Thought for today - 10 March

[AlanHo]

My 3 year old Dell Inspiron 510 notebook has suffered a failure.

Yesterday after a couple of hours use it suddenly froze, gave me a blue look and started making what I guess are expensive noises. A harsh clicking - like someone holding some paper in a bike's wheel spokes. Or perhaps a rattlesnake type noise - or a really angry squirrel - or an old maid sucking her teeth back in.

I reckon the hard drive has died a death......R.I.P

Anyone here with any experience of replacing Dell laptop drives - how, where, how much etc. Could I buy a proprietary one, dismantle the beast and fit it - or is it better to send it off to Dell. Are there any independent laptop repairers who could do a reasonable job at a reasonable price....?

The only saving grace is that I connect it to a USB hard drive every time I use it at home and back it up - so my data is safe - thanks to pops regular reminders.

My thought for today is therefore a reminder to everyone that sooner or later your hard drive will die on you - so make sure you have the necessary data back-ups.

[ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb]

Thanks, Alan. My 5 years old Inspiron 2600 at home is showing signs of fatigue - things are much slower than before, and the HD often makes clicking noises.

I've meant to buy an external HD for backup for some time, but it always got delayed. I will do it this week, before it is too late...

P.S. actually I have a lot of free disk space on the OptiPlex GX270 on the home network; perhaps I should back up to over there before I buy an external HD...?

[andsome]

Found this one on Google :D

[AlanHo]

andsome - thanks for the googling - you did better than me. I didn't find that site - but plenty of others some of which looked a bit iffy.

I have now repaired the laptop myself. Dell price for a replacemet hard drive - 40GB SATA - £158 plus carriage.

The alternative was to return the computer at my cost (to Ireland) it would be returned with a new drive guaranteed for 12 months at a total cost of £212 plus return carriage.

I obtained some quotes - or more often than not "estimates" - from googled repair shops. Ignoring the iffy ones - the lowest price I got was £90 plus postage and insurance to supply and fit a used hard drive with a 90 day guarantee.

I eventually took the bull by the horns, got out my small tool kit, and removed the crippled hard drive from the computer. It turned out to be a standard Toshiba 2.5" 9.5mm thick 5400 rpm 40 GB SATA hard drive. A jolly good googling located a brand new one - via an Ebay seller - for £39 delivered. I ordered it yesterday morning and it arrived this afternoon.

I used my original Dell XP CD to format the disk and to try and instal Windows - but it stalled after asking for an SP2 CD and not being able to locate a file called asms. I then used an Acronis rescue CD and restored the Backup files from my external hard drive which also partitioned the disc as before. This process went quite smoothly but took ages through the laptop USB port which possibly ran at USB1 speed.

The laptop is now back in service - a testament to the need for a proper back up strategy and the use of Acronis.

[Irene]

I religiously do the backups, but I dread the time, if ever, when I would have to use them to restore!! :0

[andsome]

I religiously do the backups, but I dread the time, if ever, when I would have to use them to restore!! :0

It was a bit of a puzzle the first time. I got a bit tied up but sorted it out eventually. Now it seems quite simple. :D

[catgate]

andsome - thanks for the googling - you did better than me. I didn't find that site - but plenty of others some of which looked a bit iffy.

I have now repaired the laptop myself. Dell price for a replacemet hard drive - 40GB SATA - £158 plus carriage.....................

...................then used an Acronis rescue CD and restored the Backup files from my external hard drive which also partitioned the disc as before. This process went quite smoothly but took ages through the laptop USB port which possibly ran at USB1 speed.

The laptop is now back in service - a testament to the need for a proper back up strategy and the use of Acronis.

Well done, that man.

It is satisfying to beat the extortionate sods, isn't it? (And to know that it is done properly too).

[AzzTech Computer Services]

Found this one on Google :D

Hi all,

As you can guess by the name, I am from the company in the link andsome posted.

You wouldn't believe how many customers I goto who have lost their important files because they do not back them up. People take their computers for granted thinking they will last forever, fact is hard drives don't last forever.

Just to let you know AlanHo, I would of charged £60 to supply and fit an 80GB 2.5" HD, and reinstall windows.

There are many companies around who charge silly money for repairing your PC, they take advantage of your lack of knowledge.

AlanHo, if you ever need any advice, you can give me a call.

Hope I havent broke any rules here.

Aaron

www.needhelpwithyourpc.co.uk

[andsome]

I am just glad that it was fixed and is now OK. Nice to hear from you Aztech. I have never, and would never consider buying a computer or having a repair done at any chain store, or National company. My first computer was given to me by my son. Since then I have had two others, both from Computers 4 U, who used to be at Chase Terrace, but are now in Brownhills. When a friend wanted a new computer, I took her to Cut Price Computers at Whittington, as they were closer, and also had a good reputation. Most commercial computers are delivered with loads of crapware programs, most of it NOT needed. The operating systems are frequently dedicated to that brand, and cannot be reinstalled with another CD, and to make things worse, no installation CD is provided. As I am inclined to tinker with things, I have needed to reinstall Windows several time on this computer, and would have been lost were it an Evesham or Dell etc. :D