Hard drive on my laptop
 

If I am not posting on Fodor's for awhile it is not because I have been banned. I think the hard drive on my laptop is tired, LOL, except I am not really laughing. The laptop is only two years old and Comp USA had to replace the hard drive last year and it took them about 3 weeks to do so.

Anyway, if any of you that email me do not get a response from me this will be the reason.

I hope you won't be gone long, LoveItaly. Get that laptop fixed! And, in the meantime, we'll miss you! :)

Love, call me and tell me what to post and I will do it for you LOL
It is supposed to rain here tomorrow, I will stay in and just post for you and our poor Patrick LOL

Hey Scarlett dear, if my laptop hard drive goes out (right at the moment it is alright) you will not only be posting for me, you will be reading me the various interesting posts LOL. Now won't that make dear Yankee happy and thrilled, LOL.

Statia, I had a thought for your Friday Poison thread, I do not "think" it has been mentioned before but maybe it has. What about the subject "Random acts of kindness when travelling you will never forget". Best wishes!!

Sorry about your laptop! If you begin to consider a new one, we couldn't love our PowerBook more--best money we ever spent. Good luck!

Hi E, I don't know a thing about PowerBook, I am not a "brain surgeon" when it comes to computers!!

Could you tell me a bit about it, and where you purchased it. I am in N CA btw. Thank you!

We have an Apple PowerBook G4; there is a slightly less powerful model called the Apple iBook as well. You can buy them online at BestBuy or Apple.com, or at Apple stores, which are usually in malls.

This laptop is rock solid stable--never crashes. And because Apple so far enjoys a tiny market share (mostly b/c their prodcuts are a bit more $$), there are no known viruses that infect their operating system. Every accessory we have--camera, printer, iPod, router--has been plug and play from the start. The operating system is simply better than Windows, IMO.

And no, I don't work for Apple! :-)

I'd encourage you to check out Apple.com--loads of info there. I also like epinions.com--like Fodor's, it's a forum for consumers to give each other advice and opinions on products.

Good luck!

Hard drive on your lap top? hmmmm :D

Hey, LoveItaly! If your laptop is out of commission for a while, just pop in to your local library and log on! Piece of cake. Just remember your log-in info.

Or just pop in to Kal's house, LOL

Oh Betsy, I go to the library a lot but duh, never thought of using their computers, thank you! LOL Hey Faina, do you think Mrs. Kal would mind?

Thank you for the information E, I truly appreciate it. And Crefloors, you be good!! LOL.

Tonight, all is fine with my computer, but I went through this once before..so am prepared for a problem..but hopefully not. Thanks again for all the good advice.

If you're going to the public library to use their free computers, beware that many other people do this & students begin to arrive after 2pm or so... depends on location. Most have time limits of 30 mins or whatever. Should be a sign up sheet/board there.

I've done this when my home computer or conxn was kaput.

Advice: Go earlier and depart before 1pm. If there's nobody waiting, there's no time limit.

Are you in the great NYC area, if so Paul fixes computers so let me know if would like him to take a look at it. He fixes laptops all the time.

Thanks for the info fehgeddaboutit, that makes sense. And wantsomesun, I am in N CA., but thank you for your information, it is most appreciated.

It is strange, for the last couple of hours everything seems alright, no grinding noises or problems. So I will keep my fingers crossed. But all the good information from everyone certainly is appreciated.

And a thought to all of you. I sort of worried as I have phone #'s and email addresses on my computer that I never put in my address book. So I was worried if my computer did crash all that pertinent info would be lost.
It is good to have this information somewhere other than just on your computer. Best wishes to all.

Love, backup your hard drive now, if anything happens you will still have all your data. If you don't have a backup system seriously think about geting something like a LaCie.

It's not that hard to swap out a laptop hard drive these days. Mine has two screws, then fairly easy to unplug/plug. The harder thing is to re-install Windows on the new drive. If your old hard drive is completely toast, you have to use a recover CD (or DVD)that came with your laptop to re-install Windows.

But if your old drive still works, you can attach the new one to your laptop via something called a USB hard drive enclosure. Then you use software to "clone" the old one to the new one. Sometimes you get "cloning" software with a new hard drive, sometimes you have to buy it. I use software called True Image from Acronis (like Ghost if you've heard of that) to clone.

Then after you clone, you just swap your old drive with the new one and boot up and you're good to go.

Andrew

SAB and Andrew, I am emailing this thread to my SIL (who lives in my city) right now. At this point, the last hours, my laptop seems fine but I still feeling uneasy about it. I know you two know what you are talking about but I, sigh, don't have a clue. So again, will email this thread to my SIL...he will know. Thank you so very much, your help and advice is truly appreciated. Best wishes to you both.

Hi, I just sent the thread to my SIL. Andrew, Ghost, yes I have heard of that. My stepdaughter has mentioned that to me..I have to start paying more attention obviously.

Again, my thanks to everyone for all their help and suggestions. I would rather be without any TV's them my laptop!!

I don't know what came over me..it's been that kind of night. Hope your computer is OK but be sure to back up everything. I'm like you ..I know nothing, or actually maybe you know more than I do..YOU have heard of ghost!!!! I read of couple of the very kind posts advising you what to do and my eyes just crossed. I have some updating that I need to do with mine, and I'm calling the Geek Squad. There are places on this computer that I just will NOT go. Hope you stay running. I feel your pain.