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To: wily who wrote (9909)	1/13/2000 12:01:00 AM
From: wily	Read Replies (1) of 14778

OK I'm ready to talk about this now. HDD's REALLY SUCK!!! I was watching TV on my computer the other day and fooling around with an old pentium-generation computer at the same time, fixing to re-hookup the network. The old computer didn't have a hard drive. But I had an image of the OS for that computer from the last time I used it, so I restored that image to a spare HDD using my main computer and then installed the HDD in the old computer. It didn't boot -- got a disk error -- so I went to put the HDD back in my main computer to see what was wrong. I neglected to shut the thing down first (I was watching TV) and also got the power connector backwards and BLINK: everything went dead. I've had smoke before but no lasting damage. This time was different. Computer wouldn't say NOTHING. Well, I don't like to take "no" for an answer and I'm also the curious type -- I like to know wa hoppen? I put the offended HDD back in the old machine and it wouldn't even start. Seemed like not only did my main computer get shorted out but the HDD did too and now the HDD shorted out the old computer. So I reached deeper. Got a still older (P166) computer out and borrowed the power supply for the P233 that I just shorted with the (now presumed bad) HDD. Now with just the floppy and the borrowed P/S the P233 booted to DOS. So I plugged in a different HDD that wasn't involved in the skirmish at all (it was sitting in my dresser). Now with this HDD installed in the P233 with the borrowed P/S, the computer wouldn't turn on -- just got a little pfft noise from the P/S everytime I hit the "on" button. So it seemed like plugging the bad HDD in not only did something to the P/S but also to the mainboard. Oh, and the vid card didn't work after that either. Had to borrow an older one of those too. Let me review this last weird little twister: Plugging the bad HDD into the old computer made it not run. Then it would run and even boot to a floppy if I swapped in a different P/S and left out the HDD. But add in a COMPLETELY INNOCENT KNOWN GOOD HDD, and it would only say pfft. So it was like something in the HDD power circuit (in the mobo?) was damaged by the bad HDD. Maybe this doesn't seem so odd to someone who understands these things. And the vid card got trashed too. Now a few days later I realize that the reason the old computer didn't boot the first time was that I put the wrong HDD in. I have two identical WD 3.2G drives and the one I restored the clone to was not the one I swapped to the old computer. The one I DID swap had some stuff I need, but it's mostly gone now because that drive is evil. Some of that stuff is backed up onto the other old drive (the one that I put in to find out that mobo was affected since it would run without a HDD but not with) but I'm kinda afraid to plug even that HDD into a good computer. Really evil chain reaction. Rather than screw around trying to figure out what was damaged and what wasn't I just went to a local computer shop and got a replacement mobo and P/S for my main computer and everything's fine. Cost me about $150 but now I don't have any old computers. Definitely need some kind of removable backup like CDRW. Maybe I need anti-virus software? wily

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