My laptop. RUINED. A week and a half before final projects/exams. ALL my course work is on it.
ACER MAKES SHIT LAPTOPS, PEOPLE. My damned graphics adapter just blew out an hour ago, rendering the laptop useless as anything other than a bludgeoning instrument. It lasted exactly 1 year and 3 months (on the fucking dot).
I will now proceed to take the following steps:
1. Remove hard drive from old laptop
2. Verify that the hard drive is indeed still functional
3. Backup data from hard drive onto desktop
4. Purchase new, non-Acer laptop
5. Install old hard drive in new laptop
6. Take a massive, festering dump in old laptop
7. Mail old laptop to the nearest Acer support center
8. Send polite, snailmail letters to every quality control manager in Acer I can find on the Internet, explaining the impact their product has had on my education, and how as a future IT professional I ensure that no department I work in will be similarly inconvenienced.
RAEG
My first laptop is an ACER, and my second laptop is an ACER. They seem to work alright. The first survived two years of abuse and 6 months in Kuwait, and is still functional.
1. Find out if laptop hard drive is IDE or SATA.
1. Find adapter for IDE to SATA or vice versa (see your needs for your computer)
50. Remove hard drive from laptop.
2. Connect laptop hard drive as a normal drive in your (or who-fucking-ever's) desktop.
51. Get data off the drive.
Note: Local computer repair companies can do this for you for a fee. DO NOT GOTO A BIG BOX LIKE BEST BUY YOU DOLT.
Acer comps sucked in the 90s, and apparently they still suck now.
Quote from: geekdad on November 24, 2010, 05:06:49 AM
1. Find out if hard drive is IDE or SATA.
1. Find adapter for IDE to SATA or vice versa (see your needs for your computer)
50. Remove hard drive from laptop.
2. Connect laptop hard drive as a normal drive in your (or who-fucking-ever's) desktop.
51. Get data off the drive.
Note: Local computer repair companies can do this for you for a fee. DO NOT GOTO A BIG BOX LIKE BEST BUY YOU DOLT.
I know. The only problem is that the screws on the back of the laptop are microscopic. I'll need to go into a comp repair shop to get it open, I can take it the rest of the way.
My acer netbook has lived through being dropped 6 feet onto concrete, almost a full pint of beer spilling all over the keyboard, and thus the internal components, repeated fist pounding on the keyboard, and flying from the back seat into the front middle console today as I decelerated from about 80 mph 15 feet or so from an almost unnoticed stop sign. :shrug:
I love that little netbook.
Posting from an Acer.
Although I have had a much better experience with their netbooks than anything else. Their larger sized laptops have consistently given me trouble.
Gotta say though, this little aspireone has gotten me through thick and thin, and shows no sign of slowing down.
Can I give everyone a small slice of advice? One which I will surely fail to follow consistently and be raging about in six months?
PLEASE buy a $50 external hard drive, and do a scheduled backup every night at 2 am or whenever is good for you.
Quote from: Nigel on November 24, 2010, 07:17:23 AM
Can I give everyone a small slice of advice? One which I will surely fail to follow consistently and be raging about in six months?
PLEASE buy a $50 external hard drive, and do a scheduled backup every night at 2 am or whenever is good for you.
I felt pretty dumb for not doing this recently.
Quote from: Juvenal on November 24, 2010, 07:21:43 AM
I felt pretty dumb for not doing this recently.
Tell me about it. I have two external drives and one's been giving me an error message for a week.
I have ceased trusting external HDs after every single one has fucked itself after being briefly serviceable.
So now I just make sure to have backups of as much as possible on as many different hard drives, dvds, and flash drives, as possible.
If you do go with an external HD, for the love of kittens power it down when you're not using it. Their lack of cooling and uniformly poor power sources are a terrible recipe.
Really? Weird. Seems like you would know long beforehand if your backup drive wasn't working, before your main died.
Mostly I just powered up one day and found that the damned things had either covered themselves in bad sectors, lost their partition table, or had some kind of power source malfunction. In the latter cases I was able to tear the thing open and salvage some of the data.
From: Knight Templar Geekdad the Nonfunctional also known as Pope Naughty the Nice
To: All Discordians; past, present, and future.
Subject: New Holyday
This is a proclamation from Knight Templar Geekdad the Nonfunctional also known as Pope Naughty the Nice, please pay attention, and make sure to get some change.
The day that follows Flux days will now be considered "Make a physical backup day you spag". (or not)
On this day it is required to make a physical backup, interpreting physical backup as the Discordian sees fit, of any data that pretains to Discordian traditions and holy writ. If at this time you would like to make a copy and backup of your personal data you may do that as well. You may also backup things more frequently on other media such as a DVD or an external harddrive.
ALL DISCORDIAN TRADITIONS AND WRIT THAT HAS BEEN BACKED UP SHOULD HAVE A COPY SENT TO ANOTHER ERISIAN FOR POSTERITY ON CHAOSFLUX. (OR NOT)
This writ is declared, so mote it be. As it is above the fridge so it is below the cupboards.
By the power vested in me by the 5th Barf of the Pentabarf.
-Signed
Knight Templar Geekdad the Nonfunctional also known as Pope Naughty the Nice
I have the Asus eee pc for a laptop.
It has survived my incessant abuse.
It is a good little... doo dad.
Everyone ate cookies and tea.
The end.
Acer has good hardware for low cost.
They achieve this low cost by using bad construction and wiring.
HP is solid, but expensive as fuck.
LG uses a randomizer to decide how good their products are going to be. Well, they use a more randomer randomizer than the other companies.
General tip: get alot of background info for every product you are considering.
That is fucking awful, Remmy. I hope you can put a patch on the thing.
Since we're on a brand spree here, I had a piece of absolute shit Dell laptop, which lasted 6 years propped up on stacks of pennies to keep it from overheating. It convinced to homebrew the machine I have now, which is a fucking phenomenal beast.
Quote from: Remington on November 24, 2010, 05:09:48 AM
I know. The only problem is that the screws on the back of the laptop are microscopic. I'll need to go into a comp repair shop to get it open, I can take it the rest of the way.
eyeglass repair kit comes in handy for very tiny screws.
Quote from: Sigmatic on November 24, 2010, 07:29:05 AM
I have ceased trusting external HDs after every single one has fucked itself after being briefly serviceable.
So now I just make sure to have backups of as much as possible on as many different hard drives, dvds, and flash drives, as possible.
Never had that problem with my extrnal HD.
But for real important information I don't want to lose, I mail it to myself on GMail.
You can trust Google for one thing, they never ever throw away your data ;-)
Off-site backups FTW...
I had an Acer for ~4 years. Only thing I replaced on it was the keyboard (not because of it malfunctioning, I just wore the buttons' letters off over time), till the power cord got ripped out and so was practically unuseable to a large degree...now I have a Sony Saio. I like it. But have only had it since April or so.
Quote from: Nigel on November 24, 2010, 07:17:23 AM
Can I give everyone a small slice of advice? One which I will surely fail to follow consistently and be raging about in six months?
PLEASE buy a $50 external hard drive, and do a scheduled backup every night at 2 am or whenever is good for you.
THIS.
I plan to get one of these VERY soon.
Quote from: Eater of Clowns on November 24, 2010, 12:11:27 PM
That is fucking awful, Remmy. I hope you can put a patch on the thing.
Since we're on a brand spree here, I had a piece of absolute shit Dell laptop, which lasted 6 years propped up on stacks of pennies to keep it from overheating. It convinced to homebrew the machine I have now, which is a fucking phenomenal beast.
No can do. The problem is almost certainly with the graphics adapter, which is integrated into the motherboard itself. Under any circumstances but these I would love to do a homebrew project like that, but finals are within sight and I need a laptop -now-.
Dunno if you'd want it, but walmart has a $198 eMachines laptop in their Black Friday sale.
eMachines® 15.6" Laptop
• 2GB memory
• 250GB hard drive
• 15.6" diagonal HD display
• Intel Celeron processor, 2.2 GHz
• Wireless enabled
Android is a nice os. Might get a tablet, tho I've heard mean things about samsuck
Photobucket app autobackups my photos, and lookout app functions as virus scanner and saves phonenumbers. also lojacks the device :)
There's even a few paid apps that backup other files to servers under a good RAID array
Has new laptop. Is shiny.
http://www.samsung.com/ca/consumer/office/mobile-computing/notebook/NP-R580-JS02CA/index.idx?pagetype=prd_detail (http://www.samsung.com/ca/consumer/office/mobile-computing/notebook/NP-R580-JS02CA/index.idx?pagetype=prd_detail)
Is swap the hard drive tomorrow.
oOOOH shiny!
The boyfriend is a Applegeek. Every time he upgrades his iPod, iPad, MacBook, etc, I get the refurbished!monsterized leftovers. I approve of this.
Quote from: Jerry_Frankster on November 24, 2010, 08:54:41 PM
Dunno if you'd want it, but walmart has a $198 eMachines laptop in their Black Friday sale.
eMachines® 15.6" Laptop
• 2GB memory
• 250GB hard drive
• 15.6" diagonal HD display
• Intel Celeron processor, 2.2 GHz
• Wireless enabled
Damn! That sounds like a freaking good deal! Only question is how much battery-life they got, but even then, given that it's only €149 ...
Quote from: Triple Zero on November 25, 2010, 12:25:34 PM
Damn! That sounds like a freaking good deal! Only question is how much battery-life they got, but even then, given that it's only €149 ...
I know, right? I'm tempted to get one, except I can't think of a single use I would have for it.
Hope the hard drive swap goes smoothly. And I like the look of your new laptop.
This must be the week for computer death. Liam's laptop just bit the dust and there's nowhere open to buy a new one today. We're actually planning on getting up at 4 fucking 30 in the morning to hit the Black Friday sale at Staples.
Quote from: Bella on November 25, 2010, 08:53:36 PM
This must be the week for computer death.
My gf's one got a bad virus this weekend, thought we removed it, reared its head again yesterday, had to do a full reinstall and crap :x
And she's on a deadline for homework, I think I spent at least 2 days on the thing this week :(
It's working again now, but it's got hardware troubles too (battery goes dead very fast, and random other stuff fails too) so she might be getting a new one.
It's almost as if they time it for the holidays, eh? :)
Quote from: Triple Zero on November 25, 2010, 09:06:52 PM
My gf's one got a bad virus this weekend, thought we removed it, reared its head again yesterday, had to do a full reinstall and crap :x
And she's on a deadline for homework, I think I spent at least 2 days on the thing this week :(
It's working again now, but it's got hardware troubles too (battery goes dead very fast, and random other stuff fails too) so she might be getting a new one.
It's almost as if they time it for the holidays, eh? :)
Yes, yes it is. Hope your gf is able to get a new machine soon.
The thermal drive in Liam's finally died this week, even though it's sitting on a cooling pad. The batter crapped out over a year ago, so he has to keep it plugged in at all times. And we also had a virus that wouldn't go away - on both laptops, in fact. Poor Liam's not wired into anything at the moment and it's driving him mad. He's opened the kitchen blinds and is sitting on the sofa pretending the window is the world's dullest screen saver, and he just tried inserting the usb into the cat. For some reason, the cat took offense and he's off pouting on the bed.