Going West?

Last week when I started my computer I had a blue screening telling me that one of the discs needed to be checked for consistency. Yesterday a screen I have never seen before gave me options for re-booting from hard drive, etc. by pressing F4. Today I've started without problems but could it be time to start saving up for a new computer?

 

More than likely your Hard Drive is on its way out, I would say the best course of action is to backup/save all your important things to a CD/DVD/Flash drive or External Hard Drive. Depending on the age of the machine it may work out a great deal cheaper just to replace the Hard Drive.

Just to avoid confusion, the Hard Drive isn't the entire PC/Tower/Laptop, its just a block of electronics and motors inside the case.

 

I second what DiggerDan said. The thing to be aware of though is they change the standards every few years with computer components, you you will need to know if it is a bog standard IDE drive or SATA so you can get the right one. The bios info (all the writing that comes up on screen when you first switch on before it starts to boot) sometimes tells you, or you can just have a look on the label on the harddrive itself.

If you've never changed a hard drive before, it probably sounds like a daunting prospect. Rest assured it couldn't be easier. There are usually two retaining screws holding them in to the caddy, and two cables attached to the back (a wide flat one and a power connector). You can't really get it wrong because the connectors for each one are very different, and will only allow the plugs in the right way round.

One precaution you ought to take though (apart from the obvious one of disconnecting from the main) is to touch something that is earthed just before you start, as static can damage some of the components.

 

Many thanks. It's still working but I don't hold out any hopes for the computer long-term. I guess I will buy a brand-new model; when it comes to fiddling about with the innards of machines, I'm the clueless one...even though most people might find it easy!

 

These things are fairly normal. After starting up X number of times your system will want to check the integrity of the hard disk. The other prompt may be for your particular make of computer.

My system, Ubuntu/Linux checks the disk after 35 startup's. I occasionally get other prompts to do with the computer (Acer Aspire) or the system. I have an older laptop which was early XP, it runs (slower, of course) the latest issue of Ubuntu, I doubt if it would run Vista, even less Windows 7. My present laptop (the Acer Aspire 1501/AMD64) runs the latest issue of Ubuntu (v8.10 ) and will continue with the new issues for several years.

 

Isn't there a local kid you know that could fix it for you? A new hard disk might not be necessary. Even if it is, most kids nowadays could strip down and rebuild a computer in about 10 seconds flat (ok I exaggerate slightly, but not much ).

 

Depending on the age and configuration of your existing PC it might be time to think about investing on a new one if your HDD is starting to act up.
If you do decide to get a new one I'd suggest you also invest in an additional external HDD, it won't cost an arm and a leg and would allow you a belt and braces solution to storage and protection of your files.
If you do decide to upgrade and your existing PC has USB ports you'll be able to copy your existing files (photos, texts etc) to an external drive and then onto your new PC.
If you don't want to put out cash for a new PC and your existing one has USB ports it would still be worth getting an external drive as you could then copy all your critical files onto it, before trying a complete reformat of your HDD which just might solve your problems. I'm assuming you have all the original installation CDs for the application software you are running as you would need it if you reformat.