Just to let everyone know the status of the long-delayed Vampire Murders, I have had a hard drive crash and it will be a little while before I am able to get my computer working again.

I am sending this from my husband's computer. Fortunately, I haven't lost more than a couple of paragraphs of the story, because I back up just about everything on an external drive, so I should be up and running again, shortly after Tara installs my new hard drive. I intended to get one this morning down at Fry's in San Marcos, however in the morning rush I forgot to grab it and take it along so the people at the store could find me a compatible one. I plan on going down there in a couple of days to pick up something else that they have ordered for me, so I'll make sure the old hard drive is in the car the next time, and get it then.

If anyone with my email address would send me theirs again, at hachiban@earthlink.net, I'd appreciate it, since all my email addresses went with the drive.

This is getting very annoying. I have had that computer for less than 2 years.

Nan

Was the computer a Hewlett-Packard?

I hope your new computer will work better for you, Nan. We'll eagerly wait for the next installment of "Vampire Murders".

I know that feeling, Iolanthe. I'm taking my HP into the shop tomorrow. Every time I put a DVD in, it lets me watch about 5 minutes before shutting down the whole computer. (which makes it difficult to write and watch at the same time, BTW). Not to mention that the fans run constantly and are so loud my head is ready to explode (see from above).

I've heard rumors that HP builds their computers to last 1 year. I'm sorry, a computer should be build like a car TO LAST. Most of us don't have $500+ in disposable income for a computer every year. Well, the next computer I buy won't be HP (or a Dell, I've already crossed them off my list from last time, although that one did last 6 years, so they're only crossed off in pencil.)

Good luck, Nan! Let us know if you get a good one.

Hi Nan,

You really do not need to take the drive in. Since the device is only two years old what you need is a SATA drive. Look for one with at least 5 Meg buffer. 7200 RPM is preferred to 5400. After that all you need to decide is capacity. You can get a WD or Seagate Terabyte drive for around a $100. It will depend on your pocketbook what capacity you get. Nowadays 500 Gig is almost a minimum.

@Virginia - from your description it sounds like a power supply issue. Get that handled ASAP or you might lose the whole computer. (DS lost a HD, motherboard, CPU and memory on his gaming machine when the power supply gave up and sent a power spike through everything.) And buy more power supply than you think you need - every time you add a new device, it takes more power, and although they don't mention it, I'm pretty sure that includes USB devices.

Thanks, Dandello. But what exactly do you mean by "power supply issue"? I need more RAM? I have a cordless keyboard & mouse, and keep a USB Gig drive plugged in to save my Quicken stuff and I have my External HD plugged in all the time. So, you think those things are draining power? How would I fix that? I was just about to take my desktop computer to the shop this morning.

The HD was a Hitachi, 1 terabyte drive. I decided not to wait, and took it down yesterday afternoon to make sure I got the right kind of drive. This one is a 2 terabyte HGST Deskstar that advertises itself as a SATA 3, so I hope it will be tougher than the last one.

I do have an HP computer, but the trouble I had with it the last time was one bad RAM stick, which shut down the whole computer. Other than that, it has given me great service until the HD crashed. I'll get to work putting it back the way I like as soon as my daughter installs the drive and the Windows 7 operating system I had to buy with it. I don't trust myself to do that, since I know next to nothing about the internals of a computer. I don't mess with things I don't understand, and leave it to the experts.

My computer came originally with Windows 7 installed. At least this time if something goes wrong, I'll have the program to install in any other drive that I might have to buy at a later date.

In the meantime, I have been working on the Vampire Murders by hand. It is going slowly, but I will hopefully be ready to post soon, when I have the computer working the way I like it again.

Nan

Hi Virginia,

If your problem is power supply related I would not wait. Dandello is correct, if it fails it can go out spectacularly. Most HPs have a 300 watt power supply installed. If you are adding periferals, and yes that includes USB devices, you will need to accomodate that additional power need. The manufacturer usually sizes the number of extra slots and USB ports to the size of the power supply, but if you are adding USB hubs for more connections, better video and sound cards as well as a wireless NIC you will need to up your power. The good news is that they are relatively cheap and easy to install. I would recommend at least a 450 watt PS. They are generic so any brand will do and even top of the line shouldn't cost more than around $50.

If you have any specific questions - send me an e-mail. Look at my signiture block on my e-mails.

Hi Nan,

HGST is actually Hitachi it has a decent rep. It will take a while to use up all of that space.

Happy computing.