered as a
part of the MTBF calculations; most drive manufacturers spec a "useful
lifetime" on the order of five years or so.

What that means is that if you change out the drive after 3 or 4 years,
you should never expect an in-use failure. That kind of spec is
important to mass users of drives -- disk farms, server farms, etc.

Actually, the huge majority of drives last a *lot* longer than that. The
problem that causes most folks to replace a drive is the disk filling up
due to "data congestion", a phenomenon well-known to Windows users, but
uncommon for users of other Operating Systems.

Isaac

I don't understand why platter *weight* would have anything at all to do
with the amount of driving power the spindle required. Once it's going,
it's only air resistance and bearing friction (very low) that slows
things down. Heavy platters might take a bit longer to accelerate up to
speed, but that's a different issue.


The weight of the platters does have some effect, more weight means higher
load and more friction in the bearings. I don't know how much real world
effect there is from this though.



Actually, the huge majority of drives last a *lot* longer than that. The
problem that causes most folks to replace a drive is the disk filling up
due to "data congestion", a phenomenon well-known to Windows users, but
uncommon for users of other Operating Systems.



It doesn't have much at all to do with the operating system itself, my
drives (as with most users I would say in the current era of 120+ GB drives
being the norm) are mostly filled with digital media files, a combination of
audio, video and images as well as a few large games. The operating system I
run makes no appreciable difference, without the media files I could run any
OS I want with all the applications I have on a 20GB or so drive. Of course
if I ran something on which very few of the games and applications I run are
supported, naturally the size of the drive I need would be less.

On Thu, 31 Mar 2005 03:59:27 GMT, "James Sweet"
wrote:


I don't understand why platter *weight* would have anything at all to do
with the amount of driving power the spindle required. Once it's going,
it's only air resistance and bearing friction (very low) that slows
things down. Heavy platters might take a bit longer to accelerate up to
speed, but that's a different issue.

IBM was testing platters made of glass. Light and little change with
temperature variations.

To accelerate a heavy truck to a certain speed takes much longer then
a lighter vehicle, provided the power is the same.
Most of the current required to run a group of hard drives is at the
starting point

Vlad



The weight of the platters does have some effect, more weight means higher
load and more friction in the bearings. I don't know how much real world
effect there is from this though.



Actually, the huge majority of drives last a *lot* longer than that. The
problem that causes most folks to replace a drive is the disk filling up
due to "data congestion", a phenomenon well-known to Windows users, but
uncommon for users of other Operating Systems.



It doesn't have much at all to do with the operating system itself, my
drives (as with most users I would say in the current era of 120+ GB drives
being the norm) are mostly filled with digital media files, a combination of
audio, video and images as well as a few large games. The operating system I
run makes no appreciable difference, without the media files I could run any
OS I want with all the applications I have on a 20GB or so drive. Of course
if I ran something on which very few of the games and applications I run are
supported, naturally the size of the drive I need would be less.

James Sweet wrote:
The weight of the platters does have some effect, more weight means
higher
load and more friction in the bearings. I don't know how much real
world
effect there is from this though.

I've always been a fan of buying two-platter drives. Seems like the
best comprimise between heat and overall size. Of course, that said,
the server has all Western Digital 250 gig drives in it, four in total.
So far none of them has even registered a single SMART error, but
they've only been in service around nine months.

It doesn't have much at all things down. Heavy platters might take a
bit longer to accelerate up to
to do with the operating system itself, my
drives (as with most users I would say in the current era of 120+ GB
drives
being the norm) are mostly filled with digital media files, a
combination of
audio, video and images as well as a few large games. The operating
system I
run makes no appreciable difference, without the media files I could
run any
OS I want with all the applications I have on a 20GB or so drive. Of
course
if I ran something on which very few of the games and applications I
run are
supported, naturally the size of the drive I need would be less.

Same here. I used to run Windows on half of a 40 gig drive (the other
half had the swapfile on it) until it failed, and it was never more
than about half full. Now it's on a 120 gig drive, which last I checked
had 108 gigs free. Bought that drive for the speed (areal density, 7200
rpm) rather than the side.

However, the other two media drives are full to the brim. Whole CD
collection on one, digital photos and other data files on the other. Of
course the important stuff is backed up to DVD also, but I really like
to have it online. The server is half-full with the DVD collection.

Anyway, the in-service failures I've had are as follows:

80 meg Maxtor, started getting more bad sectors a few months before I
stopped using it.
2 gig HP. Stopped spinning up. Got it to spin up once, got most of the
data off of it. Forgot a few critical files, but them's the breaks.
Didn't do backup at the time. Every one of these that the computer
store I worked for sold failed in exactly the same way.
4.6 gig Fujitsu. Stopped spinning up. Switched out the controller board
for another, copied the data off.
1 gig Microdrive. Bad sectors like mad. Got all the photos off of it
fine, replaced under warranty.
40 gig Maxtor. Started obviously reallocating sectors. Bought a 120 gig
Seagate as a replacement, pulled all the data off with only a handful
of bad sectors. Of course, one of them happened to be in the Windows
Registry, reinstalling hasn't fixed it, and I haven't had the time to
install that machine from scratch since I use it every day.

I've had other out-of-service failures, ie pulled a machine off the
shelf where it was sitting for a year and the drive wouldn't spin up
any more. Since there was no data lost I don't really consider those.
In case it seems like I've had a lot of drive failures, I've actually
used around two dozen drives over the period of time that covers.
Currently a Samsung has started kicking back occasional SMART errors at
20k power on hours, but since it's been doing those since around 17k
I'm not so worried. Anyway, it's just an online backup, so if it dies I
don't really lose anything except a layer of redundancy. For a little
perspective, current in-service drives a 10g IBM, 20g IBM, 40g
Maxtor, 40g Samsung, 40g Western Digital, 2x120 gig Seagate, 1x160 gig
Seagate, 4x250 gig WD.

I'd like to see better options for backup and data protection, now that
computers are becoming appliances. What I'm looking for is a little
seperation from the actual hardware. I would love it if you could just
buy drives as modules, and there was a 'space-reliability' slider that
you could just tweak one way or the other. Use some form of RAID, and
hide the complexity from the end user. For someone like me who is happy
to set up a RAID5 array, it wouldn't matter so much, but for the
average user it could be a boon.

-Keith

chuck wrote:

I remember computers that didn't have Hard Drives.....10" flopys anyone.
It has been my experience that all drives have the ability to fail at the
most un apropriate time leaving behind a plethera of lost documents and
data....
pick any drive, but don't rely on it ! Back up, back up, back up, on cd,
dvd, floppy disk, or ram disk but if you don't want the crash beast to bite
you in the ass
BACK-UP
cheers have a good one
chuck

10"? You're exagrating, they were 8".

--
Former professional electron wrangler.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

"Michael A. Terrell" wrote in message
...

I remember computers that didn't have Hard Drives.....10" floppies
anyone.

10"? You're exaggerating, they were 8".

It's a guy thing.
--
N

On 29 Mar 2005 14:20:12 -0800, "Keith Jewell"
wrote:

My Seagate 7200.7s have been working fine. I bought a quality case that
has good cooling for all the drives and didn't stack any of them
together. So far, the only failure was a Maxtor, which threw a SMART
code before failing so I was able to pull the data that wasn't backed
up off of it. Of course, in retrospect, it wasn't backed up because I
didn't need it, but I hardly knew that at the time.

Thanks to the new FDB tech and lighter platters, the new 7200s run as
cool as any of my old 5400s ever did. And they're quieter, too. Anyway,
I'm out of space at the moment (2x120, 1x160). Is that $30 after a
rebate? I do need to build a couple of media boxes and those might be
ideal in mirrored pairs.

-Keith


Yes Keith you are right. heat is the principal enemy of electronics,
I modify my case in order to accommodate a larger fan located in front
of the 4 hard drives and they run just above the ambient temperature.

On the previous subject. I completed the installation of 3 switches
that turn power OFF to the drives ( the C: doesn't have a switch) and
I am about to go out and get one more switch to install on my second
serial drive.
So far everything works fine.
I even, accidentally , switched power OFF on one of the drivers that
was running and switched ON again with no problems.

Thanks to all of you that contribute to this small project.

Vlad

FYI
check the web there were 10" floppys but 8" were far more common both the
websites below refer to the original 10" floppys, I don't think the memory
is failing that bad just yet....but whats a couple of inches like NSM said
it's a guy thing......

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/foru...upedia129.html

or http://www.burlington.mec.edu/hs/helpdesk/hardware.htm

here's a quote from one of the sites "A drive based on flexible media. The
original floppy disks were 10 in. diameter. Later floppy drives were 5 1/4
in. in diameter. Both of these had flexible media and a flexible outer
jacket. The current standard is a 3 1/2 inch floppy disk contained in a hard
plastic case.Yet this not a hard drive. Its medium is still floppy. The
current standard 3 1/2 floppy disk contains 1.44 MB of information. By
default, the first floppy drive is designated A:"

they may come in all sizes but I still maintain if its important Do A
Backup!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
cheers
chuck


"Attach bullseye here" wrote in message
...
"Vlad" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 23 Mar 2005 21:45:16 -0500, Mike Coslo
wrote:

James Sweet wrote:

"Elle" wrote in message
nk.net...

Is there an authoritative site on the web that discusses which
computers
have this hard drive memory threshhold problem?

Some specs:
Make: Gateway Essential 900C
CPU: Intel 900 Mhz Celeron
Original hard drive: 20 Gigabyte 5M Ultra ATA

I have never gone over 10 Gigabytes of memory. I suppose because I
don't

do

any serious graphics work or play video games. I use the computer
mostly

for

word processing, spreadsheets, the internet, and faxing.

This morning after making some calls and checking the internet a bit,
I
settled on a Seagate 80 Gigabyte Ultra ATA/100, 8 Mb cache, 7200 RPM

drive,

for $90 at Best Buy.

Coulda had a similar Western Digital for about $70, but Seagate seems
to

get

better reviews. Also, this Seagate hard drive has a 5-year warranty
(whose
details I have not read yet).

I can return it easily, should problems like the one you mentioned
become
insurmountable.

I won't get to installing it until tomorrow, at the earliest.



There's no official database on it, but you have an OEM box so a
call/email
to Gateway or look on their site for a BIOS update. Personally if in
doubt I
would just check to see if there's a PCI slot free then pick up a new
interface card as they're not expensive. Get the largest drive you
can
for
the $, you can always transfer it to a newer faster machine later.

Also if you keep an eye out for killer deals it's not a bad idea to
get
two
drives and use one to backup the other.

Probably the best idea, and keep transferring the dat to new drives as
you go.

For the original poster:

Don't make the mistake of thinking that archiving to CD's is any kind
of archiving! If a person does a lot of research (to be sure to buy the
correct ones and to learn the proper handling), never marks on the CD's
ever,(store them in a jewel case and mark on that - go figure on what
to
do if they get mixed up) stores them under ideal conditions, handles
them only with gloves, and prays daily to the CD gods, they just
*might*
last 10 years.

I've had a number of Archive CD's fail after a year. I now to backups
to two separate Hard drives. One on the computer, and the other to a
firewire drive.

- Mike -




Creating an image (ghost) of your system drive is the way I have
resigned to do and as an external drive it can be used to back up
several computers.
Vlad

Until recently, I've gotten away with using a Conner Peripherals hard
drive
of ~820 MB and even a 127MB drive from a PC/AT and the current stable is
2/3
1998 and before and includes ISA cards in some cases. I believe the high
RPMs and increased stress brought along by improved storage technologies
bring on an earlier demise. Few of my devices or cards are newer than 1999
or 2000. I've never had a CD data backup fail. and I believe such problems
are analogous to the CD rot troubles of the commercial audio industry. I
am
certainly not so cavalier as to leave them out and about like some audio
CD
consumers. I HAVE had CD failure and haven't gotten around to
investigating
it with the mfg. That disc took about 8 years to fail also. Proper
maintenance is always a good thing but proper selection of suitable
equipment seems more so.