I think my laptop is dying

[steadfast]

It's a slow time of year, and I cannot afford a new laptop at the moment.

No problem, just accept that Hindu temple contract, and you can get that new laptop.

[Musky]

So I was thinking about getting a copy of Windows 8 and a new hard drive. This will put me at over 1/2 the price of a new laptop.

However, I just found out I can get recovery disks from Toshiba for $29.95 which I believe would work on a new hard drive that I purchase. If so, this is the most inexpensive way to get my lap top working again.

It's a slow time of year, and I cannot afford a new laptop at the moment.

You can get the best prices for a laptop (2.5) hard drive from Newegg, and they ship very fast.

Then, do yourself a big favor and get the recovery disc from Toshiba and re-install Windows 7. It is much better the Windows 8 IMO.

[pnutts]

for windows 8 pro -they had it on sale from MS last month for $40. However I just discovered that my new, as in this saturday,-geforce video card has bad drivers for 64 bit 8 Pro and won't work. Got beta drivers but can't boot into 8 even in safe mode -black screen thus can't apply update-did in 7 though.

I have a 3 multiboot system xp pro -just for my voice recorder-no 64 bit drivers - 7 Ultimate 64 bit and a now not working 8 Pro 64 bit. Lost all my settings in 8 since can't see anything.

As for slow laptop -run a free live disk called Hiren's boot disk-it runs from dvd/cd drive not the hard drive -has disk checking abilities plus allows you to transfer items to removable drive.

You can also run Avert Stinger -get from majorgeeks.com Avert stinger- you can put it on live disk too or flash drive. It is a stand alone antivirus. check one partition at a time. Auglostic has one of the better defrag engines maybe get free version if still available out there and their boostpower is good too ( contains a defrag ) not free.

As for hard drives - get an external dock -much better than an external case and handles 3.5 and 2.5 inch sata drives ( have both ). There is also an external adapter that does both ide and sata drives.

I am a 60 year old geek/nerd and I like it that way

[pnutts]

Forgot to add- I saw Bob at our meeting but he claimed he wasn't Bob - must have been "his evil twin" claiming to be son of one of our elders.

[Musky]

All that might be good if his hard drive wasn't fried!

[pnutts]

All that might be good if his hard drive wasn't fried!

I wonder if it fried due to his solar collector

Try a live disk -it won't hurt-just remember a dvd/cd drive is slower than a hard drive even than a laptop drive ( typically 5400 rpm )

[Musky]

All that might be good if his hard drive wasn't fried!

I wonder if it fried due to his solar collector

Try a live disk -it won't hurt-just remember a dvd/cd drive is slower than a hard drive even than a laptop drive ( typically 5400 rpm )

You are joking about his "solar collector" right? I'm sure if he has one there are voltage regulators involved. If the voltage was corrupt, the power supply system on the laptop would be the first to go.

His hard drive is removed from his computer and in an external enclosure while he attempted to retrieve lost files, so booting his laptop up with a "live disk" will not help at this point. I suggested doing that earlier via PM, but Bob decided to try and save his data by connecting his hard drive directly to his desktop computer. I believe he was successful.

[Brother_Bliss]

It's a slow time of year, and I cannot afford a new laptop at the moment.

No problem, just accept that Hindu temple contract, and you can get that new laptop.

Lol! After all, since a new laptop is involved, it is for a good cause :-P

[Brother_Bliss]

Forgot to add- I saw Bob at our meeting but he claimed he wasn't Bob - must have been "his evil twin" claiming to be son of one of our elders.

I have yet to be invited to give a talk in Canada :-)

[Brother_Bliss]

I believe he was successful.

Almost. It still won't let me in a bunch of areas. I've recouped 80% of what I felt was important to me. Ultimately I was surprised just how much I actually did have on the cloud.

I wanna try Spin rite on it again via the desktop, but haven't tried to spin my head around it yet.

[Musky]

I wanna try Spin rite on it again via the desktop, but haven't tried to spin my head around it yet.

Just be sure that when you boot up your desktop to the Spinrite CD, that you choose the hard drive on the USB bus. It should be pretty plain, but sometimes it isn't, so write the model number of the laptop hard drive down somewhere and compare it to the ones that Spinrite finds on your system. It always lists them by model number if not connection.

[pnutts]

Get an older version of Hiren's disk repair live cd -around version 10 -it has an older version of hdd regenerator on it which if run on computer ( in xp mode ???) with your old lap drive atached you may be able to recover more from drive itself -it will take awhile-provided it still spins.

HDD Regenerator is now sharewear/buy ( get the $60 2011 version from 2011 hdd regen not the $100 one if you want later ) but is far superior to 'spin your head rite' which I haven't used in years.

[pnutts]

An after though. Get latest Hiren's boot disk v15.x and also v 10.0 Start computer with 15.x live disk go to xp mode then switch disk to v 10 and wait a few seconds then search cd drive under Hiren's browse feature and run hdd regenerator- it is located in 2 sections-different file extensions - one may not start it up but other one will. It has worked for me using this method.

[Brother_Bliss]

Okay, I ordered my recovery disks.

And then I had a silly thought.... http://www.ubuntu.com/

Any opinions on this as an operating system?

[Musky]

Okay, I ordered my recovery disks.

And then I had a silly thought.... http://www.ubuntu.com/

Any opinions on this as an operating system?

I'm not a huge linux fan, not for your main operating system anyway. But you may hear from Joan (Fururepromise) she is an avid user and promoter of Ubuntu.

[Brother_Bliss]

I am an idiot.

I've got myself a new 750 GB hybrid drive from Seagate, with 50GB being flash memory. Supposedly the drive will automatically put the OS and common applications on the flash memory for blazing fast boot times. We shall see, of course.

Meanwhile, I ordered recovery disks from Toshiba for $29.95 and am waiting for them to arrive. Well, today I was looking for something in my desk drawer, and lo and behold here I actually created recovery disks 5 years ago when I got this thing. I am currently trying to restore my computer with them.

[Musky]

That's funny!

You did as the computer instructed when you first fired it up five years ago and then forgot all about it. I'll bet you put the disk "in a safe place" in case you needed them! LOL

I installed Windows on a customer's hard drive using one of the new hybrid drives and it seemed faster to me, but all new installations are faster then they'll be in five years. But she told me that the longer she used it and Windows put her most accessed files and folders in the flash section, the faster it became.

[surfergirl]

I am an idiot.

I've got myself a new 750 GB hybrid drive from Seagate, with 50GB being flash memory. Supposedly the drive will automatically put the OS and common applications on the flash memory for blazing fast boot times. We shall see, of course.

Meanwhile, I ordered recovery disks from Toshiba for $29.95 and am waiting for them to arrive. Well, today I was looking for something in my desk drawer, and lo and behold here I actually created recovery disks 5 years ago when I got this thing. I am currently trying to restore my computer with them.

Don't feel so Bad Bob.

I do things like that. I bought 2 programs last year. To clean up my computer one was a security. i 4got to restore my saved items& save them. I gave my computer to someone to fix it & i lost everything. Including stuff like bills I keep for tax.

I wish I had a better brain for all that I have lost. Lol

[Brother_Bliss]

That's funny!

You did as the computer instructed when you first fired it up five years ago and then forgot all about it. I'll bet you put the disk "in a safe place" in case you needed them! LOL

Exactly. On top of that, I moved residence one time as well. Oh well.

I got my computer running and I am pretty happy about that. Feels good to use it again. Now I am just in the process of moving everything back over here again. There is still stuff on the crashed drive I would like to recover though, although it may not be possible. I haven't given it a try lately.

[Musky]

That's funny!

You did as the computer instructed when you first fired it up five years ago and then forgot all about it. I'll bet you put the disk "in a safe place" in case you needed them! LOL

Exactly. On top of that, I moved residence one time as well. Oh well.

I got my computer running and I am pretty happy about that. Feels good to use it again. Now I am just in the process of moving everything back over here again. There is still stuff on the crashed drive I would like to recover though, although it may not be possible. I haven't given it a try lately.

Good news indeed!

Try Spinrite on the drive from the desktop and just let it run, no matter how long it takes. It can actually rebuild damaged sectors and recover the data. I have had it work miracles. Try and and when it says it's finished, try and get what you need off of it. Spinrite will tell you if the drive is beyond recovery.