Cleaning Computer Hunt Internet

Hard drive failure. What I did

Yesterday I had to change my hard drive and had a few issues that I was able to fix.

The problems started in the morning when my wife called me and told me that the computer would not boot. We have been having trouble with our hard drive for a while now and I was able to fix each time by just reseting the PC. This time though the computer was not seeing the hard drive. Using tools and knowledge that I had I had to do the following:

Install new hard drive

First of all I had to install the new hard drive. I was able to do this by disconnecting my CDR and leaving myDVD drive, two old hard drives in the machine, plus a new 80 gig drive with a 16 meg cache. I was unsuccessful at loading Windows though as I kept getting an error as the Windows setup was starting, after loading the drivers I would get an error that it could not load the setup. I switched to my CDR from the DVD drive and had no problems.

Setup Windows

I successfully did a quick format of the new drive (thanks for that new feature Windows XP) and successfully loaded Windows XP. This is pretty basic as I use a CD that not only has Windows XP on it but also has Service Pack 2 for XP slipstreamed onto it.

Rebuild hard drive partition table

After I booted to Windows I saw that my old drive was not showing up as a drive or a partition. If I right clicked on the partition in Disk Management it knew that the drive existed but could no longer find a partition on it. Windows Disk Management said that the drive was healthy, My first attempt was to create a partition but not to format the partition as I did not want to lose the data for good. I fought with this for a couple of hours as I did not back up lately and the wife would kill me if I lost all of her data. In the end I was able to use Test Disk from the Filesystem tools of the Dos Ultimate Boot Disk. It ends up that the partition table had a start but not an end and the program was able to fix this….whew I would have been in trouble….

Migrate Windows and Office data

After I had the old drive back I went into the BIOS and chose to boot from that drive. I was able to boot to the old Windows XP installation easily enough and did not want to keep any of the data there but thought it would be a good idea to transfer my Windows settings using the file and settings transfer wizard in Windows. I saved the settings using the wizard and chose this as the old computer and in the destination I chose a folder I created on the new hard drive called “transfer files”. I then decided to transfer only my settings as I knew that I was going to have to reload my software and would be manually copying over the file structure from the old drive to the new drive.

I also moved all of my settings for MS Office using the Save my Settings Wizard from the MS Office 2003 tools section. I was able to copy the settings, which come across as an OPS file to the same place as my Windows Transfer Files and Settings.

After I had moved the settings and files over I rebooted and went back into the BIOS and changed my first boot to the new hard drive and it’s windows XP installation. I was very happy to see that after running the wizrds for transfering the settings and after reloading MS Office 2003 I was able to move over my mail folder and saw all of my email, contacts, and best of all my email addresses (Still had to fill in the passwords for email but that’s OK). After a relogon I also had all of my desktop settings back includig the background picture of my daughter and the animated Pingu cursors.

Copy data from bad drive

Next I just did a blanket move of all of the files from the old hard drive to new into a new folder that I created in the root of the drive. I did this simply to save time as I am not sure about the stability of the old hard drive and fear that I will lose it again.

Reload software

I have started reloading software but as usual I am going to be slow about the move this time. I will install some of my favorite freewares and will install Streets and Trips, Adobe Acrobat, Macromedia Dreamweaver and Adobe Photoshop Elements and that’s it.

I have roughly followed about half of my Reloading Windows tutorial but since I have both drives functioning at the moment I have tried to cut some corners and make this work well as well as getting my wife up and running quickly for her work stuff this morning.

Cleaning Computer Hunt Internet stuff to buy

Pal Pc Tracker - Stops Computer Theft!
Computer software that allows you to find your Pc anywhere in the world if it's ever lost or stolen!

How To Make Money Working From Home!
A practical, Step-By-Step guide to start making money on the Internet using your computer!

Cleaning Computers - Secrets Exposed!
How To Start Your Own Profitable Computer Cleaning Business - Step By Step Business Kit!

Cleaning Computer Hunt Internet Recent Stories from around the internet

cleaning computer hunt internet

Websites of political groups fighting anti-gay marriage amendments were hit by a flood of fake traffic Wednesday, in an apparent attempt to muzzle the sites and interfere with a fundraising effort, California's No on Prop 8 group said Thursday. The ...

DDoS Attack Strikes Campaigns Against Same-Sex Marriage Bans - Update - Wired

Brianna Johnson, 4, hands canned items to Jason Gross while filling food baskets Friday at Crossroads Ministries Church on North Broadway. Five-year-old Joshua Hughes gulps a small bottle of orange drink, washing down the last bite of a doughnut ...

Hunger strikes: Economy, fear of future force more East Tennesseans to ... - Knoxville News Sentinel

So Nicholas W. Browning has pleaded guilty in the shooting deaths of parents and two brothers in their Baltimore County home in February. Baltimore Sun reporter Jennifer McMenamin reports that under the deal the 16-year-old will get no more than two ...

October 2008 - Weblogs.baltimoresun.com

So what's a Republican presidential candidate to do when even supporters are saying your hot-but-inexperienced running mate lacks the substance to win the White House? Why, you call on hot reality-star-turned-conservative-talk-show-host Elisabeth ...

'Sassy' Elisabeth Hasselbeck believes in Maverick Sarah Palin - Popwatch

On the stump this week, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., has pushed back against Sen. John McCain's description of his tax policies. "The reason that we want to do this, change our tax code, is not because I have anything against the rich," Obama said in ...

Obama's New Attack on Those Who Don't Want Higher Taxes ... - ABC News Blogs

The McCain supporter who claimed she was attacked by an assailant at a Pittsburgh ATM, who then became enraged by her McCain-Palin sticker and carved a "B" into her face, has admitted the incident was a hoax. Ashley Todd, a College Republicans ...

Election 2008 - Weekly Standard

About 580,130 more people. What does Bell Buckle have that Washington D.C. doesn't? Just the coolest scavenger hunt in the world. Rodney Simmons announced to Bell Buckle Board of Mayor and Aldermen Tuesday night that the town has been chosen to host ...

Geocaching rally will find its way to Bell Buckle - Shelbyville Times-Gazette

The Washington Post's Rob Pegoraro was online Thursday, Oct. 2 at 2 p.m. ET to discuss recent reviews and answer your personal tech questions. Rob Pegoraro: Good afternoon! If you've got a question about how you can cut your telecom bills, get ready ...

Web chat - Washington Post

Check out these mostly critical comments on the Freecycle Network . That’s the widely praised Tucson-based group that helps people create local Web sites where they can give away and get stuff that might otherwise end up in a landfill. Sounds like ...

What's Up (or Down) at Freecycle? - BusinessWeek

Israeli hacker Ehud "The Analyzer" Tenenbaum was indicted Tuesday by a federal grand jury in Brooklyn on felony charges of conspiracy and fraud. Between Feb. 2008 and May 2008 Tenenbaum and others engaged in a scheme to initiate transactions on ...