Forced delay on everything · 12:11am May 12th, 2016
So my computer died. This means that until I have regular access to a private computer, I'm not going to be writing much. All I have is a shit phone and the local library's computers (which I'm using now.) I hate these keyboards. Plus, there's a 2 hour time limit per every 4 hours (as in, I have to stop for four hours after I've been on for 2.) I also hate writing around other people. At least it's open 24 hours. I would just go out and buy a new computer, but almost all of my money's in the bank. It's been having some problems with shit I don't know about, so I can't access it for a few days.
The death of my computer also means that I lost a lot of data. Over 1,000 songs, a fuck ton of pictures, and a couple of unrelated projects are gone, unless I can find some way to get the data back. If anybody's got any ideas, I'm ready to hear them.
I had the same problem. If I knew the solution, I'd be telling you. Sorry.
Oooh. Any idea if it's for-sure the hard disk that died, or something else? Does it just not turn on, or give error beeps / a message, or anything? Depending on what's broke, there may be a work-around. (Also, desktop or laptop?)
[Sorry if I'm "talking down" to you tech-wise, I dunno how much experience you have with troubleshooting.]
3938984 It's a laptop and it can turn on, but it's saying there's a disk read error. I'm having a friend look at it right now, and he thinks the problem is the CD/DVD drive. Since he's going to Seattle for a convention tomorrow, I don't know if it'll be taken care of by then.
OK... not sure why the DVD drive throwing an error would prevent the machine from starting. That definitely sounds like a hard disk error. Question the second: are you scared of Linux?
If you're OK with it, and you have a large-ish USB stick around, you can use YUMI to create a bootable Linux Mint USB stick at the library. Plug that sucker in before you turn on your laptop, and when it says something like "press DEL or F2 for boot options" on startup, do that and tell it to boot from the USB.
Once Linux starts, you can see if it can read the hard drive and DVD drive. If it can see the hard drive, and you have another USB stick around, you can copy your files off it. If it can use the DVD drive, you know the DVD drive is fine.
At that point, you can keep using the Linux USB stick to write, internet, etc. until you can fix/replace the broken drive. (If it can see the hard drive and the DVD drive, then the drive itself is fine, it's just Windows that's broken. You can either re-format and re-install Windows, or if Linux is working fine for you, you can install that on the hard drive.)
3939317 Yeah, the disk drive makes more sense, now that I'm thinking about it. I'm going to blame sleep deprivation on that.
I haven't used Linux before, but I've heard that it's more of a programming thing. I'm not a programmer, but rather a casual computer user. I'll keep it in mind, though.
3939474
The version I linked to is very user-friendly. All the normal software is pre-installed, it looks like windows, etc. You don't need to do any "programmer" stuff to work it.
linuxmint.com/pictures/screenshots/qiana/gallery/thumb_mate13.jpg
I normally run windows, but I use a stick with that on it when I need to work on someone else's computer. If you're stuck, it might be better than the library.