Computers and Related Hardware/Software

I have a super old comp whose sole purpose of existance is to d/l J-drama via BT. It's a win 98 machine, PII 400MHz!! Still, on a daily basis, it faithfully manages to get the J-dorama I want.

So one of my friends gets rid of his super old machine, and he gives me the two RAM sticks and the hard drive from his machine. Great, I think, I'll put these in in no time. Famous last words.

The RAM went in ok. Have to take out an old, super small drive (D:). Put new drive in bracket, and connect all the cables. The machine wouldn't recongize his drive.... Won't even boot. Check the jumpors...ok. Try again. No go. Deliberately put the jumpers on "Master" which I know is wrong. No go. Unplug the power supply from the new drive. Machine boots. Juice on. No boot. Take the jumper off. No boot. Put the jumpers back on "Slave" (where it was originally). It BOOTS!! No idea why.

So machine finishes booting. Look at my computer. The stupid thing has two partitions...I want one big one for all the J-Drama. Look on the internet and have a crash course in using fdisk.

Fire up fdisk, and hope I don't delete the main partition of the C: drive. 10 minutes later, I manage to delete both partitions and make a new primary partition. Restart. Machine actually boots up (thank God). Then I have to format the drive.

What I though would take 30 minutes has taken over 3 hours..... Now I need SARS to release Ep2 of H&C so I can see if it works....

Hmm, a bit risky to take an old HD: you don't know how much life is left in it... It'd be wise to run a thorough disc check and defrag on it... And maybe be a little wary... :sweat:

bmwracer wrote:Hmm, a bit risky to take an old HD: you don't know how much life is left in it... It'd be wise to run a thorough disc check and defrag on it... And maybe be a little wary... :sweat:

After I did the repartition and reformat, I ran a through check, and it was ok. The old disk was starting to give a hgih pitched whine, so I think that all that J-Dorama had expended its life. It's just the data disc now (D:) where the downloads go, so if it dies, it's not all that bad.

Wow, 3 posts in a row from me. :sweat:

I use Firefox as my browser and I noticed for months now that when I put my mouse over a link, it doesn't show the location on the bottom. Does anyone know how I can bring that back again because it really gets bothersome when I don't know what file it is without doing the "right-click/properties" thing. :grumble:

By the way, this is only occuring with my desktop computer. My laptop shows the link location just fine.

cori wrote:Wow, 3 posts in a row from me. :sweat:

I use Firefox as my browser and I noticed for months now that when I put my mouse over a link, it doesn't show the location on the bottom. Does anyone know how I can bring that back again because it really gets bothersome when I don't know what file it is without doing the "right-click/properties" thing. :grumble:

By the way, this is only occuring with my desktop computer. My laptop shows the link location just fine.

If you have IE installed, try it out using IE... If it's okay, then you might need to reinstall Firefox... AFTER you unistall it and reboot your PC. :)

bmwracer wrote:
If you have IE installed, try it out using IE... If it's okay, then you might need to reinstall Firefox... AFTER you unistall it and reboot your PC. :)

IE works fine, it's just Firefox that screws up. Weird thing is I remember it working before. And when I go onto a different username on this computer, it works fine too. It's just my username's Firefox that hates me. :grumble:

I'll reinstall it later tonight or tomorrow. Thanks for the help, beem. :)

cori wrote:I'll reinstall it later tonight or tomorrow. Thanks for the help, beem. :)

I'm here 24/7 for you dancing and dining pleasure.


Not really. :beaten:










I don't dance.

bmwracer wrote:I don't dance.

Oh really? That's too bad because it would've sealed the deal for you. What deal? Himitsu desu. :mrgreen:

And I'll be sure to post again when I get a chance to fix the problem. :)

cori wrote:And I'll be sure to post again when I get a chance to fix the problem. :)

BTW, we have a Firefox thread. :beaten:

Madoka wrote:It's just the data disc now (D:) where the downloads go, so if it dies, it's not all that bad.

That depends on how many downloads you have saved there. ;) :sweat:

bmwracer wrote:
That depends on how many downloads you have saved there. ;) :sweat:

LOL! True. Fortunately, I just download on that computer, then transfer it onto my 750 GB HD for viewing purposes an a faster machine. If that monster drive ever dies, I'm gonna cry.

Madoka wrote:750 GB HD

It must've taken a while to format that bad boy. :beaten: :sweat: :sweat:

bmwracer wrote:
It must've taken a while to format that bad boy. :beaten: :sweat: :sweat:

Luckily for me, it came formatted as an NTFS drive. It's an external so I can hook it up to any of my machines.

Madoka wrote:Luckily for me, it came formatted as an NTFS drive. It's an external so I can hook it up to any of my machines.

Cool. :thumbsup:

Can anyone recommend a good internal or external hard drive? My computer is a little on the old side(2000) and I think it's an IDE wiring. I don't want to burden the main HD with large files so I'm looking for a secondary. Guess the main criteria is reliability and longevity at 160GB or so.

Kijinnmaru wrote:Can anyone recommend a good internal or external hard drive? My computer is a little on the old side(2000) and I think it's an IDE wiring. I don't want to burden the main HD with large files so I'm looking for a secondary. Guess the main criteria is reliability and longevity at 160GB or so.

Check tomorrow's Fry's Ad... You're bound to find a good drive for sale there.

If it's strictly for backup purposes, get an external, otherwise buy an internal drive... If there's room for it.

Externals are gonna cost a bit more because they have their own power supply and stuff.

Not so much backup, but for downloading files. I don't want to ruin my main drive constantly downloading and deleting large files. Figured a second drive would reduce the wear-and-tear.

Kijinnmaru wrote:Not so much backup, but for downloading files. I don't want to ruin my main drive constantly downloading and deleting large files. Figured a second drive would reduce the wear-and-tear.

It wouldn't really save that much because the drive is always spinning when your PC is on... The motor bearing of the HD is probably is biggest wear and tear item in a drive.

Not sure if external drives have some kinda power down mode when not in use for long periods... They also have slower data transfer rates than internal drives...

bmwracer wrote:
Not sure if external drives have some kinda power down mode when not in use for long periods... They also have slower data transfer rates than internal drives...

They do. That external drive of mine will spin down after a while.

Madoka wrote:They do. That external drive of mine will spin down after a while.

Thanks for the confirmation. :victory: