Computer tower blows up!

Ann McRae

There was a pop and a puff of smoke and the computer was gone.......

Likely death by dust bunnies.

So now the question is - can the hard drive be rescued? (and if not can smugmug save me?!?:uhoh )

Then the question is what do I do to repalce this? We were in need of more storage space anyway, so simply buying a new tower and more space is one option. But I am considering a second computer at this point - one just for my stuff. Time to read the windows vs. mac arguements I guess.

ann

dragon300zx

It sounds like the power supply blew in which case most likely your hard drive should be salvagable. As long as it didn't get a voltage spike your fine. May even be able to just replace the power supply and be up and running again. Where was the smoke from?

Ann McRae

dragon300zx wrote:

It sounds like the power supply blew in which case most likely your hard drive should be salvagable. As long as it didn't get a voltage spike your fine. May even be able to just replace the power supply and be up and running again. Where was the smoke from?

I don't know for sure - I was a little freaked. But the power supply fan was rather dusty and the smell was of burning hair, so...Thats what we are thinking too, so hope the 'puter doctor can fix it.

Will allow us to contemplate (and figure out how to afford) another computer or not.

ann

JimM

I agree with Dragon. Try another power supply. If this doesn't work, your hard drive is still probably salvagable.

Ann McRae

Well, the good, no actually great news is that the power source was all that blew.

ann

W.W. Webster

Do I take it you have no backup?

Ann McRae wrote:

So now the question is - can the hard drive be rescued? (and if not can smugmug save me?!?:uhoh )ann

Really?

Ann McRae

W.W. Webster wrote:

Really?

Actually I have almost everything on cd. But not everything.

And it turns out I lost one program - Raw Shooters Essentials won't run, won't re install.

ann

ian408

Ann McRae wrote:

Actually I have almost everything on cd. But not everything.

And it turns out I lost one program - Raw Shooters Essentials won't run, won't re install.

ann

Should you need them in the future, I've used a company called Action Front
Data Recovery in Santa Clara. They're a Canadian company with offices in
Toronto as well as other locations. Action Front's web page.

No connection to AF except as a satisfied customer.

Ian

Ann McRae

ian408 wrote:

Should you need them in the future, I've used a company called Action Front
Data Recovery in Santa Clara. They're a Canadian company with offices in
Toronto as well as other locations. Action Front's web page.

No connection to AF except as a satisfied customer.

Ian

Cool! Thanks, Ian.

ann

DRT-Maverick

Harddrives generally don't die even if the PC itself has, the data should be recoverable, and if no burning occured on the harddrive, you might just be able to plug it in (sorry if someone covered this, I'm at work and typing quickly). I once purposely burned up my celeron computer, caught it on fire, OCed a 433mhz processor to over 1.5GHz. Went nearly as fast as I could turn the power on. The smell of silicon is terrible!

ian408

DRT-Maverick wrote:

Harddrives generally don't die even if the PC itself has, the data should be recoverable, and if no burning occured on the harddrive, you might just be able to plug it in (sorry if someone covered this, I'm at work and typing quickly). I once purposely burned up my celeron computer, caught it on fire, OCed a 433mhz processor to over 1.5GHz. Went nearly as fast as I could turn the power on. The smell of silicon is terrible!

You should work with laptops Happens more frequently than you might
imagine (failed disks).

Just so you know, there's a reason that part was yielded the way it was
OC'ing works to a degree but hey, 3x?

Ian