Laptop doing motorbike impressions

[steve_earwig]

Well, you know how it is, you leave the back-up 'til the last minute and then you loose the lot Well, not really, I started backing up the laptop 2 days ago, for no particular reason other than it was about time, then last night it started making what I can only describe as a video game motorbike impression.

This is the laptop I do most stuff on, I'm on my pc at home just now but I'm not here much so it's a bit of a pain.

Last night, while I was investigating the strange noises I got a BSOD, then It wouldn't reboot but I managed to get it going this morning and finished the backing up stuff (phew!). Then I had to shut it down pronto 'cos it sounded scarey. Without the HDD in it (ok, it won't boot but...) it sounds fine, it's not the cooling fan either. So now it's time to see if anyone here will sell me an ATA HDD for a 5 year old Toshiba. Queue J. R. Hartley impressions

So, in basic terms, I may be a tad quiet for a while

[Welly]

From what I can gather from friends and family is that Lappies are sh*t and only sh*t - they seem to to last for a couple of years and .......KABOOM!!!!

Too many hot little things in a small little box

[steve_earwig]

So mine's done pretty well! I only got it because I didn't know how long I'd need to be mobile when I came here, back then it was an "all singing, all dancing" machine that I got bluddy cheap 'cos it was factory refurbished. For the first couple of years it got thrown about in its bag without regard for niceties like cooling fans and spent a fair amount of time on a building site. The first time it came out of the bag was because Windows crashed and I had to re-install it, it was full of dust and some of the casing screws were missing, I can't read any of the labels on the bottom of it 'cos the dust has scrubbed it off! In the end it's turned out quite useful at my other half's saving the need for buying a proper machine to replace her antique, and it's pretty much spent the last two years turned on all the time 'cos I'm downloading. Apart from the re-install this is the first time it's gone wrong - should I get hold of Guiness?

[teamster1975]

What capacity is the hard drive Steve?
I can get you a new one & let you have it for trade, PM me.

[mjb]

I managed to get it going this morning and finished the backing up stuff (phew!)

Jammy git!

If it's able to boot off a USB hard disk, you could chuck a windows install on one for a quick temporary workaround. Otherwise good luck finding the HDD. It's not easy to find 2.5" IDE disks nowadays even in England :/

FWIW my main workhorse laptop (with a 17" 1920x1200 screen ) is about 5 years old now. I've had to replace the HDD (yes, IDE), the dvd burner and one of the hinges (thank god for ebay!) but it's been rock solid. Just needs an annual strip down and blasting with compressed air to quieten the fans and stop it from overheating

[steve_earwig]

I managed to pick up a 160gig for about 60 quid , it's in and I've already installed Windows via the rescue disks (bluddy Microshaft, why can't they supply a real disk?). Just now I'm backing up the MyBook (don't buy one, already been replaced) onto my home pc, then I can shove my laptop back ups, which are also now on both, back on and I'll be laughing.

One problem, for some reason it's partitioned the drive 4 ways, no sodding idea why because I had my ear glued to it (to try and hear any nasty noises over Mrs Mad's blaring tv ) when the option came up and just caught sight of the screen before it moved on I may just re-re-install it.

Jammy git!

Tell me about it, I thought once they were dead that was the end of it but obviously it wasn't quite yet and letting it cool down got it spinning for long enough. It did start growling loudly again just after I was done but I killed it before I got another BSOD.

Just needs an annual strip down and blasting with compressed air to quieten the fans and stop it from overheating

I thought about compressed air but concluded it could blow it into worse places and cause more problems. Once a month I use a nice soft brush on the hoover with a fine tooth brush to get into the cooling fan

[steve_earwig]

Actually, that was the first bit of luck today, the second was I took one of my cooling fans, which had stopped working due to non-existant brushes, into a shop here yesterday. The guy looked at the brushes and, just like he did 3 years ago, told me he didn't have the right brushes. I told him how I'd filed brushes down to fit the other one so he said leave it with him and he'd see what he could do. I just went back there and he'd managed to fit 4 new brushes in there, what a clever bloke! Only got charged 11 quid too

[teamster1975]

Nice result

[steve_earwig]

How's this? Back up already, although there's plenty more to go... The only thing I've lost so far is my Maxthon bookmarks, everything else seems to be here already - hooray for the Files and Settings Transfer WIzard, it even carried over all my email (which I'd already backed up separately )

I re-re-installed but it still partitioned it 4 ways and there wasn't an option to change it, so I used the Disk Manager to creat 2 drives - 1 of 30 Gigs and another with all the rest. It'll do.