instalation of IE8 killed XP machine HELP!

[/pine]

And, using partitions does absolutely nothing to protect against hard drive failure

I never implied that it does...I stated the advantages of partitions...which by learning to use makes one a "savvy user"...

The most common cause of hard drive failure is due to power surges on the PCBs...often caused by PSU failure (which no surge protector can prevent) so even if a second drive is physical or virtual all onboard hard drives are vulnerable...

IMO, external hard drives (in USB enclosures) make the best back up devices... they also make the data portable...

with todays drives of up to 2TB's...partitioning is paramount

 

[MossRoad]

I never implied that it does...

I never said you did.

so even if a second drive is physical or virtual all onboard hard drives are vulnerable...

Yes, I agree that all on board hard drives are vulnerable. However, the chances of both hard drives going out at the same time (it does happen) are slim while the chances of losing everything on a partitioned drive that fails is 100%.

 

[/pine]

the chances of both hard drives going out at the same time (it does happen) are slim...

I agree unless the PSU is faulty and surges...

Actually when I said that the most common cause of hard drive failure is caused by faulty power supplies (PSU)...I should have said "premature" failure...as hard drives do wear out...

however...in many cases (no pun intended) the PSU supplied by run of the mill systems (common retail) are of much less quality than the standard (manufacurers) hard drives...therefore the chances of a power supply causing the hard drive to get toasted is greater than the hard drive itself failing...BUT...should the PSU power surge (fail) it will toast any and all the PCBs on any and all the hard drives connected...

 

[Soundguy]

Hear all that you guys are saying.

I'm familiar with ghost.. bat files and partitioning. up until the end of win98.. I was 'up' on computers and hardware.. as milenium/2000 and xp hit.. I fell behind.

on my spare drive.. that's really what I meant.. I'll keep my data files backed up there as a 'spare' copy.. etc... i doubt both drives will fail at once... as a bonus.. the 'spare' drive has a bootable copy of winxp on it as it was the only drive in my work pc.. motherboard died.. but drive was good.. actually booted it in another pc 'shell' to grab data off it when i needed to... so both my hdd's will boot if needed.. that gives me some flexibility during crashes.. both have pretty much the same software I use, installed.. and both will contain a copy of my data files.

soundguy

 

[Scooby074]

I have a mix of all the above methods.

OS is on a 80Gb partition on a 1Tb drive All active documents are stored on other partitions within this drive.

I have a 500Gb dump drive where downloads /Windows Sp's/ music/ install cabs and backups of docs on the 1TB are kept.

As a backup to the backup DVD copies are kept of all important applications and data, like pictures. I try to burn off all important data once a month -ish.

I know im doing it backwards, using the smaller drive as a backup, but its a slower drive than the 1tb so thats the reason.

Keeping a copy of all the office and windows service packs keeps the OS reinstall time down.

 

[MossRoad]

I agree unless the PSU is faulty and surges...

Actually when I said that the most common cause of hard drive failure is caused by faulty power supplies (PSU)...I should have said "premature" failure...as hard drives do wear out...

however...in many cases (no pun intended) the PSU supplied by run of the mill systems (common retail) are of much less quality than the standard (manufacurers) hard drives...therefore the chances of a power supply causing the hard drive to get toasted is greater than the hard drive itself failing...BUT...should the PSU power surge (fail) it will toast any and all the PCBs on any and all the hard drives connected...

I'm going to have to disagree with you on that based on my experiences. I counted the hard drives that I am responsible for. 350 IDE and SATA drives in desktop style computers, 50 laptop drives and our servers have 238 SCSI drives. I replace a dead hard drive about every two weeks now, on average. I replace about two power supplies per year. Most of our hard drive failures are the heads grinding into the disks. That isn't caused by the power supplies. It's caused by mechanical failure.

 

[/pine]

I replace a dead hard drive about every two weeks now, on average. I replace about two power supplies per year

cheap hard drives...I bet most have only 12 month warranties...also if the systems are name brand i.e., Dell, HP, etc...they use quality PSUs...

it only takes a few mA surge to cook the PCB...

my experience of being in the repair business since 1995 is as I stated...check with any repair shop I bet you'll find more hard drive failures due to fried PCB than mechanical failures...on drives that are still under warranty...

cheap HDD's that spin at 7200 rpm 24/7 can't be expected to last too long...

 

[MossRoad]

cheap hard drives...I bet most have only 12 month warranties...also if the systems are name brand i.e., Dell, HP, etc...they use quality PSUs...

it only takes a few mA surge to cook the PCB...

my experience of being in the repair business since 1995 is as I stated...check with any repair shop I bet you'll find more hard drive failures due to fried PCB than mechanical failures...on drives that are still under warranty...

cheap HDD's that spin at 7200 rpm 24/7 can't be expected to last too long...

All of our machines are HP/Compaq. The IDE and SATA drives in them are western digital. Most of them that die are in excess of three years old.

 

[Soundguy]

I've seen that as well.. I've personally only -EVER- repalced 3 power supplies inthe dozen or more computers I've owned over the last 20 ys.. have repalced 2x that many hard drives.. at LEAST. add one motherboard to that as well. go back 25ys and make that 2 mbs and 3x the hdd's.. and a total of 4 power supplies.

soundguy

 

[/pine]

repalced 3 power supplies inthe dozen or more computers I've owned over the last 20 ys.. have repalced 2x that many hard drives.. at LEAST. add one motherboard

3 PSUs in 12 systems is a high % rate...
You didn't mention the cause of failure of the drives...The most common cause of failure to mobo's is power (surge) issues...
20 years ago a 20 MB hard drive was considered large...and exteneded memory was measured in KB (e.g 286,386,486)

FWIW...
power surges are the primary cause of failures in all devices that have component PCBs..."surge protectors" are not lightning protectors...The best electrical protection is with the use of UPS units