40Gb Western Digital hard drive

[Meat Plow]

On Sat, 29 May 2010 13:55:56 -0700, mike ǝʇoɹʍ:

ʍoןd ʇɐǝɯ wrote:
On Sat, 29 May 2010 03:18:18 -0700, mike ǝʇoɹʍ:

D Yuniskis wrote:


eMachines are... well, we won't go there! :-/

I 'spose that may be why the E-machine 'puters at the scrapyard are
usually still intact.

I own a 2005 eMachine, 2.0 ghz AMD Athalon64. It's now a Windows 7
machine and does its job flawlessly. Just like any other brand you need
to know what you are buying within the brand name.

I've yet to buy new, so I'm always stuck with whatever is already there.
However, it always cheers me to find inside a MB made by Intel and a
PSU with a name like Astec or Antec, or even John Deere, I've had pretty
good
service out those.

I bought an LG dvd burner a couple years ago from a former IT guy and
it is really phenomenal at reading dvds even when they're covered with
finger prints and scratches (like a lot of the ones at the local library
have), whereas, none of my previous burners (grand total of 2) would be
able to read 'em, at least not error free.

Being semi-retired
from the IT world now since 2008 I've seen plenty of junk out there
with Compac, HP, Sony, Toshiba badges on them. One thing you need to
understand is not many if any make 100% of their own components. So you
should not make global statements condemning the badge name without
this knowledge.

I had pretty good service with a T1742 that a neighbor gave me, it had
an Intel MB, and didn't have a Bestec PSU. The 3 I found at the
scrapyard all had failed Bestec PSU's, which became notorious for not
having a crowbar circuit to shut down the outputs if they went
over-voltage. Maybe they started using a better PSU, the last blown up
one I found was a T2862 or something like that, I suspect a few years
older than your 2005 model.

The 6212 was the first and only eMachines so far I've owned. MSI mobo,
nVidia Nforce chipset. Came with XP. I replaced the 160 gig PATA drive
with a 320 gig SATA and was just going to reinstall and keep the original
but I'll be damned if i could locate the correct chipset drivers and I'm
no neub at searching for stuff like that. I ended up cloning the 160 to
the 320 with Acronis Easy Migrate or Migrate Easy or whatever they call it
cuz it had a 15 day fully functional trial. Worked like a charm. Set the
160 on the shelf in case of catastrophic failure. Then I wanted an
external so i bought a WD 500 gig USB. The case failed after a month so
out came the drive and into the 6212 case it went. Bought Win7 a while
back, nuked XP (well Win7 nuked it) and that's what I use for some
specialized stuff. Most of the internet is on this Toshiba 1905 laptop
with Mandriva 2010 linux installed.

 

[mike]

Jeff Liebermann wrote:

On Sat, 29 May 2010 03:52:45 -0700 (PDT), mike
mlightner@survivormail.com> wrote:



I buy piles of them from the local recyclers. Those are the ones that
work. You should see the piles and piles that didn't.

Hmm, you must work on 'puters alot! One of my favorite places to hang
out up till a couple years ago was the local 'puter recycler - I'd go
there at least every other week and end up spending all my disposable
income for the week (all 2 dollars of it . When the bottom dropped
out of that market they had to close since none of the outfits they'd
been sending the stuff to would give them any money for it any more.
I miss that place, the guy who ran it was formerly a corporate IT
guy, they always had some kind of great deals going on.

Well, I had several browser windows open and of a sudden the bowser
was stuck viewing the last one I'd been looking at - the mouse cursor
would still move around as it should but clicking on stuff had no
effect. Couldn't close any browser windows, couldn't start up any
other programs, couldn't shutdown the machine, except by pushing and
holding down the power button.

Basically, the operating system got lost. That could be anything. Bad
motherboard, flakey IDE device, flakey plug in card, or even a bad
keyboard/mouse can hang the machine. However, it also can be a bad
sector on the HD. If you can get it to boot, try scanning the HD for
bad sectors and disallocating them. Then, keep track of the number of
bad sectors on the drive. Any increase, and it's eWaste.

OK, now I've got a couple new programs to learn, I'll be setting up a
spare-parts machine so I can dig into this
further, maybe restore some of the older pieces of hardware I've got
hanging about, or at least classify as to whether I need to hang onto
or not.

I haven't tried anything newer than 9.10, after I tried and failed to
figure how to get my modem working with it I went back to 8.04, which
seems much more intuitive to me.


What's a modem? Is that like dialup? I use those when desperate or
visting stone age retro enthusiasts.

Yeah, I know, I seem to keep slipping back into the stone age, been
that way since 1993, one step forward, etc.. There's DSL at work
so at least I'm getting a little familiar with that - kinda makes
surfing at home at 56K a bit of a drag though...

Thanks, I'll have to see if I can get this SmartMonTools in 8.04.

http://packages.ubuntu.com/hardy/smartmontools

Ah, thanks for the link!

 

[mike]

Michael A. Terrell wrote:

I had someone bragging about how much better his HP computer was,
than the eMachines computer sitting by my bench. I opened both. They
were both shipped with the same motherboard and power supply. The same
brand of CD-ROM drive and amount of RAM. Both had a 3.5" floppy drive.
Neither were cheap crap. He paid over twice the price of the emachines
computer for the same hardware.

Hmm, I wonder when they started doing that, that's good to know! What
kind of MB's do they have?

--
Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to
have a DD214, and a honorable discharge.

 

[Jeffrey D Angus]

Michael A. Terrell wrote:

I've seen more bad power supplies in HP
computers than any other brand I've worked on.

Well, HP bought Compaq, so I suppose it shouldn't
surprise me then that the PSU in that box went tits
up after about 2 years.

Jeff



--
“Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity.”
Frank Leahy, Head coach, Notre Dame 1941-1954

http://www.stay-connect.com

 

[William R. Walsh]

Hi!

I get the feeling that that is reason enough to turn around and
run the other way, once you see the 'Bestec' name

Their 230/250 watt PC power supply has no overvoltage protection
circuit. If something goes wrong, the motherboard usually gets it. I've
found that nearly everything else (optical drive, hard disk, etc) survives.

The later 300/350 watt supplies are better and do appear to have an OVP
circuit.

I think the often-highly-questionable wiring that some people have in
their homes only serves to accelerate the demise of these supplies. Some
of the wiring messes I have come across while servicing computers are
dangerous. I'm not an electrician, so I can't fix it for someone else,
but I do strongly suggest that they have it fixed ASAP.

Out of the ones I have, some of which run 24/7, I have never lost one.

As to your hard drive, perhaps they had a virus that was resident in the
MBR or a similarly difficult-to-eradicate location? Or perhaps it really
has been damaged and is not reliable.

William

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

Jeffrey D Angus wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:
I've seen more bad power supplies in HP
computers than any other brand I've worked on.

Well, HP bought Compaq, so I suppose it shouldn't
surprise me then that the PSU in that box went tits
up after about 2 years.

I bought a new Compaq computer in 1999. It didn't make it through the
warranty because of fake low ESR electrolytics on the motherboard. I
called for a warranty repair and told them it was rebooting constantly.
They told me to make sure the video cable was connected, and if that
didn't fix it, to take it to the nearest Radio Shack store. They told me
to copy my data from the computer, but if I opened the case the warranty
was void. I told them to stuff their company up their ass and bought a
new eMachines with Windows ME. That motherboard died after five years.
The power supply was still good and went into another model emachines
that needed the same odd shaped supply. I had installed a larger hard
drive before it died. That drive, with the original install of ME is now
in the fifth motherboard and works great for scanning photos and old
manuals.


--
Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to
have a DD214, and a honorable discharge.

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

"William R. Walsh" wrote:

Hi!

I get the feeling that that is reason enough to turn around and
run the other way, once you see the 'Bestec' name

Their 230/250 watt PC power supply has no overvoltage protection
circuit. If something goes wrong, the motherboard usually gets it. I've
found that nearly everything else (optical drive, hard disk, etc) survives.

The later 300/350 watt supplies are better and do appear to have an OVP
circuit.

I think the often-highly-questionable wiring that some people have in
their homes only serves to accelerate the demise of these supplies. Some
of the wiring messes I have come across while servicing computers are
dangerous. I'm not an electrician, so I can't fix it for someone else,
but I do strongly suggest that they have it fixed ASAP.

Out of the ones I have, some of which run 24/7, I have never lost one.

As to your hard drive, perhaps they had a virus that was resident in the
MBR or a similarly difficult-to-eradicate location? Or perhaps it really
has been damaged and is not reliable.

Sometimes you get lucky and can fix an infected drive with the
command 'fdisk /mbr'. You have to boot with an emergency startup or
diagnostics disk with a copy of fdisk. You can run the command
manually, or run it from an autoexec.bat or other .bat file.


--
Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to
have a DD214, and a honorable discharge.

 

[mike]

William R. Walsh wrote:

Their 230/250 watt PC power supply has no overvoltage protection
circuit. If something goes wrong, the motherboard usually gets it. I've
found that nearly everything else (optical drive, hard disk, etc) survives.

Huh, they're still in business? That's a surprise...

The later 300/350 watt supplies are better and do appear to have an OVP
circuit.

I think the often-highly-questionable wiring that some people have in
their homes only serves to accelerate the demise of these supplies. Some
of the wiring messes I have come across while servicing computers are
dangerous. I'm not an electrician, so I can't fix it for someone else,
but I do strongly suggest that they have it fixed ASAP.

Good point, a lot of people don't know they need electrical work until
after a problem has already cost them money.

As to your hard drive, perhaps they had a virus that was resident in the
MBR or a similarly difficult-to-eradicate location? Or perhaps it really
has been damaged and is not reliable.

Hmm, I hadn't thought to do a virus scan on it, if that's what it was
I hope it's gone.
Thanks,
Mike

 

[mike]

Michael A. Terrell wrote:

Jeffrey D Angus wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:
I've seen more bad power supplies in HP
computers than any other brand I've worked on.

Well, HP bought Compaq, so I suppose it shouldn't
surprise me then that the PSU in that box went tits
up after about 2 years.


I bought a new Compaq computer in 1999. It didn't make it through the
warranty because of fake low ESR electrolytics on the motherboard. I
called for a warranty repair and told them it was rebooting constantly.
They told me to make sure the video cable was connected, and if that
didn't fix it, to take it to the nearest Radio Shack store. They told me
to copy my data from the computer, but if I opened the case the warranty
was void. I told them to stuff their company up their ass and bought a
new eMachines with Windows ME. That motherboard died after five years.
The power supply was still good and went into another model emachines
that needed the same odd shaped supply. I had installed a larger hard
drive before it died. That drive, with the original install of ME is now
in the fifth motherboard and works great for scanning photos and old
manuals.

I bought a used Compaq Evo once, I'd seen 'em in use at all kinds of
different businesses so figured they must be
'pretty good'. I had it a couple months and one day i left it powered
up while I went to do some errands. Came back after a couple hours
and immediately smelt that burned electronics smell as I walked in the
door; there was also an odd sound recurring in a steady rhythm coming
from the 'computer room'. I found that the power supply had smoked,
but didn't shut down completely, so it would bog down the UPS, then
the UPS would start to come back up and the smoked PSU would try to
start again which would again bog down the UPS - no telling how long
it did this before I got back. I immediately scrapped that effing
EVO.

The next morning when I turned on the main computer the UPS went out.
It was a shame, as it's an industrial quality NCR 1 kw unit from the
80's. Reading up on those EVO's after the fact, I came to agree with
one denizen of the web who proposed that EVO's are evil...

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

mike wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:
Jeffrey D Angus wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:
I've seen more bad power supplies in HP
computers than any other brand I've worked on.

Well, HP bought Compaq, so I suppose it shouldn't
surprise me then that the PSU in that box went tits
up after about 2 years.


I bought a new Compaq computer in 1999. It didn't make it through the
warranty because of fake low ESR electrolytics on the motherboard. I
called for a warranty repair and told them it was rebooting constantly.
They told me to make sure the video cable was connected, and if that
didn't fix it, to take it to the nearest Radio Shack store. They told me
to copy my data from the computer, but if I opened the case the warranty
was void. I told them to stuff their company up their ass and bought a
new eMachines with Windows ME. That motherboard died after five years.
The power supply was still good and went into another model emachines
that needed the same odd shaped supply. I had installed a larger hard
drive before it died. That drive, with the original install of ME is now
in the fifth motherboard and works great for scanning photos and old
manuals.

I bought a used Compaq Evo once, I'd seen 'em in use at all kinds of
different businesses so figured they must be
'pretty good'. I had it a couple months and one day i left it powered
up while I went to do some errands. Came back after a couple hours
and immediately smelt that burned electronics smell as I walked in the
door; there was also an odd sound recurring in a steady rhythm coming
from the 'computer room'. I found that the power supply had smoked,
but didn't shut down completely, so it would bog down the UPS, then
the UPS would start to come back up and the smoked PSU would try to
start again which would again bog down the UPS - no telling how long
it did this before I got back. I immediately scrapped that effing
EVO.

One of the computers I refurbished for my 'Computers for Veterans'
project was a small HP. I had everything ready, and turned it on one
last time to run Belarc Advisor to print out the system information. As
soon as I turned it on, flames shot out through the fan. I scrapped
it. In fact, I scrap more HP computers than any other brand.

The next morning when I turned on the main computer the UPS went out.
It was a shame, as it's an industrial quality NCR 1 kw unit from the
80's. Reading up on those EVO's after the fact, I came to agree with
one denizen of the web who proposed that EVO's are evil...

I get free, used UPS fairly often, all with bad or missing
batteries. One early unit had eight missing gel cells. they guy who
gave it to me took them out and didn't make a note of what was there, or
how they were wired. His excuse? "I thought all UPS used the same
batteries." The guy is a broadcast engineer. He should klnow better.
The OEM was out of business, so I have a large, heavy rack mount UPS on
the shelf waiting to be scrapped. I am thinking about turning it into a
rack mount server case.

I got another rack mount UPS the other day. It is an Alpha Ali Plus
700xl The batteries are missing. The OEM doesn't support it. They may
be 12V 7.2AH but I'm not sure. That's too bad, because I picked up a
free Dell 4350 server that I would like to put into a rack with the
UPS. I want a shop server to hold all the drivers and other programs I
use to repair computers, and to learn to administer Apache Server.


--
Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to
have a DD214, and a honorable discharge.

 

[mike]

Michael A. Terrell wrote:

One of the computers I refurbished for my 'Computers for Veterans'
project was a small HP. I had everything ready, and turned it on one
last time to run Belarc Advisor to print out the system information. As
soon as I turned it on, flames shot out through the fan. I scrapped
it. In fact, I scrap more HP computers than any other brand.

You say a small HP, was it the kind that allows only one hard drive
and one CD inside (no room for anything more )? If so, it sounds like
a re-badged EVO - seems like a lot of 'modern' mfgs. just change the
name of their crap these days, rather than fix the problem...

I get free, used UPS fairly often, all with bad or missing
batteries. One early unit had eight missing gel cells. they guy who
gave it to me took them out and didn't make a note of what was there, or
how they were wired. His excuse? "I thought all UPS used the same
batteries." The guy is a broadcast engineer. He should klnow better.
The OEM was out of business, so I have a large, heavy rack mount UPS on
the shelf waiting to be scrapped. I am thinking about turning it into a
rack mount server case.

What with the cost and low capacity of the correct replacement gel
cell battery/-ies for most UPS's, I found it works pretty good on the
higher capacity ones to make a hole in the side of the UPS and extend
the battery cables out to some wet cell deep cycle batteries (the 3
UPS's I've got all use 2 12v ones in series). Since the ones I'm
using now aren't industrial quality, I make sure the batteries are
fully charged before initially hooking them up. You need to make sure
there's good ventilation as a hydrogen gas build up could become a BIG
problem.

I got another rack mount UPS the other day. It is an Alpha Ali Plus
700xl The batteries are missing. The OEM doesn't support it. They may
be 12V 7.2AH but I'm not sure. That's too bad, because I picked up a
free Dell 4350 server that I would like to put into a rack with the
UPS. I want a shop server to hold all the drivers and other programs I
use to repair computers, and to learn to administer Apache Server.

What is the difference between a server and a 'normal computer
anyway? I've got a Compaq Proliant DL 380 rack-mounted server (no
rack to mount it in though) I've been hoping to figure out how to use
it like a PC, just out of curiosity as much as anything else.

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

mike wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:


One of the computers I refurbished for my 'Computers for Veterans'
project was a small HP. I had everything ready, and turned it on one
last time to run Belarc Advisor to print out the system information. As
soon as I turned it on, flames shot out through the fan. I scrapped
it. In fact, I scrap more HP computers than any other brand.

You say a small HP, was it the kind that allows only one hard drive
and one CD inside (no room for anything more )? If so, it sounds like
a re-badged EVO - seems like a lot of 'modern' mfgs. just change the
name of their crap these days, rather than fix the problem...

No, HP construction is obvious. Their part numbers are stamped into
everything.

I get free, used UPS fairly often, all with bad or missing
batteries. One early unit had eight missing gel cells. they guy who
gave it to me took them out and didn't make a note of what was there, or
how they were wired. His excuse? "I thought all UPS used the same
batteries." The guy is a broadcast engineer. He should klnow better.
The OEM was out of business, so I have a large, heavy rack mount UPS on
the shelf waiting to be scrapped. I am thinking about turning it into a
rack mount server case.

What with the cost and low capacity of the correct replacement gel
cell battery/-ies for most UPS's, I found it works pretty good on the
higher capacity ones to make a hole in the side of the UPS and extend
the battery cables out to some wet cell deep cycle batteries (the 3
UPS's I've got all use 2 12v ones in series). Since the ones I'm
using now aren't industrial quality, I make sure the batteries are
fully charged before initially hooking them up. You need to make sure
there's good ventilation as a hydrogen gas build up could become a BIG
problem.

The battery cables would have to be 20' long to put car batteries in
a safe location.

I got another rack mount UPS the other day. It is an Alpha Ali Plus
700xl The batteries are missing. The OEM doesn't support it. They may
be 12V 7.2AH but I'm not sure. That's too bad, because I picked up a
free Dell 4350 server that I would like to put into a rack with the
UPS. I want a shop server to hold all the drivers and other programs I
use to repair computers, and to learn to administer Apache Server.

What is the difference between a server and a 'normal computer
anyway? I've got a Compaq Proliant DL 380 rack-mounted server (no
rack to mount it in though) I've been hoping to figure out how to use
it like a PC, just out of curiosity as much as anything else.

A server is designed to run 24/7, and should have at least two power
supplies. They generally have three or more hard drives for a small
RAID array. They are better built than a consumer grade computer. You
can use them as a regular computer, but it my not have a high resolution
video card. A consumer type OS may not support multiple processors.


--
Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to
have a DD214, and a honorable discharge.

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

mike wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:

A server is designed to run 24/7, and should have at least two power
supplies. They generally have three or more hard drives for a small
RAID array. They are better built than a consumer grade computer. You
can use them as a regular computer, but it my not have a high resolution
video card. A consumer type OS may not support multiple processors.

Huh, I had a feeling there was a reason I wouldn't be able to do
anything with it when I bought it.
Thanks for the info.

Doesn't it have at least one empty slot where you can install a
better video card? You can use multiple drives without installing a
RAID driver. Don't pitch it out, if it works. Play with it. Install a
version of Linux or use it for a test bed computer. You can remove the
rack mount brackets on a lot of server cases and use them as a big
desktop computer, or you can use some scrap lumber an made a crude rack
for it. Hand it under your computer desk if it is a one or two unit
size. Be creative. If all else fails, sell it on Ebay or Craigslist.


--
Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to
have a DD214, and a honorable discharge.

 

[mike]

Michael A. Terrell wrote:

A server is designed to run 24/7, and should have at least two power
supplies. They generally have three or more hard drives for a small
RAID array. They are better built than a consumer grade computer. You
can use them as a regular computer, but it my not have a high resolution
video card. A consumer type OS may not support multiple processors.

Huh, I had a feeling there was a reason I wouldn't be able to do
anything with it when I bought it.
Thanks for thew info.

 

[mike]

Jeff Liebermann wrote:

I buy piles of them from the local recyclers. Those are the ones that
work. You should see the piles and piles that didn't.

Damn, that can be time consuming, for sure. I'd like to compare notes
on using mhdd, but I didn't take any notes, so probably would get a
bunch of stuff wrong if I tried to recollect correctly; plus, I
discovered issues with the test machine's that I used, the 1st one I
think is a MB problem and the 2nd one a cdrom that was causing the MB
to misbehave. However, after getting familar with the program, I do
feel that it does a pretty good job of pointing out a hopeless drive.

On a slightly different subject, when I got curious about the
definition of 'low-level format', I did some googling on the subject
and checked out the Wikipedia for a bit and now I don't know whether I
even did any low-level formatting in the last few days, though I do
know that I used to in the early 80's - oh, well I guess that's
"progress' for ya.

Anyway, of the 3 hard drives that had been trashed by E-machines PSU
failures, the WD 40Gb one is still working fine ( it's in the machine
I'm posting from) so, after scanning it once and not seeing anything
suspect I figure I'll just keep using it unless it starts acting up.
Theres' also a 40 Gb Seagate that used not to be able to pass any of
the mfg's utilities which, after running a few of the operations in
mhdd now passes muster with the mfg's utilities, so I loaded ubuntu
onto it and will start using it sos I can see whether or not it's a
lasting fix. There's also an 80Gb Seagate drive which was not even
addressable by any means, and mhdd was not able to address it either
so I guess it must be totally screwed, forever, no matter what, it's
still just an inert lump...had hopes of making it ert, but so it goes
sometimes...

Thanks for the help,
Mike

 

[mike]

Michael A. Terrell wrote:

Doesn't it have at least one empty slot where you can install a
better video card? You can use multiple drives without installing a
RAID driver. Don't pitch it out, if it works.

Oh, no, I'd never pitch anything out, (unless maybe I tripped over it
and broke a toe or somethin')

Play with it. Install a
version of Linux or use it for a test bed computer. You can remove the
rack mount brackets on a lot of server cases and use them as a big
desktop computer, or you can use some scrap lumber an made a crude rack
for it.

I guess that the main obstacle is I don't know anything about scsi;
there are no drives in the drive bay, and there's a scsi bus but I
don't know jack about scsi. I've got a 2.1 Gb scsi drive, and some
kind of scsi controller card, but just haven't spent much time looking
into it yet.

Thanks,
Mike

 

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Wed, 2 Jun 2010 12:24:19 -0700 (PDT), mike
<mlightner@survivormail.com> wrote:

I'd like to compare notes
on using mhdd, but I didn't take any notes, so probably would get a
bunch of stuff wrong if I tried to recollect correctly;

We'll, I wouldn't mind, but there's a problem. I don't keep any
obviously defective drives and only save the paperwork on the good
drives. The ones in between are kinda arbitrary. I'll keep results
on the newer and better drives, but not on the older marginal junk.
It's really not that much of a time burner. I have several test
machines and boards, and usually let them run overnight.

However, after getting familar with the program, I do
feel that it does a pretty good job of pointing out a hopeless drive.

My rule-of-thumb is that if the diagnostic says it's bad, it's almost
certainly bad. If the diagnostic says it's good, it might be, but
might also be bad due to some reason that wasn't obvious or tested. I
once tested a drive (with a different program) that had obvious
bearing spin (very noisy), but tested good.

On a slightly different subject, when I got curious about the
definition of 'low-level format', I did some googling on the subject
and checked out the Wikipedia for a bit and now I don't know whether I
even did any low-level formatting in the last few days, though I do
know that I used to in the early 80's - oh, well I guess that's
"progress' for ya.

Low level format is usually done by the factory, and never again. It's
places the sector numbers and servo tracks on the platter. There are
programs that plug into the diagnstic port of the drive that will
recreate the sector numbers, bios preload area, diagnostic tracks, and
landing zone allocation, but not the servo tracks. If the drive seems
to require a new primary format, give up now.

Hint: I have a 15 year old Conner CP1060S 1GB drive sitting in my SCO
Unix 3.2v4.2 server. It's been running continuously since about
1995(?). Three mother boards (486DX2/66), one video card, and one
Wangtek tape controller card have blown up during this time. The
secret to long HD life is leave it running all the time and protect it
from power and static electricity glitches. I have other servers that
have done almost as well, but this one is my oldest.



--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

 

[AZ Nomad]

On Wed, 02 Jun 2010 17:43:41 -0700, Jeff Liebermann <jeffl@cruzio.com> wrote:

Hint: I have a 15 year old Conner CP1060S 1GB drive sitting in my SCO
Unix 3.2v4.2 server. It's been running continuously since about
1995(?). Three mother boards (486DX2/66), one video card, and one
Wangtek tape controller card have blown up during this time. The
secret to long HD life is leave it running all the time and protect it
from power and static electricity glitches. ...

ditto for heat.

I've had setups where I've had drives run hot; however I know they can't be
expected to last 4 years under such conditions and that they not for storing
anything of value. For example, I have 3 WD raptors in a raid-0 configuration
burning away at 50-55 degC in my desktop. I don't give a shit because all they
have on them is the OS, applications, and temporary video work files. Anything
of value is on a seperate file server which is designed for the task and
runs very cool with both onsite and offsite backups.

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

mike wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:

Doesn't it have at least one empty slot where you can install a
better video card? You can use multiple drives without installing a
RAID driver. Don't pitch it out, if it works.

Oh, no, I'd never pitch anything out, (unless maybe I tripped over it
and broke a toe or somethin')

Play with it. Install a
version of Linux or use it for a test bed computer. You can remove the
rack mount brackets on a lot of server cases and use them as a big
desktop computer, or you can use some scrap lumber an made a crude rack
for it.

I guess that the main obstacle is I don't know anything about scsi;
there are no drives in the drive bay, and there's a scsi bus but I
don't know jack about scsi. I've got a 2.1 Gb scsi drive, and some
kind of scsi controller card, but just haven't spent much time looking
into it yet.

Thanks,
Mike

Then stick an IDE or SATA controller card in there. They don't have
to run SCSI drives. You may have to change some settings in the BIOS,
but that isn't difficult.


--
Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to
have a DD214, and a honorable discharge.

 

[Michael Kennedy]

"Michael A. Terrell" <mike.terrell@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:6b2dncCN0OpBjJrRnZ2dnUVZ_vednZ2d@earthlink.com...

mike wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:

Doesn't it have at least one empty slot where you can install a
better video card? You can use multiple drives without installing a
RAID driver. Don't pitch it out, if it works.

Oh, no, I'd never pitch anything out, (unless maybe I tripped over it
and broke a toe or somethin')

Play with it. Install a
version of Linux or use it for a test bed computer. You can remove the
rack mount brackets on a lot of server cases and use them as a big
desktop computer, or you can use some scrap lumber an made a crude rack
for it.

I guess that the main obstacle is I don't know anything about scsi;
there are no drives in the drive bay, and there's a scsi bus but I
don't know jack about scsi. I've got a 2.1 Gb scsi drive, and some
kind of scsi controller card, but just haven't spent much time looking
into it yet.

Thanks,
Mike


Then stick an IDE or SATA controller card in there. They don't have
to run SCSI drives. You may have to change some settings in the BIOS,
but that isn't difficult.

Or Just throw a scsi drive in there and play around with it. They're not
that complicated. Don't run away from something just because you don't know
how it works. Use it as an opportunity to broden your knowledge.

Mike