HDD failure or Windows Update F'up.

[Tiny]

Just had my old laptop crash, did a hard reset, then fail to start, Vista start up recovery tool, didn't get it going again. Several tries.
Put old drive in, that I cloned from to upgrade drive a year or so ago, & all is good, apart from out of date warnings. lol

Suspect windows recent update as it's been getting slower & slower since.
Had BSOD yesterday, ran disk checker & all good??
Yeah I know it's Vista, I should toss it.

Or it's the HDD failed.

It's only my VAIO Laptop (9 years old) that I use when the missus is using the Super Computer (PC).
Nothing important to lose, so I probably should just ditch it & get a new one as it's a little slow at best.

I'll try plugging in the possibly failed HDD to a spare sata cable on the PC & see if it reads & operates OK.

Any thoughts??

[bob_m_54]

Yeah, don't toss the lappy, load Linux Mint onto it and have a play with that. You may not go back to window. I'm using my old Toshiba M300 with Linux Mint 17 and very rarely boot up my 18 month old win 8.1 machine now.

[AlexM]

On the subject. For HDD you can use SMART diagnostic
if your HDD is not too ancient it should supports it.

Slightly off the subject. I personally would not waste more time on on 9 y.o. hardware than chucking it to the bin unless you need data from it. I wouldn't be installing Linux on 9 y.o. old machine today. Almost everything is far too obsolete, not just HDD. It will be too slow and it it will perhaps spoil the look and feel of modern Linux.

Unless you are on a tight budget get second hand 2 y.o. laptop on eBay or Gumtree and install Linux. One you get used to it you won't get back to Windows ever again. I recently bought 2 y.o. HP Laptop i3 with 8 Gb Ram and 500Gb HDD for under $100 on ebay auction. Hardware these days is dirty cheap especially if you buy it second hand online.

[spook]

I run a 15 year old laptop with an up to date linux, with 256m ram and 10G HD. It's not that slow at all, as it runs in ram.

[Tiny]

Well I hooked the drive up to my W10 PC & read some folders, however my user folder (all my data), started to read then crashed, with drive light in overdrive (permanently on).

Tried to back out of there to another folder & W10 crashed, reset W10 & the drive would read again any folder except my folder, so have decided it's a drive issue, maybe a read head has gone or the file system is corrupt.

No big deal as I don't have anything important on it, the backup drive is working fine, it's just a little full.

Time for a new Lappy as I couldn't be bothered with Vista any more & the hardware on the 9 yo VAIO is not worth upgrading. Past it's use by date.

[Tiny]

OK so I got curious & did some more testing on the laptop with the failed HDD in.

VAIO hardware check revealed the HDD is OK, however one Memory module has an error, ah the BSOD explained.

Now module removed, still wont boot into windows, further test reveals Corrupt ACL (Access Control List), probably happened during the BSOD episode, not sure what files - obviously system files to do with my account that stop windows from startup & repair as it can't access the files.

So temporarily I'm going to do a "Phil" & format the f##ker, reinstall my backup. Should solve the issue until I get a new PC, not spending any more time on this old bugger.

[bob_m_54]

On the subject. For HDD you can use SMART diagnostic
if your HDD is not too ancient it should supports it.

Slightly off the subject. I personally would not waste more time on on 9 y.o. hardware than chucking it to the bin unless you need data from it. I wouldn't be installing Linux on 9 y.o. old machine today. Almost everything is far too obsolete, not just HDD. It will be too slow and it it will perhaps spoil the look and feel of modern Linux.

Unless you are on a tight budget get second hand 2 y.o. laptop on eBay or Gumtree and install Linux. One you get used to it you won't get back to Windows ever again. I recently bought 2 y.o. HP Laptop i3 with 8 Gb Ram and 500Gb HDD for under $100 on ebay auction. Hardware these days is dirty cheap especially if you buy it second hand online.

My Toshiba is 8 years old, and has no problems running Mint17. It doesn't "spoil the look and feel of modern Linux" and runs much faster than than Vista ever did on it.
If the lappy is otherwise just going to be junked, why not put it to use doing something it is more than capable of handling.

[Philquad]

dont be so tight tiny

chuck xp on it
you know you want it

[lsemmens]

Your 9 yo lappy should be very happy running Linux. My only issue with Linux has been legacy hardware on older desktops, never the performance. I'm actually successfully running W10 on an older desktop (Has an XP license sticker on it).

[AlexM]

My Toshiba is 8 years old, and has no problems running Mint17. It doesn't "spoil the look and feel of modern Linux" and runs much faster than than Vista ever did on it.
If the lappy is otherwise just going to be junked, why not put it to use doing something it is more than capable of handling.

Well you might have upgraded memory, battery and HDD as the original config was probably lower and the battery if alive does not hold much charge. So it's not quite 8 y.old. Otherwise it would have been best of what money could buy back in 2008 - probably worth well in excess of $1000+. Mine ($100 HP from eBay) has i3 3110M CPU with Intel HD4000 graphics. Originally it had 4Gb RAM (but I added another 4Gb stick). Otherwise my HP laptop is pretty basic model while I do like durability, rigidness and quality of all HP range.

Overall Core 2 P7350 is about 250% slower than i3 3110M, and Intel HD4000 is about 300% faster than Radeon HD3450. Built in i3 memory controller over-performs core 2 memory bandwidth (which has memory controller on external chipset) by about 200-300% let alone double memory size. Given the energy efficiency of new i3 with on board graphics vs Core 2 with external video card, the battery won't even last one third of what HP does even assuming your battery is still in decent shape after 8 years. Yours certainly costs more to run in electricity bill than newer HP. Price/performance (old top model vs basic new) is even more confronting..

While your laptop still turns bytes, the question is does it worth keeping its light on?

[bob_m_54]

Well you might have upgraded memory, battery and HDD as the original config was probably lower and the battery if alive does not hold much charge. So it's not quite 8 y.old. Otherwise it would have been best of what money could buy back in 2008 - probably worth well in excess of $1000+. Mine ($100 HP from eBay) has i3 3110M CPU with Intel HD4000 graphics. Originally it had 4Gb RAM (but I added another 4Gb stick). Otherwise my HP laptop is pretty basic model while I do like durability, rigidness and quality of all HP range.

Overall Core 2 P7350 is about 250% slower than i3 3110M, and Intel HD4000 is about 300% faster than Radeon HD3450. Built in i3 memory controller over-performs core 2 memory bandwidth (which has memory controller on external chipset) by about 200-300% let alone double memory size. Given the energy efficiency of new i3 with on board graphics vs Core 2 with external video card, the battery won't even last one third of what HP does even assuming your battery is still in decent shape after 8 years. Yours certainly costs more to run in electricity bill than newer HP. Price/performance (old top model vs basic new) is even more confronting..

While your laptop still turns bytes, the question is does it worth keeping its light on?

Actually, you have caught me out there, I did steal the ram chip from another exactly the same laptop that had a screen die. But the rest is stock standard, including the HDD and battery (which will run the lappy for about 20 mins when not on 240V) and was bought in 2008. So yes, it probably does cost me about 50c more to run a day than the latest and greatest.

I don't understand why we are comparing my "sub-standard" machine to the HP? But I prefer Toshiba to HP any day, even though it is totally irrelevant.

As for the question of is it worth keeping? well it's worth more, as a learning tool and a quite useful computer, than it is as landfill. Which is not very eco-friendly anyway, considering what is inside a computer.

My thinking is, why are we such a throwaway society? Do we really need to go out and spend money on the latest and greatest if we already have something that does whatever we need it to? And if it doesn't fulfil the required tasks, by all means, go a get a tool that does what you need it to. But put the, not so flashy, machine to use doing something it is more than capable of.

[lsemmens]

Just as a thought, if you have a lappy with a dead screen ( assuming that is all that is wrong ) and an identical lappy that is playing up (i.e. unidentifiable problem) why don't you just put the good screen on the other lappy and use that?

[AlexM]

Just as a thought, if you have a lappy with a dead screen ( assuming that is all that is wrong ) and an identical lappy that is playing up (i.e. unidentifiable problem) why don't you just put the good screen on the other lappy and use that?

Well, I did face this very question! My old HP laptop (around 6 y.o) felt on a tile floor and had screen gone and the case cracked. I checked on eBay parts and found screen for $50 including shipping. The battery by that time needed replacement - it lasted some 20 min too. Broken case could be glued but It would look really ugly. As an alternative, I came across 2 y.o. HP which would not boot up and sold as "not working". I reinstalled OS and it works just fine ever since.

Why are we so wasteful? Paradoxically I think because we are so rational! The electronics becomes so quickly obsolete and loosing its intrinsic value. The Moore law can be extended by saying computing devices are loosing their intrinsic value at a rate of computing power growth.

It just does not make economical sense any significant investing in fixing older goods.

[koshari]

It just does not make economical sense any significant investing in fixing older goods.

Given you can buy an entry level PC for round $400 the trade off for paying and profesional on top of rrplacement parts fast becomes unviable. Of course the roll your own hobbyist repairs with salvaged parts scenario mentioned in this thread is a totally different animal.

[bob_m_54]

Just as a thought, if you have a lappy with a dead screen ( assuming that is all that is wrong ) and an identical lappy that is playing up (i.e. unidentifiable problem) why don't you just put the good screen on the other lappy and use that?

From what has been posted, the OP has a lappy with a stuffed OS on it (hopefully not a dying HDD), and it is pretty old and slow, so he's wondering if it is worth keeping the lappy, or tossing it and buying a new one.

In his case, I'd buy a new one if I absolutely needed a windows machine, but keep the old one to use as a perfectly good Linux machine.

In my case, I had two Vista machines, one had a stuffed OS load, the other has a stuffed screen. I kept the one that was OK hardware wise, and cannibalised the RAM and HDD from the other one with the dead screen. I then fitted the RAM to the good machine, kept the HDD as a spare OS or spare HDD to use in a Raspberry Pi music streamer, and loaded Linux Mint 17 onto the now slightly upgraded machine.

Edit: OK he also has a stuffed RAM module.
Fix= a new ram module from the computer markets, $10 max + New OS Linux flavour, Free... ???????????? why wouldn't you? and you can learn something in the process.

[Tiny]

From what has been posted, the OP has a lappy with a stuffed OS on it (hopefully not a dying HDD), and it is pretty old and slow, so he's wondering if it is worth keeping the lappy, or tossing it and buying a new one.

In his case, I'd buy a new one if I absolutely needed a windows machine, but keep the old one to use as a perfectly good Linux machine.

In my case, I had two Vista machines, one had a stuffed OS load, the other has a stuffed screen. I kept the one that was OK hardware wise, and cannibalised the RAM and HDD from the other one with the dead screen. I then fitted the RAM to the good machine, kept the HDD as a spare OS or spare HDD to use in a Raspberry Pi music streamer, and loaded Linux Mint 17 onto the now slightly upgraded machine.

Edit: OK he also has a stuffed RAM module.
Fix= a new ram module from the computer markets, $10 max + New OS Linux flavour, Free... ???????????? why wouldn't you? and you can learn something in the process.

Correctly interpreted bob, you're getting good at this.

I sidelined the old lappy, will keep it running with the old drive as a sacrifice for dodgy downloads.

Picked up a new 15.6" lappy with W10 64bit, i7, 4gB RAM, 1TB HDD & DVD optical drive. ~$800.

Zooms along just like my big custom built (by me) video editing PC.

Thanks all for your suggestions.

[mtv]

Picked up a new 15.6" lappy with W10 64bit, i7, 4gB RAM, 1TB HDD & DVD optical drive. ~$800.

Zooms along just like my big custom built (by me) video editing PC.

Sounds like a good deal, Tiny.

Sorry for OT, curious what your video editing setup consists of? (HW & SW)

[Tiny]

Sounds like a good deal, Tiny.

Sorry for OT, curious what your video editing setup consists of? (HW & SW)

See this post here

That setup & now running W10, it's so good for video editing!
Also added a couple more HDD for storage & backup as it has room to run up to 8 drives comfortably.

Actually looking back on the thread; you gave advice as well as Phil, Admin & others on build parts & best suppliers. Thanks,

EDIT: forgot the Video software, using Cyberlink PowerDirector 11- 64 bit, excellent prog. Been with Cyberlink since about version 3 I think, it just gets better.
Probably time to update it.
BTW it has been the best thing I ever did getting this laptop, it has made networking with the main PC so much easier (once I worked it out) than what it was with Vista.
Feck knows why I persevered with Vista for so long.

[mtv]

Good to hear (or not hear, as in noise) that it's humming along nicely.

Must have missed your post waaaaay back then.... thanks now added.