Blue Screen of Death
I've had to put a lot of things on hold in the last few days. My computer crashed!
Last Thursday and Friday I could only use my rusty laptop to communicate with my online friends. And I don't cope too well with a smaller keyboard so I made a lot of typos - please forgive me.
I spent a lot of time researching the various error messages I was seeing on my screen. And not getting any satisfactory answers. Eventually my computer hardware go-to guy arrived and diagnosed a failed hard drive.
Now I didn't expect this would be so devastating. I had RAID which should have meant (in my mind anyway) that one hard drive was the mirror of the other and if one failed then all the data on that drive was also on the other one too. Redundancy.
Mirror
What I didn't realize was that I had the other RAID. Performance. All my data was spread over both drives to make saving and retrieving files quicker. No mirror image!
Speed
I discovered I could read from the drive but not write to it. As long as both drives were running together I could rescue some of my files. So the next several hours were spent copying as much data as I could from the internal hard drives to an external hard drive. With the occasional blue screen of death (BSOD) stopping the transfer until I could reboot again, and again.
And trying to cram 3TB of data into a 1TB drive was a bit like Cinderella's ugly sisters trying on the glass slipper.
By midday Friday I had to give up. The drive failed completely.
I bought 2 new 3TB hard drives. I wasn't going to trust the remaining drive because it was the same age as the one which failed, about 5 years old.
Anyway, I got the computer up and running again. I had to reinstall Windows 7 so I could run the driver recognition program, Windows 10 is not supported. The computer is five years old and so are the drivers.
With Windows 7 running and the drivers all updated I was able to upgrade to Windows 10. I like Windows 7 but 10 is better in a lot of ways.
So many programs to reinstall. So many settings to configure. So many passwords to add to my browser's memory. It's now 10:30 pm Monday (my time) and I've made so much progress. I'm taking a break so I can write about the experience to share with my WA friends.
There is a silver lining to this cloud which I will share with you in my next blog.
Until then,
Recent Comments
148
I am so sorry to hear about all your computer problems. I am glad you are getting them resolved.
wow...what a day...I do have some fix here just in case..http://www.bluescreenofdeathfix.com hope it helps for the future..
Dear Marion,
Take good care of yourself and have enough rest. All things will be all right as long as our body health is in good shape, other things is secondary. Wish you well!
Hi Marion, oh dear, where to start...
Raid 1 would definitely be my choice.
For passwords I use Roboform. PM me if you need help with it. I have the passwords encrypted on a USB key and the cloud.
Glad to hear you are back up and running.
See you @ the Top!
--Michael
Yeah, that's what I figured too but my hardware doesn't support RAID 1.
My passwords are always safe and secure (◠‿◕✿)
See YOU @ the Top!
Going through the process of losing a a drive, trying to recover data, having to reinstall a new system, all of your apps and updates... that's the virtual equivalent of physically having to move from one house to another. It sulks so much time out of your life, but it does offer an opportunity to clean house and reorganize. Sorry you're going through this mess. Hope you're quickly back on trackd
Yeah some of my stuff goes back years, and years and years. One of the programs i use, PaintShop Pro 9, was released in 2004. It's not broken so I haven't fixed it. I reinstalled it yesterday and it's like meeting an old friend.
Hi Marion, I know how you felt when you enocuntered bsod. I had a couple of occasions going thru those horrendous moments. You may want to consider backing up some of your data in the cloud in future. Glad to know your computer is up and running again!
Raz
Aww Marion, it sounds like you've had a terrible time of it. I hope you get back to normal very soon :)
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I've been there and totally understand. After two blue screens, I make sure files are copied to my cloud and VIP files also copied once a month on my USB. Glad you're making lemonade out of the lemons.
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