The latest costly computer problem I’ve encountered is the failing of the hard drive on the desktop. The Saturday before Thanksgiving, on boot up it stopped on the test screen indicating the hard drive was “capable and status BAD”. The next evening when I booted up again, the same thing happened. Both times hitting F1 resumed the boot and all seemed to be ok.
I did some online research and learned that the “bad” indication was in fact a warning that this hard drive was failing. There was no telling how long it would continue to function, so it was clear to me a replacement was needed ASAP.
The next day, I called the shop to ask if they had a 1 terabyte, solid-state drive in stock. They did not, so I ordered one and took the rest of the day to make sure I had everything backed up in case the failing drive did not allow cloning it to the new drive.
Tuesday, I took it in and left it there in hopes they would receive the new drive and get it installed, cloned, etc. before the end of the day Wednesday, so we’d have it back before Thanksgiving. They said they would call when it was ready.
It did not get done by then. I’m not terribly surprised. It is a small operation and one of the two guys was out for a Thanksgiving week vacation with family.
It was yesterday, (Wednesday after Thanksgiving – a full eight days later) that I finally was able to pick it up again. I spent most of the day and evening yesterday installing all the software we use. Other than the stuff that comes with Windows 10 Pro, there was nothing on it.
Today I spent all day continuing to install, tweak, troubleshoot, etc. I am finally at a point where it is almost back to normal. There is only one problem I have not resolved yet. That is the DVD drive is not recognized and does not work. I’ve done some research online and have tried a couple of the possible solutions, but so far, no success.
That will have to be the subject of another post someday.
Tech Muddler 