psu / hard drive faliure?

[Wills]

Hi everyone.

Well Ive been having lots of problems with my pc lately, and was wondering if you guys can help!

I originally posted this on another forum Im a member of, Not a tech based on though

"Just been reading the thread, lots of stuff in here, blimey. Well I was going to create another thread to request opinions on this but I hope Ian doesn't mind if I post this here instead (Not trying to completely hijack your thread!).
Well a few days ago my main pc decided it wouldn't boot, as soon as POST had completed the screen stayed black, and the h access light constantly kept flashing. Had a look inside and everything seemed in order, it was working fine before and I hadn't added any new hardware( well id been messing with the creative x fi drivers but that's not the problem I'm sure, as its not even getting to load the drivers). Unplugged the hd and connected my old one to see if it would boot. It wouldn't the hard drive was clicking ever few seconds, giving the impression that the disk is completely stuffed (I know its partly broken anyway) and the read head kept resetting, well that's what it sounded like.

So got the meter out to check the psu, and its completely died (Im severely hoping it didn't take my newish wd hd out with all the data ) so I've decided that It is definitely time for a new pc, just gotta earn the money now!

Basically I want to build a good gaming system which has lots of upgrade potential, here were my initial plans.

[www.tarantulaevents.co.uk]

Ignore the tacky filename, had it based on an old spreadsheet which I pdf'ed ;-) .

The thing is I really don't know what to go for. I'm an amd person up till now, and love the look of the new x2's, but with the Intel dcd's out I don't know how they match up. The cheapest dcd processor I could see was about £140, think it was the 3300. I think Intel is the sensible decision atm but don't know what motherboards to consider.
I would preferable like an asus for the overclocking features and their last s939 deluxe boards were very highly rated. If I was going to go with an amd dual core, the only sensible way to go for the future is socket am2 right? This is not bad, but means ill have to get new ram too (probably not a bad idea, although I got a gig of corsair xms ddr in august). I'm definitely going to want to go with a nv graphics card, the highest I can really go is that 7950 at the moment, although I don't know how long it will be until the 8800 series comes down in price, ideally i want a dx10 card. Ill be looking into getting a sata II hard drive to be my primary hd and ill use my current wd ide one as a second drive, so there has to be an Ide bus that will allow me to use my old hard drive (I think its common practice still isnt it to have an ide bus on the newer boards.) Ill probably need 2 though, as I have a cd writer and a dvd drive to connect too.

If I did go with a dcd, would I need ddr or ddr2 memory preferably ? The only thing that's putting me off the Intel processors atm is the price, but they are supposed to be much better.

I'm not a serious overclocker, a gamer mostly. Do a bit of video editing (nothing major). But Id like the headroom to be able to do some overclocking in the future. Id also like to have the possibly of an using sli in the future maybe, so an sli motherboard is a must.

I'm hoping to buy the os that this threads title contains .

If I want to go with an asus motherboard what would be the best option manufacturer wise with regard to processors, and considering the answer to this question, what type of ram would be best?

Please feel free to suggest any improvements to the current spec in the pdf, I really don't want to go much higher if atall than the total price in there, although I realise ill need a cpu cooler which I haven't accounted for yet.

Also I cant seem to find an sata cables on scan (maybe im just looking in the wrong place) What other cables would i also need?

A new case is a must, as this cheap rubbish one (with a el-cheapo psu is pants, as we all know they are) The cooling of my current case is diabolical too. I don't want to spend any more than necessary on a case, so the akasa one should do me fine.

I've got a Sound Blaster x-fi which I would also fit to the new system.

Well make what you can out of that question wise, I'm just a bit unsure of what the best choices are at the moment, and I know some of you guys are much better that this than me!

Again, sorry Ian for hijacking your thread, I really didn't see the point of creating a new thread for another tech ramble!

Thanks,

Regards,

Wills."





"Well we have been trying to find out what caused my pc to not boot. We found an old psu in the loft so swapped it, connected everything internally and had only a keyboard and and monitor attached at the back. When we first booted it up with my hd that failed months ago it booted into safe mode just. So we turned it off and tried connecting the western digital hd which I brought to replaces the "failed" Maxtor (which booted into safe mode, kept making strange noises though, as before.) and it past post but then did exactly the same thing that originally happened which started the problem off, just as the post screen flicked away and the xp boot screen was due to be shown the screen stayed black and the hd activity light is solidly on. Nothing appears to happen though. At post it sounds like the disk is initializing, but It the drive is not recognised in dos (we made a bootable floppy from this pc). We took the hard drive out of the machine, and were trying to look for the drive parameters on the sticker but couldn't find anything. Couldn't see anything on google either. Then dad noticed that when you shake the disk (not vigorously) you can hear the read head sliding around which doesn't happen on another old disk we found. This doesn't seem right to me but I don't know. Is there any chance that the disk will work as a slave drive IN my new pc when I get it? If not is there anything I can do. Replacing the power board was one suggestion, but apparently that wont work as each disk is unique (they cant make a perfect disk) and the board contains data on where all the faulty sectors are and using a different board would mess the mapping up. The short of it is there is a hell of a lot of stuff on that disk that we cant loose, Lots of family photos (we backed up loads of them, but not the last two months worth and we took loads of Xmas) as well as my computing coursework, lots of websites that I was working on, all my ipod music ( off my cds and a few songs brought from itunes ) and all my grand prix 4 wip stuff that I dont want to loose. If there is nothing else would I be able to get it recovered professionally, and if so roughly how much would it be (£50? £100s £1000s!!?)I really cant believe it, my Maxtor started making clicking noises, the hd before that kept "freezing" and now this. Three hd failures seems very very unlikely to me especially when my wd was only about a year old, and its a wd. I think something else has caused previous "failures" motherboard maybe?

Hope I can get my data back .
Thanks for the help guys, dont know what Id do without you!
Wills."


If anyone can help with anything that would be great. At the moment though it has been sugested that I try an IcyBox to recover the data off the old hard drive. Does anyone have any experience with these devices ?

Thanks for your help

Regards

Wills

[kalniel]

Sata cables are in the cables section in scan.

As far as recovering the data, the good news is that I think it'll be 99.999% recoverable fine. The bad news is that you'll probably need to pay someone to do it professionally. Talk to WD about getting a replacement under warrenty - you could try asking if they'll cover the data recovery costs as well.

I thought an IcyBox is just an external HDD enclosure.

The number of HD failures is high, but perhaps not that high, considering you had a dodgy PSU.

[excalibur2]

***Hope I can get my data back**

If you are financially well off, and the data on the hard drive is very important, send it to a specialist company.

Off google e.g.:-

http://www.networkbus.co.uk/DataRecovery.html

n.b. I have no idea if this company is excellent, it's just an example.

[Wills]

Thanks for help guys, I dont think professional recovery is likely atall to be honest, too much money.

Also, does anyone have any comments on the suggested system soec for my new pc (see the pdf link in my original post). Its just a guideline, the bottom half of the document is the latest one, the top one was for an am2 system, which I dont think is sensible considering how well the Dual Core Duos are doing at the moment.


Thanks for the swift replys guys.

[excalibur2]

Thanks for help guys, I dont think professional recovery is likely atall to be honest, too much money.

Well you have nothing to lose by trying yourself then, and the most important thing is to get the hard drive to do the least amount of work before you get the data off i.e. don't boot into windows.
Putting the HD as slave to another would take the pressure off and best to bootup from a floppy to the C prompt and use dos commands to transfer data, but I'm sure one of the guys here would know of a program that would do this easily.

The finally last ditch attempt is to put the HD in the freezer for about an hour, rush and connect up before it warms up, but this is usually for a noisy HD on it's way out....... it works for some.