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Computer problems today are more likely to be caused by software rather than hardware. One seemingly small careless alteration or deletion by the user to the software may cause major problems and possibly even stop the Computer from functioning. Hardware can still fail, however usually this is within the first few weeks or months of the Computer's life and should be fully covered by the manufacturer's warranty. The most common Hardware item to fail is the Hard Disk Drive followed by the Monitor. With the exception of the new LCD Monitor Panels which are starting to come onto the consumer market very little has changed in Monitor technology during the last 10 years. Monitors still consume most of the power used by the Computer and certainly generate most of the heat. It's is the heat and subsequent cooling when turned off, (thermal shock), that causes monitor faults as it does within many other electronic devices.
On the other hand Hard Disk Drives (HDD's) have got very much larger in capacity, faster in data transfer speed and cheaper in price. Reliability is still an issue and from time to time problems occur. There are only three or four major HDD manufacturers and the same makes and models of HDD found in the major supplier's Computers are found in the clone models. Failure of HDD's can represent a major disaster to the user if valuable data is subsequently lost. It makes no difference how much you paid for the Computer or from where you purchased it, failure can happen to anyone at anytime.
I relate a recent experience with a client who had used their Computer as a general workhorse, partly private, partly business. Backups were not something the client had ever considered a real necessity because, initially, there was nothing of any importance. Over time however valuable and to some degree irreplaceable information was stored on the Computer. I received a desperate phone call early one morning, please could I come ASAP to look at their problem. The Computer would not start correctly and they needed to extract data for the BAS due in a few days. As it happened I had planned a morning in my workshop catching up on a couple of outstanding repairs so I was free to attend to this urgent problem. When I arrived I found a Pentium 166 which I guessed would be about 5 years old. There are many of this type of PC still in use today and for normal Word processing, Accountancy, Internet and the like they provide adequate performance.
When turned it on the start-up BIOS messages displayed basic setup data as usual. This is normally followed by the HDD manufacturers name and HDD size which would either be automatically detected or just displayed depending on the CMOS setup. This was not to be the case. After waiting about 30 seconds the screen displayed the fatal message no Computer user ever wants to see. "Hard Disk Fail". I turned the power off and opened the case to physically examine the HDD and ensure that the data cable was plugged securely both into the Main Board and the HDD. In situations like this it is a good idea to remove the cable from both ends and reseat them again to ensure a good connection. With the covers removed I restarted the Computer and listened to the HDD as the power came on. There was no evidence of any action. Normally you can hear the HDD spin up to full rotational speed and if you are holding it in your hand you may feel the slight centrifugal force caused by the spinning platters within. Commenting to the owner that it looked as though the HDD was dead, the response was that for sometime the Computer had to be turned on and off several times to get it to boot-up properly. Why this was not taken as a sign of serious impending problems remains, as usual, a thing about Computer users that I find astounding. By failing to act on the warning signs there was a real possibility that all data was now un-retrievable.
I tried a few times powering the Computer on and off with the main switch but to no avail. Not having a suitable new HDD with me I suggested taking the Computer back to the workshop to replace the HDD with a new one and reload the basic Operating system and other things like the Internet connection. I asked my client for all the CD ROM's and diskettes that belonged to the Computer. I would then have on hand all necessary software to assist me and ensure that when I returned the unit it would be fully functional with correct driver software loaded for all the devices such as the Modem, Sound and Video Card etc.
What I did not discuss with the client at this stage was the fact that probably the smallest HDD available (10 GB) would be larger than the Computer's BIOS would recognise. Also, as their version of Microsoft Windows was the original Windows 95 not version B there would be no Windows recognition of HDD's larger than 2.1 GB. I felt it better to remove and examine the drive in my workshop and I was glad I did. When I powered up the Computer in the workshop the HDD spun up to speed and was recognised by the BIOS starting up on the first attempt. I was able to use all the programs that I tried so I took the opportunity to run "Scandisk" on the HDD to correct any FAT (File Allocation Table) errors. As the HDD was now again temporarily working I intended to use a valuable utility program, (Symantec's GHOST) to clone the old HDD to the new one. This would certainly save much time and retain all the clients programs and data. GHOST dislikes any corrupted data etc and although you can tell it to ignore such errors I have found that if possible it is better to check and repair any errors before attempting a cloning session.
To install the new HDD however I needed to turn it off to make the connections. I removed the old drive from it's drive bay and replaced it with the new one. The old drive needed to be temporarily reconnected for the purpose of copying all its contents with GHOST. I connected it with a spare drive cable to the secondary IDE controller thereby ensuring that there were no conflicts of the master / slave type associated with the new drive. Using a boot diskette with a copy of "Format.com" , "Fdisk.exe" and "GHOST.exe" also on the diskette I started up the Computer. When the "enter setup" message appeared I used the delete key to get into the CMOS setup as the settings for the two HDD's had to be adjusted. There was an "IDE HDDD Auto Detection" option so I was able to get the BIOS to detect the new drive however there was no detection of the old drive as it again refused to spin up to speed. I tried a few times restarting but to no avail and in final desperation I gave the old drive a sharp twist in my hand as I powered up the Computer. Success, I heard it spin up and it was detected. I needed also to change the boot sequence from within the CMOS as it was set to start up C: then A: rather than A: then C:. At this point the new drive was unusable as it was not partitioned, formatted nor contained any operating system so I needed the Computer to boot from the A: drive.
A quick save of the CMOS data followed by a reset and finally the Computer booted to the A: prompt allowing me access to Fdisk.exe. This special Microsoft program is normally only ever used when installing a new HDD. Its main purpose is to create partitions and it must not be used after data is present because unless the user fully understands the operation all data will be destroyed. There is no help associated with this program. Partition Magic by PowerQuest is excellent commercial software for adding, deleting and resizing partitions after data is present. Normally unless the client requests it, a new HDD is just partitioned into one large partition. However because the Windows 95 original operating system was to be installed on this drive and as it only supports drives up to 2.1GB I would have to partition this 10.0 GB drive into a series logical drives no larger than that size. A further complication was with the BIOS not able to recognise the 10.0 GB drive as anything larger than 8.1 GB. This is a limitation of these old BIOS's however in my experience except from the loss of 20% of the storage space they perform perfectly. When the drive is installed later into a newer Computer you can recover this lost space. With newer Main Boards it may be possible to retrieve from the manufacturer's web site a "Flash" upgrade file to update this limitation and certain other characteristics of the BIOS.
Therefore with the new drive present as just over 8 GB I simply created four partitions of approximately 2 GB each using Fdisk. The drive letters were then C through to F with the CD ROM now assuming the drive letter G. Each drive was then formatted and then using the GHOST program, which runs direct from a DOS, I was able to copy the entire contents of the old 850 MB HDD to the new 2.1 GB C drive. To clone a drive using GHOST it was really not necessary for me to actually format the C drive as GHOST can copy without a prior format. In fact it is possible to copy almost any operating system over another with formatting.
Turning off the power once GHOST had finished and removing the old drive plus it's entry in the CMOS allowed the Computer to start up successfully without a hiccup. Only one problem remained and this was the fact that under the old setup with one hard drive letter (C) the CD ROM drive had the letter D, now it had the letter G. This meant than any programs, particularly Encyclopedias, Games, CD ROM based Maps etc would be looking to the hard drive rather than the CD ROM for their database. There are commercial programs which will scan the registry and other locations to correct this error however I quickly used Regedit.exe to locate any registry entries with reference to D: and altered them to G: ( the old CD ROM location to the new one).
This client was very lucky. They retained all their data and programs however considering they had no backups of their data they could have been in a real mess. Other clients have not been so lucky lately. The more common HDD failure is breakdown of the magnetic media in some areas making data irretrievable.
How good are your backups?
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