Having had a computer at some point since Dec. of 1997, I’ve come to know all the little possible problems that can go wrong with a computer. The first computer we had as a family, was re-formatted multiple times with Windows re-installed (this was pre-XP, so it was less of a hassle to re-install. It first had Windows 95, but we eventually got Windows 98 (2nd Edition). And this system had a 2GB hard drive. And overtime, from one PC to another, hard drives got bigger, and cheaper as well. We usually bought a new drive for the purpose of expanding storage. There was never anything massively wrong that resulted in absolute failure.

Toward the end of 2006, I decided to buy each computer part after each paycheck, (or after a few paychecks, depending on the cost of piece), and Dec. 2006 it was completed. Total amount was around $1,000 (probably a little more), with case and 300 Watt PS, AMD motherboard w/ nForce chipset, 2GB DDR2 RAM, Dual-Core Athlon processor (if I remember correctly, it 2GHz, or maybe less), I want to say an 80GB (at least that, maybe 120, I really can’t remember) hard drive (IDE, not SATA, but the motherboard did support SATA connection, DVD-RW optical drive, Logitech wireless keyboard and mouse, and Viewsonic 17″ flat panel monitor. Five years later, the only upgrade I had done was a 2nd hard drive (I think around 200GB). I once tried to put more RAM, but a third RAM stick caused memory errors, so it stayed at 2GB RAM. I never added a video card (the onboard video was good enough for Enter the Matrix, and that was all I needed, as I’m not much of a PC gamer anyway). I got Vista 32-bit a month or two after it came out in order to try it, but ultimately went back to XP Pro, which is the same installation of it still on it. I eventually partitioned the main drive, to triple boot it, adding two different Linux distros (PCLinux 2007 and OpenSUSE (whichever one was near that year), allowing me to tinker with Linux, while still keeping WindowsXP.

Just a few months ago, we booted it up, and it still works. A little slow, but the damn thing still works. The monitor, of course, is one of the best ones we’ve had (had built in speakers) and never one dead pixel ever surfaced. Basically, I got seriously lucky with that build. Everything still works. And when to the point where I wanted to have a laptop, in May 2008, I finally got one at Best Buy, a Toshiba Satellite, with 320GB HD, 4GB RAM, Intel processor and graphics, webcam, harman/kardon speakers, DVD-RW drive, and, what they seem to no longer have now, Firewire port to go with the 4 USB ports. Unfortunately, it was pre-loaded with Vista 64-bit. Fortunately, I have NEVER re-formatted it, do any reinstall, and only this year did I partition a sliver of space for a tiny Linux distro (Puredyne), just to try. I’m typing with it now. So, luck can hit twice.

Sometimes, though, aren’t so great. The computer I had before I made that build, was a Dell laptop that crapped out on me after two years (basically, right after any warranty that usually would’ve existed). While my current laptop has performed well (okay, it’s not as fast as it was when it was new, but is expected since I’ve installed/uninstalled software over the years). The Dell was absolute crap. It came with XP Home (the useless XP variety). I did manage to get XP Pro, since I was in community college, as a student I got a copy of XP Pro.

Now, my more recent build, the HTPC experience I blogged about way back in April of this year (not actually too many posts back). Everything was running fast and smooth when I got Windows 7 Home Premium and eventually even added Linux Mint 11 beside it. The dual boot worked great. Windows for everything, using Windows Media Center to record TV shows (with analog cable and the clear QAM channels), do some net surfing, plus a project I started working on at the end of summer, trying to backup all my DVDs and Blu-Rays to go with my Media Center. Linux was good for net surfing, but I also found it much faster at encoding video in Handbrake (Windows loads so much in the background, I think that makes a difference in performance of the same or similar software, or maybe it’s just in my head).

To recap the build, I got a pretty large case for an HTPC case (but I want to be able to put stuff in it, and even fit an standard ATX motherboard) w/500W PS, AMD AM3 motherboard (no onboard video), AMD Athlon 3GHz Regor Dual-Core Processor, 4GB Crucial DDR3 RAM, 500GB Western Digital Caviar Blue HD (SATA II), Sparkle GeForce 210 512MB DDR3 video card (PCI Express 2.0), Hauppauge HVR-2250 TV tuner card (PCI Express x1), which all came to about $405. I first tried to only use Mythbuntu, but I could’nt get the TV tuner to play nice with it, and had to use my Vista 32-bit I had bought about 4 years earlier, and even then that didn’t perform the DVR stuff well enough (had to use a third-party plug-in just to try to get the QAM channels). Eventually, I bought Win 7 Home Premium (OEM), and got a Sony Blu-Ray burner along with it, so that brought the total to about $605. All through the summer, it worked flawless, beautifully, allowed me to record QAM without any additional tweaks. I even go MCEBuddy to automatically convert those pesky WTV files to a more friendly (and smaller) mp4.

Well, at some point, after summer, the screen kept blacking out. I’ve seen this happen before, with the 2nd machine we got, which was in late 2001, a Compaq, unfortunately, with Windows ME (terrible OS). That one, we, of course, got XP on it eventually, as well as added a video card (GeForce). Well, it didn’t have a fan, so when I tried playing Rollercoaster Tycoon 2, it blacked out. We put in one of those little case fans that take a PCI slot up, and it worked fine afterward. So for this new machine, when it happened, what was once a good rated video card on NewEgg, wasn’t as high. Seems the fan isn’t a very good fan. So I had to put down $60 for a new card, since I couldn’t wait for a NewEgg delivery, I bought it in store at Best Buy (thus I paid more than I liked). It is still a GeForce 210, but PNY brand and with 1GB DDR2 RAM. Once I installed it, no more blackouts, and my Windows experience rating went from 4.8 to 5.1. Was it worth $60? No, but it got it working. My old card will probably work fine, just need to have some kind of secondary fan.

But the real reason for this post: the Hard Drive. Linux Mint 11 was when I first saw some issues arise. It was being real slow at accessing data. I looked at the Disk Utility, and it said there were a few bad sectors, but it was in green. So I checked in Windows. It loaded fine, and I got the Speccy application to read SMART data, and it said the drive health was good. So I figured, maybe a Linux thing. So I decided, well, the new Linux Mint 12 was just released, so I formatted the old partition to make way for Linux Mint 12. It installed, loaded up fast and worked fine. Disk Utility still said a few bad sectors, but again, was in green (versus red). But, I was also starting to notice some issues in Windows, particularly in playing back TV Shows. There was some freezing, and also, some video failing to properly convert to mp4 (or it converts but unable to write the new file, causing the totally fine converted file in the temp folder to disappear when the next video starts conversion).

Finally, it seemed ever more evident as Linux Mint 12 would no longer boot at all, and while Sunday I got Windows to load up and record the first 2 FOX animation shows (I watched other 2 live as ‘Leverage’ recorded). I watched both recorded FOX shows straight through, maybe one freeze-up, but when I did ‘Leverage,’ I couldn’t get half-way through. On Monday, I believe ‘Terra Nova’ recorded fine, and ’2 Broke Girls’ worked fine as well. Tuesday, Windows loaded fine, but it took forever to just highlight the ‘My Computer’ icon once clicked. I found an ‘Ultimate Boot Disc’ I made last year, and used a Diagnostic tool made for Western Digital drives, and it barely got ten seconds in before it brought up error code 0007. And on the Western Digital site, 0007 is in the range that says ‘Replace Drive’. Luckily, I had bought a 1TB Caviar Green drive from Staples (double the space, but more than twice the price, thanks to the Thailand flooding). Hence the title: Great Time for Hard Drive Failure. It didn’t give me a heads up on eminent failure before the price increases due to the flooding. Nope, while the prices have skyrocketed, that’s when I got worried enough to go ahead and buy a new hard drive for $100 (when I purchased the 500GB drive in late March, I paid $40 [note OEM drive from NewEgg, not a retail store purchase]).

So, back a few days when I bought the drive, I found I couldn’t install it alongside (at the time) functioning drive, as my Power Supply, only had two SATA Power connectors, and they were both in use. So I had to order an adapter, and while at it, a way to put the second drive into the 5″ bay. Both of those items came in Tuesday, just in time for when loading Windows is gone. So, a fresh install was the only way now.

Not so fast! Unfortunately, I misplaced my Win7 disc. So, at this time, I am using the ‘Ultimate Boot Disc,’ which just so happens to have Cloning tools. I’m using the HDClone Free Edition, and at about 30%, it had about 1,440 read errors.

One more thing to add, the drive bay adapter thingy I bought, kind of leaves a little opening into the case, but hey, maybe that’ll add more air near the drive.

Tomorrow, I’ll hopefully know more, and maybe the cloning tool will be successful, but with my luck, if I don’t find my Win7 disc, I may either try to find a Linux distro that’ll play nice with the HVR-2250 (I want both clear QAM and analog, but definitely need the QAM ability), and if that fails once more, it may come down to needing to buy Win 7 again, but I really hope that if it came to that, SSDs can go down a little more, because, if I’m gonna put more money into this, might as well upgrade to a good SSD for OS and programs, and this 1TB drive would be for storage. I’m also hoping I can get a replacement drive as it’s well within the 3-yr warranty (I registered the 1TB drive the day I got it, but I never did for the Blue drive, and since I’ve never been in such a situation as this, I don’t know what I can do.)