Finally the great nightmare happened. My computer crashed. My 3.5 years old Dell Dimension kaputed. I spent more than an hour with Dell very helpful technical support personnels to run through every damn tests and yeap, it is dead. I cannot even start in Safe Mode.
If you ask me, I think there is a conspiracy theory somewhere. Why is it every time some products warranty runs out, the thing will kaput? So, I have two options :
Pay RM224 for one-year 24 hour technical support and do the reformating myself.
or
Pay RM70 for one time, on site repair.
I will take the 2nd option first. And keeping my fingers and toes crossed that I can salvage the contents in my drive. Arrgggh….kick self. Why was I so lazy to burn CDs?
BTW, does reformatting means everything will be wipe off? What about those things not in the C drive but other hard disk? I have a D and E drive, each with 40GB diskspace filled with dunno how many movies, musics and my beautiful photos. Please, please someone tell me. Go down on bended knees and beg.
Now I am eyeing a Dell Inspiron, if only this PC will really die and cannot be resurrected.
As far as I know, only the C drive will be erased. D and E should be OK.
if u only format C drive,then only the stuff in C drive will be wiped off lo.If you format the whole harddisk,C D E will be gone.
my laubeh comp got C D and E.
last time i formatted C nia,and the D and E stuff still intact.
Dang, sorry to hear that … I know how it feels … you’re lucky if it’s only 40 gig hard drive … I’ve had 120 gig of data loss! Noooooooooooo!!!!!
LOL
Hello MONDAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
I’m so sorry to hear that. I asked my man and he confirmed what others said… drive D & E should be OK. Don’t worry. 🙂
aiyahhhh, RM70 sup sup sui for u laaa… Can cover buy Adsense already ma. Balance still can be use for my roti canai.
See how serious d damaged ler. Sometimes got C D E till Z also no use if tat darn thing pratically conk out. If Sometimes it might be the motherboard problem. My guess la.
Is your hard disk partition from the same drive? if so, got bad news, if not, just unplug them. PC die can be a number of things, is it the motherboard? the power supply? or video card….usually is the hard drive but gotta chk first. Do u have system protection? like norton or service pk 2, if u go online for long hrs better have protection….i think go to your friendly pc repair fella…got any? then goto Dell, very expensive. Good luck there. Cheers!
oh, yeah, that is why i keep all of the data on the separate physical drive, not running any software from this “hot” drive. Been in one too many window crashes…playing safe n secure. Peace!
Pheww!!! I hope the D and E not kaput la. I am cursing myself. You see, I have AVG and Norton. I gatal tangan disabled both last night to see if I can cut down the lagging. I forgot to enabled back. My guess is that only la ‘cos there is no other thing that can cause the crash. No need software, hardware or whatever.
Thank you for the inputs hor. But then, my computer has never give me a problem for so long, so good also la. Can clear up some rubbish.
I heard, that’s what happen to iPod battery as well, as soon as the warranty runs out, it died-ed on its owner…
JoeC – Dell guided me through all the tests. Everything is fine. In fact, their service is fantastic. Or is it me that is so smart? Plug, unplug, restart F8, F12 semua done already. I also repair with the OS CD but still cannot use.
l0fT – I think they put some self-terminated virus inside. Terminated once warranty over, then can get new business. *ish*
Nope. Not all. If you want to safe, safe it in your mail first, or I think MAYBE save it in your D-drive will do. I just reformatted mine by the second way.
Those tech support is super cut throat. Well, maybe not, had a whole laptop replaced after less then 1 month.
What I wanted to say is, there maybe still chance of retriving your data from the harddisk.
As Din and reallybites says, only C needs to be formatted.
If I am you, this what I would do.
1. Don’t pay the RM70 onsite service.
2. Go out and get a new harddisk. With that RM70 you saved, and top-op on that.
3. Install the new harddisk into your comp.
4. Install WindowsXP.
5. Make sure you have antivirus and what not first before you even connect the network cable back into the comp (yuh, pull out the network cable from the comp before begin installing WinXP – unless you want your comp to be infected by virus before you even login)
6. Pray hard (should do this now) that your stuff in the old C is there.
You might want (It is adviceable) to partition the new harddisk. You would probably want to get at least a 120/160 Gig one nowadays. I am sure there some penang bloggers who are willing to help out here. 🙂
Oh, your computer ain’t dead. It is just Windows XP. Which is a piece of junk. 🙂
Linux rocks!
D and E should be okay. Do you have any programs installed in the those drives? might have to resinstall those though.
carboncopy – I never seen Linux before leh. I have to call the onsite technician la ‘cos I cannot imagine doing so many work. This morning already got me sweating with all the plugging and unplugging.
kiasi – I really hope the two drives are ok. If not nvm, I go take more photos only. No big deal la. I had back-up my C drive but not the other two HDs.
nicktay – Yeah, I suppose have to re-install everything back. And my mails in Thunderbird and Outlook Express die ler. My list of passwords! Argggh….
Lian, take out the dead hard disk. Go to gurney drives and strip naked, if not topless, while holding the hard disk with both hand high above head and run around 7 laps. Gurantee to cure. 😉
On a more serious note, sorry to hear about the crash, I hate it when this happens and its so time consuming. Hope it goes all well.
I’m not to sure what happen but,
1) you don’t have to reformat the computer. Your stuff will still be safe. But please get an external hard disk and BACKUP! i don’t want to loose you…. eerr.. i mean your blog!
Here’s how you do it. Insert your Windows XP disc (comes with your dimension). Let it start up and do all the stuff until it comes to a screen where it ask you what you want to do.
Select the Repair (R) option. Then it should show another screen. Select Automatic recovery (or something liek that. Don’t select the Console option). THis should wipe out all the windows XP files and reinstall it again. All your programs and data should still be intact.
2) reformat computer. 🙁
3) If its hardware problem.. err.. i can’t help you out here.. 🙁
That’s all i can think off right now.. If you want to know more email me with what happen to your computer.. i’ll try my best to guide you through.
Technical:
Sounds like your hard disk file system decided to give up on you after 3.5 years of continuos use. I believe the Dell Dimension comes with FAT32 format. It is the crappiest format you can get and I have no idea why dell is sticking to it. The file system gave up on you because you’ve probably did not shut down the computer properly. So if you do format the computer choose NTFS option. Its better and you can encrypt your stuff in your hard disk.
ps: I’ve worked in Dell before and I’ve supported all kinds of hardware.. 🙂
I don’t think you need my input now, too many for you to consider liao. Kekeke…
Anyway, good also mah, blog birthday got new laptop. 😀
Bryan – Yeah, looks like Rodney talks something I know. 🙂
Rodney – Right now I am using my kids comp so too troublesome to email you. But right, it is some FAT32 problem. Dell tech support had guided me through the repair process. By putting the OS CD inside,run through etc. After that, when I log in with Safe Mode, still goes to that blue screen with some IRQL_NOT_EQUAL etc etc. So they told me, kaput liao. Hopefully, the technician can backup the D & E drive. I have no problem with C ‘cos it is mostly document files and I had back up before.
Okay I’m reading up on IRQ_NOT_EQUAL problem and it is pointing to hardware error.
1) Did you install new device drivers for your computer recently?
2) Could be the network card. which points to motherboard failure. which points to probably blown capacitor on the motherboard. You can open up your dimension case and just have a visual check. The damage capacitor will be bulging. This was due to cheap components used around that period. Motherboard makers was using taiwanese capacitor, where the capacitor formula was stolen from Japan.
3) But no less.. Have you played with the bios settings before? If you have, you could disable the network card and the sound card from the bios itself.
If not uh.. well do you know anyone who knows computer? I would gladly guide them through..
Hope it helps..
Rodney – The thing is I had not touched anything lately except I disabled my Norton AV last night to see if the speed can increase. Other than that, probably kaputing due to old age. This Dell never gives me any problem through out the 3.5 yrs.
I think the tech support also guided me through checking the hardware too.
Anyway, I paid RM70 by credit card today and the technician will be here at 2pm tomorrow. Saves me a lot of sweat of going behind the CPU. LOL. I hate figuring out all those wires. Not to mention a toddler who demands attention because I was on the phone too long. *sheesh*
hahaha i understnad.. 🙂 no prob.. hopefully he fix it.. but I am guessing he has to change the motherboard.. 🙂
Most support personnel won’t go thru the hassle of trying to salvage ur data.
If you kam-ching with some PC guys, remove ur harddisk (HDD), set it to slave, plug it to another PC, and try to salvage as much data as possible. of coz if ur hdd konk liao then kenot do anything lar.
After that you can do watever u want with ur HDD.
Formatting is only gonna clean the one you tell it to.. according to Papa BoK… 🙂
If you have other hard-drives.. or different partition.. it wouldn’t be affected.
And usually windows is installed in C drive.. so all you need is to reformat C.
I hope this helps.. 🙂