Eugh.... back to square 1 :-(

[rocketandroll]

I am not having a good few months at present...

Having totalled my new Newt the evening of first light back in December (it is on it's way back to me having been repaired by Orion Optics now) I at least had my imaging rig working beautifully with the Megrez72...

On Thursday morning my wife turns on my laptop (my astro laptop, which she is using for university coursework at present) and asks... "Is this a bad thing?"

I am greeted with a black screen, a Windows taskbar and a message saying the 'Hard drive has bad sectors' and asking if I want to perform a recovery? I hit yes... it does very little, then the same message comes up again.... and again... and again.

This is the second hard drive this laptop has had in as many years.... and it seems to be well and trully gone, along with a load of important data and PHD/EQmod with all my guiding settings and add-ons.

I can't even remember what all the problems were that took me two weeks to solve to get my guiding working last time... let alone remember how I fixed them.

I also can't really afford a new laptop or a new hard drive and copy of Windows at present.

So... I'm now without guiding AGAIN... and just about to get my scope back!

Not a happy bunny :-(

Ben

[Gina]

Try System Restore CD. Here's a link to the web site :- SystemRescueCd

I've used this several times on corrupted disks and recovered most of the data. You'll need to download and burn a CD on another computer then put it in the laptop and boot from the CD. The instructions are on the web site. This works with any operating system. Don't worry that the OS on the CD is based on Linux - it doesn't matter - it uses the command line like in Windows.

[Parus major]

Find someone who bought a hard copy of Windows 7 and borrow the disc. You can use it 30 days for free before it wants your code, when this happens you can re-arm the 30 day trial a further three times, allowing you to run Windows 7 for 120 days without buying it.

It's all above board and legal.

Worth also trying the HDD in a desktop to see if you can get any data from it and maybe reformat it, it could just be unbootable.

[Parus major]

Or you could always go Linux.

[Zakalwe]

I also can't really afford a new laptop or a new hard drive and copy of Windows at present.

Bummer Things always seem to come at once.

Of course, it'd be a shame if the laptop got dropped on the patio as you were bringing it back inside, and you had to make a claim on the house insurance (assuming you have accidental cover for items outside...otherwise the laptop would have to be dropped inside).

Of course, that wouldn't happen on purpose as that would be insurance fraud, but as I said, bad things tend to happen in groups

[dmahon]

You can pick up a hard drive for peanuts on EBay from someone that has upgraded to SSD.

Why would you need new copy of Windows? Just reinstall the one you already have - the sticker on the base of your machine should have the code you need.

[Parus major]

Windows 7 (SP1 Included) Download - Softpedia

Download the install disc ISO from there, use the number you have.

[rocketandroll]

Awesome... cheers folks, and yes, just realised I still have the code for Windows from the sticker :-)

A very kind person on the forums here has offered a replacement drive too... and possible data recovery services... so fingers crossed we may be back and working before too long :-)

Oh... and that was my 1000's post!

And we've just sold our house so can finally look to move somewhere with an astro-suitable garden!!!

WOOHOOO!!

Ben

[Tim]

Hope you get sorted soon Ben

[Tim]

FWIW I just had to get a new desktop for my obsy too, the RAID array HDD's failed on that also :s

[rocketandroll]

The sooner the world sees the back of mechanical hard drives the better... surely flash memory is at a stage now where it's got to be a better option!

I'm fed up with replacing drives and loosing data!

Ben

[Thirdway]

Yes mine blew up a few months back, was looking at replacing it but have decided to live on my iPad. I do have my wife's PC for proper work.

Even SSDs are prone to failure, nothing's perfect. Eventually web storage with proper back up will be cheap enough that there will be no need for the actual storage on home PC.

Best back up anything important onto a separate disc and use the hard drive purely or the work in progress, put the disc op onto a SSD.

You can reclaim information from a disc by using a portable disc device. You just sit the HD into it and connect it via USB to another PC. It acts just like a pen drive, you can view and copy the files it just won't run the programmes.