Computer Help Please
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- mg33
My girlfriend's computer bit the dust a month or so ago, and we just got word yesterday that the hard drive was corrupted and no data can be retrieved. Sucks...
Only real loss are photos, like two years worth, and lots of music. Part of the problem was that it was built with a copied version of Win2K... stupid since she could have totally afforded to purchase the OS.Anyhow, I'm ordering a new drive and will be installing Vista. Computer is new enough to work with it.
The guy who took a look at it suggested that she get an external USB drive to back things up to. She doesn't do design work or anything and it might not be that critical that she get one.
She only really uses it for music (which she lost TONS of, btw) and storing photos and the web, so is an external neccesary, or is she better off just being in a habit of backing things up to DVD?
Also, I know little about Vista - should she use Firewall software and Virus Scan?
She used that damn BearShare all the time and I'm half-convinced she got a virus from there. Never used virus scan once, so we're trying to correct bad mistakes in the future.
Thanks guys.
- k0na_an0k0
i'd invest in a small external drive and, depending on how much new music she buys/gets a month and how many new photos, i'd burn a dvd every month too.
i've been in the habit of doing both and i feel a lot safer if my puter bites the dust.
- Jaline0
^ yup.
If she has tons of music (how many GB's, exactly?), as you say, then a smaller external drive should be good. It's easier to just swap files, copy, paste, etc., back and forth between her computer and her external.
If she doesn't plan on moving files around or doing lots of things with them while they are not on her computer (ie. in her external drive/ device), then DVDs should be fine (again, it depends on how much music she has).
Then again, maybe it IS just as easy to work with files while they are on a CD as it is to work with them when they are on an external device and I'm just unaware of it.
- mg330
Well, the only mp3s she has now are on her ipod...
Sucks that she lost all of it, but iot was so horribly organized. I've not done P2P downloading of songs in a long long time, and when I organized her ipod recently, it was just so cluttered.
Pretty sure it was a combo of copied WinXP install disc and a virus from BearShare.
I'm a little too trustworthy of computers and don't back up nearly enough. But on the other hand, I'm the type that feels like if you protect yourself with virus scan and anti-spyware stuff, you're probably OK.
- Jaline0
When I had XP I regularly downloaded P2P music. I had anti-virus and anti-spyware installed and they had scheduled scans though.
- k0na_an0k0
Well, the only mp3s she has now are on her ipod...
look into senuti. it opens the ipod up so you can download the music back off it onto your computer. it's a free app.
:)
- ghandolf0
Whether you use P2P sites to download or not, along with or without using any virus scanning softwares and firewalls ... hard drives fail for a number of different reasons all on their own.
Buy an external drive. They're cheap enough these days. Then schedule the software that comes with it, to do automatic backups every now and then.
It doesn't sound like she'd dedicate time/trouble to back up to DVDs or CDs often enough.
Depending again on the definition of "TONS" of music lost.
I'm just sayin' ...
- joyride0
i tend to be a bit redundant with my data, main drive, backed up to external usb drive. each quarter, i back up my work, photos, mp3, mail to another external drive that goes in my firesafe.
I've heard stats that say 70% of business' that lose critical data eventually fail... don't take chances, drives are cheap, get into the habit now, the amount of data you want to retain is only going to get worse
- Jaline0
ghandolf is right about the external drives being cheap now. so it's more worth it to buy one. or two. plus some DVDs. You can start off with the external and buildup from there everytime you have some money to spare. To make sure your data is not lost.
- mg330
Damn, finally after three days of horrible tinkering, I have Vista installed on her computer.
What a pain in the ass. Had to install Win2k first, then discovered all the m-board drivers were not installed. Got those, had to have service pack 4, got that, then fixed all the drivers, then got Vista installed.
I really like the looks of Vista, but I can tell it's kind of slow.
She has a 2.6 Ghz computer with a gig of memory and it still lags a bit.Don't even want to bother with IE7, so installing Firefox was item #1.
Are there supposed to be so few icons on the desktop? I don't mind it, but I only see the Recycle Bin and the Firefox icon. Nothing else is there.
I seriously don't know anything about Vista, this is all new to me but I need to make it easy for her to figure out. Still various things to install but looking OK so far.