[solved] Drive failure

[tirpider]

The drive on my dev machine just died this morning.
I still have the source from the release thread, but work on the GUI is on that drive. (I am so glad I upped it here.)

It spins up and I can get to the data, but it fails boot saying hal.dll is gone. (that's an important windows file.)
If all goes well testing the drive, then it's somewhere on the PC (could be anything from the controller to bad memory.) either way, I can't test models or levels till it's back up or replaced. This machine won't run any of the tools (SWBF, Softimage, or ZeroEdit.)

I half hope to get a new machine out of this adventure, but I'm not looking forward to Win 7 or 8. But I guess I could always use a VM for all my XP stuff.  Anyone have problems with ZeroEdit in a virtual machine?

As a side adventure, I finally got around to re-soldering the power connectors on my old external hd controller.

[Phobos]

That sucks, I had a HD die a few years ago when the psu fried everything (ram and mobo included). It's a good thing you backed up the important sources, we would hate to see all your hard work lost on something so useful.

Out of curiosity what brand is the HD? I've had pretty good luck with Western Digital they have yet to fail on me.

[Led]

Win 7 is not so bad.  If you get win 7 pro you can run in a Virtual XP mode.  I picked up a core i5 HP refurb on ebay for about $400 recently.

[tirpider]

It's a Seagate Barracuda 200GB @ 7200rpm
Old parallel ATA.

Just finished testing it and it seems ok, so I am guessing it's further up the cable.
Going to spend the rest of the day turning screws and doing test boots (yay :/ )

While I'm in there I'm going to check the pinout for the display. The one I'm looking at is much better than the little bitty one I'm used to. I remember reading somewhere that some laptop and all-in-one displays could be easily attached to DVI. I could be remembering completely wrong, and it's all moot if I can't find the bad part.

Win 7 is not so bad.  If you get win 7 pro you can run in a Virtual XP mode.  I picked up a core i5 HP refurb on ebay for about $400 recently.

Thanks for the heads up. $400 is not a bad price, and an i5 is light years ahead of the pile of P4's I am surrounded by.

[RepComm]

I know several folks that have the same issue on Windows 7 as me; BFBuilder doesn't work fully. (Same goes for SWBFII mod tools.)

I might get an older used computer previous to Win7 and start on that..

Windows seven isn't that bad really, a little bit different, but I like it more. (Especially over Vista  )
--
I don't really have any REAL technical support for you though. I didn't like Win7 much at first, but it grows on you.
- Also, setting up wired connections is a hassle for me (i.e.: Printers)

[Led]

These are nothing fancy, but would work:

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&_nkw=HP+P6&_dcat=179&Operating%2520System=Windows%25207&rt=nc

If you had the $$, I would step up to win7Pro though, e.g.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-PAVILION-P7-1380T-PC-Quad-Core-i5-3330-3GHz-6GB-Ram-1TB-HD-DVDRW-W7P-/281133182634?pt=Desktop_PCs&hash=item4174d7eeaa

also, I would not mess around with anyone that doesn't sell official manufacturer refurbished HPs (colocomputer and 1digitalsource are good sellers).  I've always had good luck with them, but have been burned with bad units from individuals.

[Gold Man]

I know several folks that have the same issue on Windows 7 as me; BFBuilder doesn't work fully. (Same goes for SWBFII mod tools.)

I might get an older used computer previous to Win7 and start on that..

Windows seven isn't that bad really, a little bit different, but I like it more. (Especially over Vista  )
--
I don't really have any REAL technical support for you though. I didn't like Win7 much at first, but it grows on you.
- Also, setting up wired connections is a hassle for me (i.e.: Printers)

As a Vista user, I love the GUI setup personally. However, I hate that it consumes your RAM like mad (which explains my overheats, since Vista can't run well even with 8GB of DDR2 RAM apparently).

I really do regret not upgrading my laptop to Windows 7 at Staples when they offered it. Though we have an old desktop upstairs with XP on it (something went wrong with it, I'm guessing the hard drive got corrupted), and I'm planning on salvaging the case and processor form that thing. Reason for the processor is that I've heard it runs Windows 7 very effectively according to reviews.

On topic however, I really got no tech advice to offer ya, but I do hope you get a new drive!

[tirpider]

oh  my  god...
I Just did a restore (using the same drive) and all seems well so far.
But all the stupid stuff the OEM (sony) put on this thing...
It had a MS SQL install, Office AND Works trials, AOL .. Netscape?... Friggin NETSCAPE?
Of all of it, I'd say Sony's SonicStage is the most evil... Not relevant now.. It's all gone.
The restore was quicker than doing the install from scratch though.

I'm plan on getting a new machine in the future. I suspect this particular failure is a herald of things to come.
The drive failure was probably due to heat (no sensor on it so I'll never know.) It is encased in a solid piece of pc case (steel of some sort?) behind the power supply with no vents and no fan. I removed that part of the chassis and we'll see how it goes.

Still need to do the service pack 3 update. Might look around for the offline distribution of that since MS is killing XP support.  I don't know how many programs I need to put back in... forgot to grab all my bookmarks... but my desktop is clean at least

Till I can put enough back for a new machine (thanks for the links Buckler) all the dev stuff is going on external drives. I was able to pull my test level and AutoIT stuff out.  I don't think anything else mattered (lost a minecraft world, but those are more fun to build than to live in.)

Of course this also means a slight delay in the slow progress of SchMEe. I have everything for it packed up nicely on another drive, just need to work out how to have a work space and still be prepared in case this thing fails before I get the new machine.

This scared me. I place way too much value on the contents of my drive.

[SleepKiller]

I find the fact that it had MySQL installed more disturbing than Netscape.

[tirpider]

It had all sorts of media/entertainment center stuff on it. Some proprietary sony media presentation and DVR programs instead of just putting Media Center on it. I am guessing Sony thought it was a good idea to use sql to keep track of all the medias? But yeah.. why Microsoft SQL instead of plain old (and free) MySQL? Why SQL at all? Especially when it already had Office on it.  How many database sources does a personal computer need to connect to on a daily basis?

It also has an IR port on the front for a remote (which I don't have) and an mpeg capture and TV decoder board. Optical line in (but not out).  It's like they were trying to make it a presentation showpiece. I suppose it would have been... back in 2005. I have a lot of the hardware disabled in device manager cause I can't find a way into the case to see if I can remove it.  Uses a laptop motherboard and built-in display adapter and LCD.  It's non-standard in every way it could be... pretty much like every Sony device.

Way too much for this little beast, and I guess I have almost driven the wheels off of it.
I can promise that the next machine on this desk will be generic everything.


-edit
Well, everything seems to be back up and running for now.
I still have the drive running, but I'm certain it will die on me soon.  I changed some settings around to shut things off more frequently in an effort to mitigate the heat.
Budgets are being made to accommodate a new machine.

The most painful loss is the DVD drive. I usually test with nocd, so when I went to install SWBF again.. well, I was disappointed. I have an external, but it's a hassle to keep on my small desk. I don't understand the industry's love affair with those flimsy laptop dvd drives. I have yet to run across one that is durable.

The important thing is my test levels and script work is solidly working again.  Work can continue.