Computer panic

[ladyofastolat]

My desktop computer won't switch on! When I press the power button, it begins doing its normal healthy "I am switching on!" whirring, but after a second, it whirs down to silence and all lights go off. Only a few days ago, I said guiltily how awful I am about backing anything up, but did I do anything about it? Of course not! I have loads and loads of stuff on that computer that isn't backed up anywhere else, including pretty much every photo I've even taken in the last 6 years or so (except for those I've posted on LJ) and several not-yet-posted stories.

And I'm due to leave for Summerfest in an hour, so can't take it to a nice heroic computer man for him to fix. If anyone wise in the ways of computers is able to say to me, "Don't worry! It sounds as if you just need to have the Technobabble replaced, and then it will work perfectly and you won't lose anything you've got saved!" this would be a very very reassuring thing to hear while I'm en route.

Last night, I slept very badly and managed to dream about 101 things that could go wrong with Summerfest and my journey there, which ranged from the plausible (forgetting train tickets, although this will no longer happen, since Action has been taken; hideous drench etc.) to the less plausible (missing the train on account of staying behind to clean the castle; Henry V's army turning up and eating all our bacon butties, etc.) but I didn't dream this one.

Comments

[kargicq.livejournal.com]

Heaven knows I am no expert, but it sounds to me like a problem with the power supply or something, NOT a problem with the hard disk. Which means your stuff should be simple to recover. -N

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

I concur. First thing I'd try would be a different PSU, or at least making sure everything is plugged in properly and then a different PSU.

In the meantime, and assuming you have another desktop PC to hand, you could plug the hard disk into another PC and copy important files off it.

After that, the next thing to do is set up some backup routine that backs up important files to somewhere else every night or every day. One of the cloud storage services perhaps. Or, if you have more data, a combination of cloud storage and local network storage with a nice little NAS box.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

"NAS"?

[bunn.livejournal.com]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network-attached_storage

A little box which just contains hard disks and a simple system for managing files, that you administer remotely from another machine. We have our machines set to just copy everything over daily to ours.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Ta

[torkell]

Seconded - I've had computer power supplies fail in the past with similar symptoms.

[bookwormsarah.livejournal.com]

I had something similar happen to my computer (about a decade ago so this may not be relevent) and it was solved by replacing the button battery which powered up the boot (I think - I can't remember the techy details). It cost about £3 and the computer worked for several years after.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

No idea, but sounds like there is a decent chance the data should be saveable. Hope you have a good Summerfest and don't worry about it!

[bunn.livejournal.com]

... when you get back, if it helps at all - I use http://www.sosonlinebackup.com/, and ISTR Pp puts his STUPIDLY HUGE football manager files in Dropbox. Either would give you offsite backup that just happens automagically every day and doesn't need to be thought about.

[rubygirl29.livejournal.com]

My money is on the power supply or battery, not the hard drive. You should be able to recover your data -- or at least have your local Geek Squad extract the data. I know I should back up my files more regularly than I do. I'd better put my latest oevre on a flash drive or risk losing it.

Have a great weekend, don't worry about the 'puter. I look forward to hearing about Summerfest and the bacon butties! What are those? We don't have them in the US.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

A bacon butty is very like a bacon sarnie (ie sandwich). Slice of bacon, two slices of bread, et voila! Add butter, brown sauce, tomato ketchup etc to taste.

[firin.livejournal.com]

Note: this would be European style bacon and NOT US style bacon, which would make a bacon butty, frankly, inedible.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I've never quite understood what US style bacon actually is.

[jtrevizo-1013.livejournal.com]

If all else fails you should be able to go to the local electronics store and buy a casing for the hard drive which you can remove from your tower and install in the casing, and it becomes an external hard drive. We did that when our PC crashed (had to do with the graphics card) and were able to get every thing off it.
Good luck!