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New computer/laptop advice thread

Started by Barry Admin, January 18, 2020, 10:39:27 PM

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BeardFaceMan

Quote from: Wilbur on September 21, 2020, 07:12:10 AM
Yes. If the files are important to you I'd copy them somewhere else.

Bugger. There's no error checking programs or anything like that I can use to fix it, it's just on it's way out? I've only had it 6 months.

Wilbur

Could be a few things. If its only a few months old I'd not even  bother spending any time troubleshooting it before contacting Seagate who will want you to do all that with them anyway. My past experience with them replacing these larger drives when faulty has been pretty good.

BeardFaceMan

I have 2 identical external drives, I bought this 2nd one because I've had the first one for over 2 years and it's completely fine. I'm just trying to download some software from Seagate's website to check the drive, it's going to be a right pain in the hole finding somewhere to stash these 4tb of vids if I have to send the drive off to them to be replaced/repaired.

Wilbur

It will, presumably, be rather more of a pain if you lose them completely :)

BeardFaceMan

That is true. Downloaded their tools and it failed one of their tests, bad read sectors. Having real trouble navigating their website though, it mentions some articles and FAQs where it explains how you can use tools to fix the drive yourself but I can't find them, I tried emailing them a message but I can't see if they've received it or not and it won't let me update my profile with my address. Gonna have to try and give them a call I think. I bought this from Amazon, whats the rule on tech goods and how long they have to last? Like when my xbox controller failed after 3 months I was able to get Tesco to replace it instead of sending it off to Microsoft to be repaired, they put the onus on the retailer now, not the manufacturer. Would it be easier to get a replacement from them?

Wilbur

Theoretically the retailer has the responsibility. Amazon tend to be a bit flaky on this. Give it a go but they can be a bit annoyingly stubborn if it is outside their (non existent in law) "return window".

BeardFaceMan

#96
Well now the shit has rally hit the fan. I was nearly through copying everything onto another drive when it had one of the errors. A fair enough,  it's happened before. Only this time, it's taken most of my USB ports with it. I only have 2 working ports left, I get power on my mouse, keyboard or hard drives when I plug them in but they don't get recognized or work. I looked at the device manager and there's a danger sign next to something that says "VIA USB 3.0 extensible host controller 1.0 (Microsoft)", clicking that says that windows stopped this device because it has reported problems. This is a software or driver problem though right, I havent somehow fucked all the ports and need to replace them?

Edit - never mind, I'm an idiot. I managed to uninstall it and reinstall the drivers and it's all working again. Now to get my fucking money back!

Edit 2 - Contacted Amazon just now, they've arranged for delivery of a new drive for tomorrow and then I just pack the old one in the parcel and send it back to them, so I didn't even need to spend 2 days copying all the stuff on there onto 3 different hard drives, could have waited and copied straight onto the new drive. Have to say it's ridiculously easy to get refunds from them but I was at least expecting to have to send my broken drive to them before I got a replacement.

Sebastian Cobb

I've had several external drives go and it's always been the power supplies going and not supplying enough juice so the drives momentarily spin down (giving io errors) or refuse to spin up entirely. Shove them in a pc (or just run power to them directly) and they're fine.

BeardFaceMan

That could well be an issue, this external drive doesn't have a power supply plug, just USB so it's getting all it's power from that. It's a Seagate portable drive, it doesn't look like you can take it out of it's housing.

Sherman Krank

^You definitely can take it out of it's housing, it's just that you probably won't be able to get it back in again.


NoSleep

#100
It's always the drive enclosures that go generally, but in this case bad sectors on the disc were mentioned but maybe that's because of read errors caused by a wonky drive enclosure. I always buy (high performance) discs without enclosures and purchase an enclosure I feel sure about[nb]i.e. not the cheapest one to be found.[/nb]. Spending a bit on a decent enclosure with its own power supply has ensured that none of my hard drives for over 15 years have died (although enclosures have died at times and been replaced). A few of my early hard drives were erroneously bought as readymades, but I prised them out of their enclosures (always designed not to be removed without destroying the original enclosure) and they worked beautifully once installed inside a separately bought enclosure (which are designed for ease of installation and removal).

BeardFaceMan

I've had external drives that have their own power supply before, I've taken a few of those out of their casing, replaced power lead ports, that kind of thing. With this Seagate one though, it's just a plug and play thing, just a USB connection, and I bought one about 2 years ago that's still chugging along nicely with zero problems, and I use that every day so I thought I'd try getting another one. I can see looking at it now you can prise it open, it looked like fully moulded plastic when I first looked at it, but this is a 2.5 inch disk and the only enclosures I have are for 3.5 inch ones. The power thing does seem the more likely problem than an actual fucked disk, just because it wasn't always the same files I was accessing that was causing the I/O error, I could try and use a file, get the error, unplug and plug the drive back in and then go use the file ok and it would crash when accessing something else. Ah well, fuck it, I'll have a new one in an hour but that would have saved me an awful lot of copy and pasting (another thing that would point to a power issue, I think, the drive crashed a few times while I was doing it but I managed to copy every single file on there), I'd rather have bought a new enclosure than a new drive.

Wilbur

Unfortunately some of the manufactures (Seagate included I think) have started shipping these without standard sata and the connectors soldered to the logic boards which pretty much stops you doing the enclosure thing which is, partly, why I no longer recommend trying that as you cant tell until you've broken it open...

NoSleep

Hence the point of assembling one yourself rather than purchasing a readymade.


BeardFaceMan

I take it those power supply-less plug and play drives are more for laptop use than desktop use?

NoSleep

They're for selling to the masses in Tesco.

BeardFaceMan


BeardFaceMan

Well the new drive arrived with a thud. Fucking postman didn't knock the door, just posted it straight through and there was no packing inside the cardboard, the drive is literally in a piece of thin plastic and that's it. So it came through the postbox and smacked loudly on the floor and after having it plugged in for 4 hours, it failed. I'm trying Seagate repair tools and it seems to be doing the job so far, but fucking hell. So if it turns out this drive is fucked too, do I have any other decent options for a 4tb external drive for under 100 quid? Could I get a decent drive and enclosure for that? I already have 3 internal drives in my pc but it looks like there room for one more, should I just plonk one in there instead or is that too many?

NoSleep

Every drive I've bought has been properly packaged to withstand the likely battering it may receive in the post. There isn't much to it really so you have every right to return it on those grounds. Are you buying from ebay or something?

BeardFaceMan

Nope, Amazon.  Bought it in May, it started with the errors a few weeks ago, I got onto Amazon this week and they sent me a replacement drive the next day. When I opened the cardboard box, it was packaged in the kind of plastic that fucking earphones come in, absolutely nothing to absorb any kind of impact.

NoSleep


BeardFaceMan

Yeah, the new drive was from Amazon, they replaced the drive for me, not Seagate. So it came in your standard Amazon cardboard box that fits through a letterbox, and inside it was encased in flimsy plastic. All that does is keep it in place to stop it shaking around, theres no protection whatsoever. First time I've ever had anything electrical come from them like this.

Sebastian Cobb

Yeah, the OEM drives are usually just in a plastic clamshell thing, but I'd expect them to throw some inflatable packaging stuff in to stop it rattling about in the box.

It's a shame it's fucked, it was packed inadequately I agree, but they are actually quite hard-wearing if they're not spinning.

BeardFaceMan

At the very least you usually get some brown paper stuffed in there. I'm getting a refund this time though so i need to look around for a new one.

NoSleep

Try to make sure that you're buying from a company specialising in computer supplies rather than directly from a big outlet like Amazon (whose packaging has become less specialist even more than it used to be). You can still do that through Amazon.

madhair60

Could anyone point me at a nice 1080p gaming PC? No desire to jump to 4k. Configurable pre-build would be best.

Sherman Krank

^I've always built my own PC's so I don't know who does good pre-builds but I do know you should never buy one off of ebay.

Blue Jam

Could anyone please tell me where I should look to order a laptop online? My 6-year-old refurbished Lenovo Think Pad 420 finally gave up the ghost today and browsing Amazon on my phone is a pain in the arse.

Also why are laptops, even refurbished ones, so fecking expensive right now? My last one was £200 and now it looks like I'll have to go way north of £300 to get the same specs, ie, still with 8Gb RAM.

Not sure I want another ThinkPad now. Even though this laptop will be mostly for home use I wouldn't mind something a bit more streamlined, without an optical drive I'll never use. Not looking for a Microsoft Surface because I already have a tablet with a Bluetooth keyboard and that's the one I take to werk with me. Mr Jam has a nice HP laptop but again, with the extra RAM I need for big Z-stack microscopy images I'm looking at paying more than he did.

Also, while I am mainly a console gamer, I'd quite like to be able to play Beat Saber on it.

Blue Jam

Anyone seen any good Black Friday deals or are they best avoided? In 2018 we looked at deals on big tellies but a lot of them looked suspect, ie, inferior products made specifically for Black Friday, and we decided to wait until the 2019 January sales instead. Got a really good deal from John Lewis in the end. I can't afford to wait this time but are Black Friday deals still not all they're cracked up to be?