Computer Questions Not Worth Their Own Thread

[Padma]

I remember years ago, working on mainframes, we got a new disk unit in for one of our systems. The manufacturer's explicit "Mean Time Between Failures" was like four years. That unit died in two weeks. "Mean Time Between Failure", or "average lifespan" is still just an average. The actual lifetimes are spread all over, most likely in a bell curve. But you still get occasional outliers way out at either end of the bell curve.

 

[lndm]

One other thing is multiple concurrent file access. Windows tends to deal with each file in small parts causing the drive to switch to one file just to read a little of it then back to the other to read some of it and so on. This causes much drive activity and a greatly increased time for file actions as the drive seek time becomes a critical issue.

Windows may be swapping whilst you're doing something else. You may want to experiment with reducing the size of the swapfile. On a non windows OS you can typically go without a swapfile if you have sufficient RAM. With a windows OS you can sometimes disable it. You may need to keep a file of a few MB if something complains.

 

[Souron]

I remember years ago, working on mainframes, we got a new disk unit in for one of our systems. The manufacturer's explicit "Mean Time Between Failures" was like four years. That unit died in two weeks. "Mean Time Between Failure", or "average lifespan" is still just an average. The actual lifetimes are spread all over, most likely in a bell curve. But you still get occasional outliers way out at either end of the bell curve.

From what I saw when looking for a harddrive, It seems harddrives have a high chance of failing within the first month of use. If it survives a month, then it should survive a while. But failing within that first month does not qualify as being an outlier. I suspect that the4 year mean fail time does not include drives that fail within a month.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I had one that failed after 4 days, just after I had transferred all my data and erased it from the source. I sued Maxtor and got $3000.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

I had one that failed after 4 days, just after I had transferred all my data and erased it from the source. I sued Maxtor and got $3000.

Did you get data recovery with that?

 

[Mulholland]

With all this hard drive doom and gloom about the forums I have decided that I really need to back up my data and settings. I have a new 250 GB HD just lying around and a couple SATA connectors to plug it in.

What's the best way to back up my data and settings on this new HD? If I image my old HD on this new one can I boot from the new one if the old one fails? Will Microsfoft make this difficult for me with it's copyright protection?

 

[lndm]

If you can image your drive onto the new one then why not use it and put the old one in a safe place as a backup? It'll probably be faster/more quiet/more reliable etc.

Personally, I'd take the opportunity to run the files and settings transfer wizard for your settings (if wanted), remove your old drive, put in the new one and do a reinstall of windows and your apps, plug in the old drive and sift through your files, then take out the old one.

You won't have any copyright issues at this level.

 

[Mulholland]

Personally, I'd take the opportunity to run the files and settings transfer wizard for your settings (if wanted), remove your old drive, put in the new one and do a reinstall of windows and your apps, plug in the old drive and sift through your files, then take out the old one.

You won't have any copyright issues at this level.

Would I have to put a windows installation on the new drive first? How about formatting. Are drives NTFS out of the box?

 

[Turner]

I don't think so. The Settings and Transfer wizard is part of Windows, and AFAIK doesn't require the installation disc. That said, I've never used this function myself.

Drives are not normally formatted when you buy them, NTFS or otherwise, IME.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

Ive got one of my own -- what is Vista doing exactly when its shutting down? I hit the power button on my pc at 1am last night and went to sleep (Long day at work so i was out almost immediately). Woke up at 4am and noticed my pc was still on with the "Windows is shutting down" message that Vista has. Had to hold the power button to get it to shut off. The most interesting thing is the HDD light was going off like crazy and I noticed FaH didnt stop until 4am, not 1am when I originally told the pc to shut down. Same thing with mIRC, it didnt disconnect until 4am according to my logs.

OT - Turner, your user title is gonna be my senior quote

 

[lndm]

Would I have to put a windows installation on the new drive first? How about formatting. Are drives NTFS out of the box?

If you want to run the wizard, boot normally and do it first before you swap the drives. The Windows installation routine will step you through formatting the new drive.

Ive got one of my own -- what is Vista doing exactly when its shutting down? I hit the power button on my pc at 1am last night and went to sleep (Long day at work so i was out almost immediately). Woke up at 4am and noticed my pc was still on with the "Windows is shutting down" message that Vista has.

I was first going to suggest that you don't have ACPI (power management) turned on in your BIOS. Then it occured to me that Vista likes to schedule automatic updates over-night after you shut down.

About mIRC? Maybe it was just sitting idle until windows shut down?

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Power management reminds me -- why would a computer refuse to come out of hibernate? Every time I go in standby or hibernate, I always end up having to do a hard boot. (I have an AMD Athlon processor.)
I googled it but the ones I could find is where the computer won't boot up at all after a standby.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

I was first going to suggest that you don't have ACPI (power management) turned on in your BIOS. Then it occured to me that Vista likes to schedule automatic updates over-night after you shut down.

About mIRC? Maybe it was just sitting idle until windows shut down?

mIRC was just an example. A lot of my programs didnt shut down until 4am. I know for a fact ACPI is turned on and there were no updates.
This is so far the one and only time Vista did this to me.

 

[Atticus]

About those HDDs: Windows (usually) has only "recovery CD" with it, not installation CD. I understand that means you can't install Windows with it (although I suppose I'm wrong on this, and they're using inaccurate word for some unknown reasons). How is it, can you install with it, or just "recover"? And if latter, are there any legitimate ways to install Windows after HDD blows?

 

[lndm]

@ stickciv and aimee: I've never had much patience with windows and I'm a little heavy handed with the power button if you know what I mean. It's happened to me too and I'm going to just wait for the next service pack.

@ Atticus: Recovery is installation, just tailored to your system. You could probably extract the windows install files from the CD but only if you have a reason to bother, IMO.

 

[Mulholland]

If you want to run the wizard, boot normally and do it first before you swap the drives. The Windows installation routine will step you through formatting the new drive.

Thanks.
10 char.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

@ stickciv and aimee: I've never had much patience with windows and I'm a little heavy handed with the power button if you know what I mean. It's happened to me too and I'm going to just wait for the next service pack.

Well, I really dont like to hard shut-down the system cus everything complains when I boot it up in the morning. On the other hand, if Vista taking 3 hours to shut down becomes a more usual occurence, im gonna start pulling the power cord to shut it down...

 

[Atticus]

Thanks, Indm!

 

[Genocidicbunny]

Alright, another one: Why does Vista use 100% of my RAM whenever im installing something big, like any recent game? And no, it doesnt release the RAM when another app needs it. In fact, it doesnt release it at all. This comes because as I was installing RA3 just now, my pc first slowed down, then completely halted and Vista crashed because it ran out of memory.

EDIT - and no, this is not prefetching. I know what that looks like and this is not it.

 

[lndm]

Thanks, Indm!

You're welcome

Well, I really dont like to hard shut-down the system cus everything complains when I boot it up in the morning.

Hehe. Don't get me wrong, this is just a sore point with me. It was one of the earlier cases of windows forcing its dumb suggestions on me...a sign of things to come. When the ATX case specification removed the hard power switch in favour of a soft power scheme, that just gave me the ****. Subsequently for years I disabled write back caching on principle, but mainly because I don't like it. When I save something I expect the drive to be given the data then and there

</soapbox>

Alright, another one: Why does Vista use 100% of my RAM whenever im installing something big, like any recent game? And no, it doesnt release the RAM when another app needs it. In fact, it doesnt release it at all. This comes because as I was installing RA3 just now, my pc first slowed down, then completely halted and Vista crashed because it ran out of memory.

EDIT - and no, this is not prefetching. I know what that looks like and this is not it.

Not prefetching, not sure, but caching perhaps?

There is a theory that unused RAM is wasted RAM. Assuming that caching is happening and if windows handles a couple of Gigs worth of files and goings on, and then has nothing better to use the RAM for then why relinquish it?