cori wrote:

First problem with new laptop (Vista): I authored a DVD last night with the files on one of my external harddrives and it worked fine. Today, when I turned on the laptop with the external HD still plugged in, the Windows screen wouldn't show up. That's fine because it happened with my other laptop (with XP). So I turned off the new laptop and unplugged the external HD and tried turning the laptop on again. I then plugged the external HD in and it said that there's a "USB device not recognized." Ok. So I unplugged and plugged it back again and the same thing happened. I tried plugging in my other external HD and that worked fine. A little frustrated, I tried plugging the non-working external HD into my desktop (XP), but it gave me the same "USB device not recognized" popup, which doesn't make any sense since I'm always plugging and unplugging my external HDs with the desktop. Please tell me that my external HD is not corrupted in some way because I had a lot of files on it. If it is, I hope there's some way to recover the files.

What's different about the two external HDs?

bmwracer wrote:

What's different about the two external HDs?

I commented on my LJ that there's no difference. The older one works, the newer one doesn't. They're both Seagate external HDs and they both are 500 GB. Only difference is that I can see is that they have different files on them.

It just doesn't make any sense since both external HDs worked just a couple of days ago on both laptop and desktop!

Only thing I can think of is that I switched between Vista and XP, but that still doesn't make any sense since I used the external with the laptop (Vista) and tried to use it again on the same laptop the next day and it didn't work. The problem was already there before I tried it with the desktop (XP).
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Did you use the tried-and-tried method of disconnecting the HD, shutting down the PC, then turning it back on and attaching the HD after the PC is done booting?

Maybe your newer HD has a bad USB interface.... You need to try it out on other PCs (if available) to determine how consistent the failure is.

bmwracer wrote:

Did you use the tried-and-tried method of disconnecting the HD, shutting down the PC, then turning it back on and attaching the HD after the PC is done booting?

Did all of that, but I'll try it again.

Quote:

Maybe your newer HD has a bad USB interface.... You need to try it out on other PCs (if available) to determine how consistent the failure is.

That could be the case, but it's just so coincidental that it only happened because of this new laptop.

I might try it out on my other laptop later tonight. Hmmm...maybe I should checking it with the computer at work.
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cori wrote:

I might try it out on my other laptop later tonight. Hmmm...maybe I should checking it with the computer at work.

Yup.

That's the only way to verify if the USB interface is shot or not.

bmwracer wrote:

Yup. That's the only way to verify if the USB interface is shot or not.

Ack, I knew there was something I forgot when I walked into the office.
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I got some dramas from someone today, but there are spots on majority of the discs where the data is. When viewing the discs on one of my DVD players, the picture was blocky and was skipping a lot; some to the point that the pic was frozen. I tried cleaning the disc, but the spots do not come off. I haven't had the chance to make a copy of the discs yet (it's 12:30am and I don't have time to do that now), but I'm wondering if anyone knows what the heck the spots are and what can be done about them.

Sorry for being so vague about this. Perhaps when I have more time tomorrow, I could take pics of the spots.
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cori wrote:

I got some dramas from someone today, but there are spots on majority of the discs where the data is. When viewing the discs on one of my DVD players, the picture was blocky and was skipping a lot; some to the point that the pic was frozen. I tried cleaning the disc, but the spots do not come off. I haven't had the chance to make a copy of the discs yet (it's 12:30am and I don't have time to do that now), but I'm wondering if anyone knows what the heck the spots are and what can be done about them. Sorry for being so vague about this. Perhaps when I have more time tomorrow, I could take pics of the spots.

Do you know what brand discs they are?

Sounds like the spots are inside the disc... Which means the disc is breaking down internally.

I've read stories about discs going bad when air or moisture gets inside of them... A badly made disc.

See this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD_rot

bmwracer wrote:

Do you know what brand discs they are? Sounds like the spots are inside the disc... Which means the disc is breaking down internally. I've read stories about discs going bad when air or moisture gets inside of them... A badly made disc. See this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD_rot

They are TDK discs. And I was thinking that it was DVD rot, but I wasn't too sure because they don't mention "spots" when I read some of the websites about it. If this is the case, man, that sucks.
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cori wrote:

They are TDK discs. And I was thinking that it was DVD rot, but I wasn't too sure because they don't mention "spots" when I read some of the websites about it. If this is the case, man, that sucks.

Better copy those discs ASAP...

bmwracer wrote:

Better copy those discs ASAP...

Yeah, I'm going to do that some time this weekend. Hopefully the info on the discs are ok.
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I found out that my external HD works out fine. I think that after unplugging everything and turning it back on again worked. I have to remember doing that if it ever happens again. I haven't tried it on my new laptop yet, but I will right after I'm done authoring a drama.
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I tried copying the one of the discs and it still has the weird blockiness, skipping, and stalling, so it can't be solved unless I get replacements. This kind of sucks since it's 5+ discs.
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cori wrote:

I tried copying the one of the discs and it still has the weird blockiness, skipping, and stalling, so it can't be solved unless I get replacements. This kind of sucks since it's 5+ discs.

Maybe you should try using ISOBuster to rip those discs...

Finally had the time to run an encode (avi > mpg) job using TMPGEnc to test my new work PC's processor speed: 28 minutes... VERY impressive.

For the same job on my home PC: 75 minutes...



Time to start thinking about a new motherboard.

bmwracer wrote:

Finally had the time to run an encode (avi > mpg) job using TMPGEnc to test my new work PC's processor speed: 28 minutes... VERY impressive. For the same job on my home PC: 75 minutes... Time to start thinking about a new motherboard.

Yeah.. you can get a lot for cheap these days.

I just helped my friend part out a full gaming PC from soup to nuts for about $800 and it had an nVidia 8800 GT (he got it for $119 after rebate - so even though there are a whole host of new choices, for him, that price is near impossible to beat) 4 gigs of mem, 500 gig Samsung Spinpoint F1, a great case, power supply, dvd r/w, a Gigabyte DS3L mobo and an Intel E7200 (fantastic bargain, btw - $129 for a 45nm process core2duo - should overclock like a mofo - even though it's got less cache, you can make up for it with a nice bump in clock speed) in it, so not the fastest, but no slouch!
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phlargo wrote:

Yeah.. you can get a lot for cheap these days. I just helped my friend part out a full gaming PC from soup to nuts for about $800 and it had an nVidia 8800 GT (he got it for $119 after rebate - so even though there are a whole host of new choices, for him, that price is near impossible to beat) 4 gigs of mem, 500 gig Samsung Spinpoint F1, a great case, power supply, dvd r/w, a Gigabyte DS3L mobo and an Intel E7200 (fantastic bargain, btw - $129 for a 45nm process core2duo - should overclock like a mofo - even though it's got less cache, you can make up for it with a nice bump in clock speed) in it, so not the fastest, but no slouch!

I don't know how to explain it, but after reading that it sounds like I'm on the Anandtech.com (computer/tech site) forums instead. That and J-Dorama.com are the only two forums I really keep up with.

Really nice specs on the computer, good choice on that E7200. I'd definitely consider that just on overclocking ability alone. Sweet deal on that 8800GT as well at that price. To think just weeks ago most of the 8800GTs models were going for $150 or more, even with rebates. RAM's been pretty cheap, at least when it comes to DDR2. Like you mentioned, it's not the fastest, but still a heck of system when it comes to performance for price

deseipher wrote:

I don't know how to explain it, but after reading that it sounds like I'm on the Anandtech.com (computer/tech site) forums instead. That and J-Dorama.com are the only two forums I really keep up with. Really nice specs on the computer, good choice on that E7200. I'd definitely consider that just on overclocking ability alone. Sweet deal on that 8800GT as well at that price. To think just weeks ago most of the 8800GTs models were going for $150 or more, even with rebates. RAM's been pretty cheap, at least when it comes to DDR2. Like you mentioned, it's not the fastest, but still a heck of system when it comes to performance for price

Haha.. funny you say that - I've been on the anandtech forums for like 10 years now.. I've been going to the site since it was "Anand's Tech Hardware Page"
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"Actually, I don't have bones. I'm supported
by a system of fluid-filled bladders"

And, incidentally, I've been building systems for clients since I was 14.... and have been an overclocking enthusiast since my Celeron M (the one without the silly plastic packaging the Pentium 2 had, but came with 128k full speed cache) was able to jump from 300 mhz to 450 with a simple FSB change.

I've had quite a few fun gaming systems in my years
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phlargo wrote:

And, incidentally, I've been building systems for clients since I was 14.... and have been an overclocking enthusiast since my Celeron M (the one without the silly plastic packaging the Pentium 2 had, but came with 128k full speed cache) was able to jump from 300 mhz to 450 with a simple FSB change. I've had quite a few fun gaming systems in my years

My current system is the first one I've overclocked. I only had two computers of my own before that, so I'm still kind of new to the enthusiast scene. I bought a E4300 for my current build; a FSB bump allowed it to go from 1.8GHz to 3.0GHz. The Core 2's are pretty darn good when it comes to overclocking. I mean, it's been written about, but once I found out for myself it was quite impressive to get that muich performance for price. Whenever I put together my next build, a highly overclockable CPU will definitely be going in there.