dang computers!

[xd4life]

I was working on a post last night and my dang hard disk on my Dell Laptop quite on me. The drive makes clicking sounds after the BIOS boot. So today off to the local Best Buy, Staples, and Circuit City I went to price shop and see what I wanted. Since I don't use my PC except for basic business stuff and internet, I didn't need all the bells and whistles. Picked up a Compaq Presario, for $349. I am gonna take the ram up another gig. I am not to sure if I like Vista yet. well see how it goes the next few weeks.

So I got a few Q's

Where can I get my old HD rebuilt? I would like to get some of the data that didn't get backed up yet? And still use that laptop since it's really not that old, I know i can get a new drive for it, and I probably will but again there are soe photos and other data on their I would like,

what crap on Vista should I do away with to free up some resources? Supposedly FIREDOG already optimized it before I bought it, But it looks like all they did was turn off stuff under MSCONFIG/startup.

[AnakinsKid]

As far as rebuilding the drive, your best bet is to buy an external case for it. You can put a new drive in the laptop and (assuming the old drive works at all) copy your files to the new drive. After you copy what you need, if the drive keeps working, you can keep using it as an external/portable usb storage. If it doesn't, trash the drive (with a bullet if there's sensitive data on it).

The best crap in Vista to get rid of is Vista itself. I hate it, and so do all of my IT tech and geek friends.

[lobster_roboto]

As far as data recovery... if the disk still spins and even the slightest bit of read... then you can recover it using forensic software... namely BacktrackOS comes to mind with a crapload of easy to use tools...

If the spindle is physically incapable of spinning, be prepared to spend exuberant amounts of money.

Vista....Sorry about that... Vista by nature has taken a "UNIX" type approach for memoy management... the OS itself "wires" needed but unused ram... It works on *nix systems but Vista memory management system fails to cooperate with the kernel as far as first in line access goes.

If you have to run vista...

turn off the "3d" interface....
Turn off Vista's feeble attempt at mimicking spotlight (quick index search)
Turn off system restore.
Use the windows "classic" interface
Shut down unnessesary services... in computer management... like
wireless zero config...
mstask
remote registry
printer spool (if you dont have a printer)
just crap like that.

no matter what Vista is going to have a higher than normal ram usage... that is just the nature of the beast.

There is a whole lot of things you can do to improve performance... But keep in mind...

"firedog" & "geeksquad" really have no idea what they are doing... do not trust your system with them.

-->obligatory get a mac comment.

[xd4life]

Originally Posted by lobster_roboto

As far as data recovery... if the disk still spins and even the slightest bit of read... then you can recover it using forensic software... namely BacktrackOS comes to mind with a crapload of easy to use tools...

If the spindle is physically incapable of spinning, be prepared to spend exuberant amounts of money.

Vista....Sorry about that... Vista by nature has taken a "UNIX" type approach for memoy management... the OS itself "wires" needed but unused ram... It works on *nix systems but Vista memory management system fails to cooperate with the kernel as far as first in line access goes.

If you have to run vista...

turn off the "3d" interface....
Turn off Vista's feeble attempt at mimicking spotlight (quick index search)
Turn off system restore.
Use the windows "classic" interface
Shut down unnessesary services... in computer management... like
wireless zero config...
mstask
remote registry
printer spool (if you dont have a printer)
just crap like that.

no matter what Vista is going to have a higher than normal ram usage... that is just the nature of the beast.

There is a whole lot of things you can do to improve performance... But keep in mind...

"firedog" & "geeksquad" really have no idea what they are doing... do not trust your system with them.

-->obligatory get a mac comment.

It's either Vista or win2k, I never went with the XP stuff due to the fact that I loved 2000 and was very familiar with it and how it ran due to running First Computer Sys years ago, and having my MCSE and MCNE back then, I used it alot.

I didn't want Firedog to tough it, problem is they touch every PC when they get them in. Then try to charge you for their services. I of course refused to pay for it,

I'll give what you recommend a try, I already went to the classic view. That new look sucks...

The old disk spins when it wants, my friends had a external bay I may borrow for a while...