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My computer has been getting sicker and sicker for months, and now PCDoctor says there's a problem with the hard drive. It's also affecting the operating system (for example, I have only 16 display colours).

Now, if I buy a new hard drive (any recommendations for good French sources for this?), is it very complicated to install? I mean, is it something I could do myself, or should I find a computer shop to do it for me?

I really need an Idiot's Guide - can you help?

Thank you very much,
SaligoBay, in the rainy south of France, just about to put the fire on!


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It is not difficult, but you need confidence and good instructions.

From the way you phrase your question I would think: let the doctor do it. It should not be too expensive and he has the tools to save the data of the old disk and tranfer them onto the new one.

You don't mention your OS but I guess you work with Windows. If so, remember Windows XP allows only five changes in the hardware of your pc before it wants to be re-actviated. No such complications with earlier versions of Windows.

Good luck,
Adriana.


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I don't wish to go against your PC Doctor , but generally hard drives either 1. Work 2. Bring up some kind of error message or 3. Don't work. The 16 colours issue sounds more like a loss of the proper graphics card driver which is easy enough to remedy. Have you tried to defrag the hard drive lately? Regards also from the soggy South of France!
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Problems with hard drives tend to revolve around them stopping working altogether.

Your 16-colour problem is due to a faulty display driver, (sometimes caused by junk in System.Ini I think). Because Windows cannot set the driver up properly it reverts to its default which is 640x480x16 colours

To be honest, Windows sucks One of the ways in which it sucks particularly is what is called "Windows Rot" ; its tendency to become full of junk as time goes on, get slower and slower and slower.

This can be quite alarming ; a brand new machine which goes like stink can turn to molasses quite rapidly.

My suggestion would be : Make sure you have all your software CDs and drivers, save your actual work files onto a CDR or three, a ZIP drive, or something, reformat the drive and start again. It will probably work fine.

Problem is, if you aren't sure what you are doing, you'll need some help.
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For the moment, I have a reasonable working system again

I do try to keep up to date with Windows updates, I clear out temp internet files, old documents, etc, I have NAV, I run AdAware, I did a defrag a couple of months ago, so this latest "breakdown" was not welcome! Almost all the drivers were lost/inaccessible - display, sound, CD, the lot. Startup took about 5 attempts every time, and it also forgot how to shut down.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, after a LOT of messing about and numerous failed attempts with rescue disks and system CDs, a Restore to a couple of weeks ago finally worked.

Then another defrag, which did show a few damaged clusters. I saw about 5 as it worked its way through, but I don't know how many there were by the end. Would 5 be a cause for worry?

Can I ask one more question? If there really is damage to the disk, even if only a little bit, can I upgrade Windows ME (or install XP), or should I only do that on a good disk?

I'm not as think as you confused I am, honestly. Maybe or I am.

Thank you all for your input, it has been much appreciated.






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  • 1 month later...
I have written an entire page on the "upgrade" problem. It is at http://www.antiphon.co.uk/kirkwood/software.htm

This should persuade you that the upgrade to XP is not worth it. Buy a new 40gb hard drive for about EUR40. It is easy to install and then use Xclone to transfer your data (not the OS) to the new drive after loading ME (or preferably win98SE if you have a copy).

Hope that helps
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