Help! IT Geeks needed!

**Burtha** · 11th March 2009, 11:34

Bravo and thank goodness you got your stuff off.
There will be little point in saving the HD now - have fun with your FBH I say.
Hope some of my yap helped a little.
Yes, regular backups are the way to go.
Congrats and good on you for perservering.

**scracha** · 11th March 2009, 20:23

The "Freezer idea" has worked for me about 30% of the time....but if a drive is farked...it's farked. I've only once had a customer shell out and go for the "professional" recovery service. I'd still recommend the Seagate drives BTW, even if their warranty recently dropped from 5 to 3 years.

Go for a decent backup over a raid system any day of the week. Raid doesn't protect you from virus', applications currupting data, user stupidity, having your house go on fire or having your computer stolen. Shell out on a decent 2.5" portable hard drive with USB (320gb is about $180) and if you can stretch to it and your motherboard support it, get one with eSATA.

Backup? Vista business/ultimate does system imaging rather well. If it's XP then look at dixml (google it...it's free!). Works in home basic/premium too but you have to turn off UAC temporarily which is a PITA.

Partitioning? With XP and Vista, there's more con's to this than pro's for most users.

OEM keys...I do dozens of XP reinstalls a week and very rarely do they not work. Worst case is you're rining up Microsoft and pushing buttons on your telephone keypad to reactivate. Someone should be able to loan you a CD for you to erm...backup.

Good idea to get yourself a decent boot cds (ubcdwin and knoppix are invaluable) as get out of jail free cards once you're up and running.

**The Stranger:Me** · 11th March 2009, 20:34

Originally Posted by Lias

Firstly, if you _really_ value the data on the drive and cant afford to loose it, stop doing what everyone else has been saying

Bingo - people who don't know shit should shut the fuck up and stop telling him how to fuck up his chances of recovering his data.
If you want the best chances of data recovery power the machine down at the wall socket and leave it off until you have spoken to someone who KNOWS what they are doing and the ramifications of their advice for you.

**HenryDorsetCase** · 11th March 2009, 20:48

Originally Posted by Gubb

. I was just asking for advice. I don't care if you have a front bum or not.

Pleased that it looks like the situation is resolved.

I was really tempted to use the quote above as a new signature. Its to the point, and very funny.

You've made my night!

**Gubb** · 12th March 2009, 06:51

Originally Posted by Lias

$190 for a 500gb? Someone saw you coming mate!
http://www.pricespy.co.nz/pno_8038.html

After looking at that link, I think I got away OK. I needed and IDE drive, not a SATA, which all seem cheaper. But hey, they had a target market, and I needed it that day.

Still trying to re-configure the system, it's going to be a pain re-downloading and setting up applications, but i'm just glad I got everything I needed before it failed spectacularly.

**Lias** · 12th March 2009, 07:16

Originally Posted by Gubb

After looking at that link, I think I got away OK. I needed and IDE drive, not a SATA, which all seem cheaper. But hey, they had a target market, and I needed it that day.

Still trying to re-configure the system, it's going to be a pain re-downloading and setting up applications, but i'm just glad I got everything I needed before it failed spectacularly.

Aye PATA (Oldschool IDE) drives are more expensive, but still up to $30-40 less than what you paid.

**scracha** · 12th March 2009, 11:36

Originally Posted by Lias

Aye PATA (Oldschool IDE) drives are more expensive, but still up to $30-40 less than what you paid.

Perhaps. But maybe he just couldn't be arsed driving into town or farting about with price-spy, sending his credit card (or mucking about with direct transfer) to some dodgy online store and then waiting 2 or 3 days for delivery. Perhaps he just went to his local computer shop, got some good advice and the chance to return the drive without too much hassle should he have the wrong type.

**Lias** · 12th March 2009, 12:06

Originally Posted by scracha

Perhaps. But maybe he just couldn't be arsed driving into town or farting about with price-spy, sending his credit card (or mucking about with direct transfer) to some dodgy online store and then waiting 2 or 3 days for delivery. Perhaps he just went to his local computer shop, got some good advice and the chance to return the drive without too much hassle should he have the wrong type.

2 of the 5 cheapest prices for that drive are retail stores in Auckland *shrug*

There is something to be said for going to a store "Where everybody knows your name", but alot of local stores also blatently price gouge. I've known stores that work on a 30-50% markup, which is retarded in what is a very competitive industry. You make a small markup on parts, and make your main money from labour.

**Slyer** · 12th March 2009, 12:25

Christ let him buy it where he likes...

**Headbanger** · 12th March 2009, 12:28

Originally Posted by Lias

2 of the 5 cheapest prices for that drive are retail stores in Auckland *shrug*

There is something to be said for going to a store "Where everybody knows your name", but alot of local stores also blatently price gouge. I've known stores that work on a 30-50% markup, which is retarded in what is a very competitive industry. You make a small markup on parts, and make your main money from labour.

Which is why its a crap industry, there are only a limited amount of hours in the week to charge labour for, and there is no mark up in hardware, at least not enough to bother.

I don't know where you get the 30%-50% markup from though, When I was running my company the top ten budget sellers were retailing items for less then I could source them for from suppliers, and only a tiny margin of resellers were putting a worthwhile profit on top. You only need to sell a couple $600 video cards and make enough profit to buy a pie to see thats a market not worth chasing after. Pricespy is great for the budget consumer but has done no favours for the industry.

**Lias** · 12th March 2009, 12:53

Originally Posted by Headbanger

Which is why its a crap industry, there are only a limited amount of hours in the week to charge labour for, and there is no mark up in hardware, at least not enough to bother.

I don't know where you get the 30%-50% markup from though, When I was running my company the top ten budget sellers were retailing items for less then I could source them for from suppliers, and only a tiny margin of resellers were putting a worthwhile profit on top. You only need to sell a couple $600 video cards and make enough profit to buy a pie to see thats a market not worth chasing after. Pricespy is great for the budget consumer but has done no favours for the industry.

When I used to work in that area, the store I was at charged 10-15% markup, and was often undercut by cheaper stores, but we survived and prospered on labour charges. It's the cutting of labour rates that's killing stores IMHO.. I've seen backyarders advertising at $18ph inc travel, and even stores charging $30-40ph for labour. Back in my day we charged $80ph inhouse, up to $200 for onsite, afterhours server work.

**Gubb** · 12th March 2009, 16:36

Meh.

They had what I needed, and I was happy to pay for it to take it home that morning. I'm happy, they seemed happy.

I'm not overly concerned if I was "gouged". I would have blown it all on hats anyway.

**Gubb** · 13th March 2009, 16:28

Alright. New issue now.

New HDD is in, with a new OS loaded.

Problem is that the new OS isn't detecting my Router (It's a DSE XH9950). I had a look for Drivers, but couldn't find anything, and from what I remember, it didn't come with any.

Odd thing is, the Router is working, cause I'm still using the net through the laptop. Had a look through, and I can't seem to find a way to make the PC and Router detect each other.