Multiple Hard Drive Failure plus an update

[bassmadrigal]

Ouch... the title pretty much explains it. About a month ago, Windows popped up with a message saying that the delayed write failed on one of my hard drives. The drive then stopped responding in windows. I proceeded to shut down the computer and check the hard drive. It looked ok. It was one of my 500GB drives from my old computer. It is one without all the dents in it. Well I switched it to a different SATA port, left the computer off for a couple of hours, and booted back into windows and it worked fine. But I figured this was a precursor to my hard drive fully kicking the bucket. So I backed up all my movies onto my external, but I didn't have enough space to back up the other stuff. My plan was to buy a new 1TB drive once I got my check at the end of the month. Well everything was working fine with it until Sunday. Windows again popped up with the message saying the delayed write failed in writing the the $MFT and that data had been lost. Well since I knew I didn't have anywhere to back up any of the other data on the drive, I just let it be. I had the hard drive files for my virtual machine on there, and the virtual machine was still working fine (there is linux for you), but I couldn't access the drive at all in windows. Well that lasted for a couple of days, then my machine locked up on me. So I rebooted and the bios hung on detecting the hard drive. So I unplugged it and just left it unplugged. My hope is when I get this 1TB drive (ordered it today), I can plug in the old hard drive and have it work long enough for me to get the data off of it. If I can't I won't be losing a whole lot. I will have to rebuild the VM, which won't be too difficult, and all the program installs I will need to get from Dustin when I come back to the states on leave (no I don't know for sure when I will be). I can't think of anything else major on that drive off the top of my head.

Well to top all that off, I came home from work today with my laptop being frozen (60+ days of uptime down the drain). According the the clock (frozen at the desktop) it froze at around 8:30PM. Well the hard drive was making some extremely loud and random clicks like something was loose. So I hoped back onto newegg and ended up ordering a 160GB drive for my notebook for around $90 with shipping. Luckily I had everything already backed up onto my external, because I was going to upgrade my Slackware to 12.1. So when I get that back I need to install Slackware back on it and get all my backups back onto the computer.

Other than the above, things have been going great. As most of you know I ended up buying a car. I got a 2000 Pontiac Grand Am with 76000 miles for $3500. It is only a 4 cylinder automatic, but it still has decent power, working power windows (except for one), and working A/C. Only problem I have with it is I get really bad gas mileage. It is supposed to get 25 in the city and 32 highway, but I only get about 19. I have replaced the spark plugs, fuel filter, and air filter, but none of them have helped. Luckily I don't drive all that far, and end up needing to fill up every 1 1/2 weeks to 2 weeks. Which is really good considering how high gas has gotten on base. It is now around $4.00 a gallon.

Lets see... what else has happened... Oh, it has gotten hot and humid here. It has been around mid-80's with 70% humidity. And the crazy thing is German's for whatever reason, don't believe in Air Conditioning. So my room gets extremely hot, and I finally broke down and bought a fan, when I was sitting in the room at 2AM with the door and windows wide open sweating. I was just watching a movie. So I need to check with the dorm manager to see if I can get a portable swamp cooler (since portable A/C units aren't allowed because of the fire marshall). And we don't have A/C at work either. At least I finally have a car that it works properly, so I can always cool down there.

Oh and my neighbor finally sent in his xbox a little while ago, so as soon as he gets it back, I should finally have mine back, although no guarantees I will play it all that much. I really don't game as much as I used to. I still haven't beat Half Life 2 Episode 2. Although I did get to the final Strider battle, but gave up pretty quickly (I was tired and it was late). Also I got a cheap mans surround sound solution. 4.2 baby... When I was working CQ someone brought down a set a speakers they weren't using anymore, so I took them and bought a audio extension cable, and hooked it up in the back of the room. Then I set up my computer for 4 speakers, and now I get almost true surround sound. Basically the center channel is split between the front speakers, and same with the sub. But my rear speakers are separate, and it works properly. It actually sounds really good.

Well I think that was a pretty decent update.

[L33H05WALD]

Well gas is about $3.80 here, so you're getting screwed about as much as we are in that aspect, but when you get your 360 back, you need to get COD 4 so you can play online with us.

[bassmadrigal]

Did you see the multiple hard drive failures I had above?? And now you want me to go spend more money on a game I already bought for the computer??

Sorry but I don't think it will happen... I am just cheap.

[L33H05WALD]

So in other words, you don't want to play games with your friends back here?  You'd rather play computer games? WTF??? , So if we want to play games with you, do we have to get computer games?

[bassmadrigal]

I actually don't play games all that much any more. I only have 3 1/2 hours on COD4 on my computer and am a Level 12. I probably haven't played online in over a month. But keep in mind, I constantly told you from the beginning that I would be buying COD4 for the computer. Which I am glad about. It looks quite a bit better on the computer vs the xbox (at least with all the settings maxed out).

I guess we will see when I get my xbox back. I might buy it just to shut you up

[bassmadrigal]

Well while I was talking on the phone with Justin today, I was checking to see what fan in my computer was creating a lot of noise. So I slowly put my finger up to the cpu fan (cause most of the time you can slow it down and see if that is what is causing the noise), and my middle finger suddenly caught the fan blade that is spinning at over 6000rpm. Yeah... I broke the fan blade completely off and gave myself a really nice deep gash in my finger. It is actually pretty hard to type this because everytime I use my middle finger it hurts really bad, and it is really hard to type without it.

Oh and this is probably the most painful thing I have every felt on my finger tips.

So my plan to quickly and temporarily fix this (there are no stores open this late that sell heatsinks), was to break off the fin on the opposite side so the fan is balanced out. Well that would've worked except for some reason they did an odd number of fins. A total of nine. So I ended up having to break off two fins. Now the fan is quiet again, and at idle the proc temp is at 34C with my door open and a room fan blowing in the room (my case is still closed as usual). So it looks like this will work out until I buy a new heatsink, which if this keeps up its decent temps, I might end up ordering a new one off of newegg rather than buying one here.

[L33H05WALD]

So why was the fan spinning backwards to cause you to hit the fan blade instead of the slope?

[bassmadrigal]

I was wondering that initially too, but that is actually the way CPU fans are supposed to spin. It forces the air into the heatsink which will dissipate the heat better than trying to suck it out.

[Justin]

That is why you don't stick your finger where?  Anywhere things are spinning at 2k rpms!

[bassmadrigal]

Hey, I've done it before without problems, and in all actuality I will still probably keep on doing it... just with a little more caution.

Oh and it was 6k rpms not 2k...

[Justin]

Your a dork.  lol

[bassmadrigal]

Hey... I resemble that remark...