IT BS thread

That's what I was trying to isolate.

If the hard drive is the problem, you'll know when you can't read it on a second machine.

If the PC/motherboard is the problem, the drive is fine and you will be able to read the data.

Absent that, I'd boot the PC off a linux CD and see what part of the hardware chain fails.

 

I have no way of checking to see if the harddrive works on another computer. I guess ill just let him send it in to corporate

 

Yea, prolly your best bet. One or the other is failing, by the look of it.

 

Crazy.. computer is just a tad over a year old.

 

Not really crazy. After all, for all the complexity, it is a series of electro-mechanical devices. Everything dies at some point.

Just cause you get a single bad light bulb doesn't mean throw out the whole box

 

Lol true when you think about it that way. This is his 2nd computer in 2 years tho.

 

One game is one game.

Two games is two games.

Three games? That's a trend starting

-Bill Parcells

 

Gotta love it when people say that. Backing up? What is that?
Hopefully this can be a wake up call.

Dropping, kicking, poor location? Check to see if you can improve the environment. I had a friend who worked for a company with a statically charged floor, everything electronic that was on the floor had a lifespan of 1.5 years.

 

Don't forget heat....airflow, dust in the air clogging vanes and vents, as well as static from being too dry.

Also vibration. Power reliability.

LOTS of environmental things can kill PCs quickly.

 

Get one of these for the future, they are quite handy when needed

http://www.amazon.com/sabrent-Converter-Supply-Activity-USB-DSC5/dp/B000HJ99DI

 

Heh, I have about 5 of those. One at home on my desk, one in the truck, one in my briefcase, one at the desk at work...invaluable!

 

Its sitting on top of his desk. Not the best spot but about the best he can do with what room he has. And its kinda funny.. he had been putting off backing up the computer. Luckily for him most of the stuff he needs is on a corporate server that he can reacess when he gets the comp back

 

The quickest thing you can do is download a boot disk. You can find some here. If the machine boots, it's the disk and you will want to try and make a backup of it-one of the block copy tools would be a great thing to do this. You may be able to use the USB interface to do this. Easiest if you are able to use like disks.

Good luck.

 

Or go to your favorite torrent site and search for hiren's boot disk.

I stick with 10.6 as that was the last one small enough to fit on a bootable CD for older machines. The newer versions are DVD only as they're greater in size and have more/newer tools.

Hiren's is the bomb-diggety. I keep spares burned and clipped to the visors in my truck to make quadruple damned sure I am never without one in a pinch.

 

Well I'm actually off work and he is sending it out tomorrow so I will let the people that get paid to do that have fun with it. Thanks for the advice though guys I'll try to remember it for future use

 

Those are invaluable as well

 

http://ubcd4win.com/

this one saved my ass i don't know how many times. Problem is they haven't updated it beyond WinPE 1.0. Doesn't work well on newer systems.

 

If I had a nickel for everytime an ATI/AMD driver made a computer bluescreen.. I would have about 10 cents because I boycott that garbage.

 

ATI's drivers and software have ALWAYS been shit. Just like they suck more power and run hotter for the same performance.

BUT, they also occasionally knock it out of the park with raw performance, so they keep intel/nvidia on their toes.

 

DUDE!!! I need many of those!