Another computer problem >

Hey again guys XD

Ok so, today (and now that I've heard it, for quite a while) I started up my computer and got signs that my hard drive is inevitably failing. These signs were very obvious, a repeating grinding sound from the hard drive, documents not showing up (instead that stupid flashlight icon), and lastly a system lock up.

Now I thought I was screwed and lost everything, however by the graise of the computer gods, my computer seemed to work normal (and is now) and gave my a chance to copy off all my important doc.s to my flash-drive. Now as you know, I have no idea how long it will last but I will try to use it tonight so I can buy a new HD tomorrow.

I have some serious conserns though. Firstly and most importantly, my OS. I have my Windows XP CD and the code that came with it. But I remember that it needs to be "activated" before 30 days. Is something smart enough to tell microsoft that this is the SAME computer it has been installed on before? Like an IP or code on the motherboard or something? Cuz I really dont want to buy XP again.

Another one, I have a USP wireless adaptor on my computer. I have the install disk, however it was installed and possibly set up by my ISP. If it needs me to set it up with IPs or adresses of any kind for it to find my router I will have no clue. I know I can call my ISP for help, but I would like to know if you guys know if it needs to be set up like that.

Well wish me luck, and please tell me anything you know or think I should do, suggestions are good too. ^^

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Yes I spell bad, but remimber Mighty are the stupid.

Check out my drawings at http://half-dude.deviantart.com/

Yeah, get a copying program so you don't lose jack. (freeware)

When getting a HDD, make sure you get one with a nice warranty (about 5 years) because of stuff like this. If this happens again, you tell the manufacturer, and they send you a new one (give em a credit card so they'll send the new one first and you can copy all the data over)

Other than that, nothing else is particularly important since if anything ever does happen to it (in five years) you can get a replacement.

Use some hd cloning utility to copy all the data then use some partitioning program to extend the partition (not fdisk!).

That hd cloning program works for drives that are the same size or going from smaller to larger.

The partitioning stuff is shareware, but I believe if you only use it once it should work just fine.

You should also be able to find help and support information through those links as well as downloads.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

Thanks Crono, you are the computer geru. Anything about my OS worry though? Also, I talked to the guy that made my computer and he said I dont even need to worry about partitioning it. He said that he didnt and that it is manly only used when you want two seperated OSes.

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Yes I spell bad, but remimber Mighty are the stupid.

Check out my drawings at http://half-dude.deviantart.com/

Erm. Stop listening to your friends.

I'm not going to explain the whole "why you need a partition" thing right now. But, what I was talking about was you want to extend the partition to encompass the entire drive if the one you buy is larger than your current one (you want to use the new additional space, right?)

Example: If you have a 60GB drive and you transfer everything over (partition intact) to an 80GB drive, you need to extend the partition on the new drive to account for the additional 20GB, otherwise you will still only be able to use 60GB.

Make sense? It's fine if it doesn't, just do thing in this order: copy drive, extend partition.

Unless, of course, you buy a drive that is the same size as your current one (but not smaller!) then you don't need to extend anything.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

Well, I wasn't actually planning on carrying my files over. I have all the documents I really want to keep in my flash drive. I'm really only planning on simply taking my old one out and putting my new one in. After that I will put thing things in my flash drive onto the new HD. I figure I would be taking advantage of the situation that way, starting a new, and getting rid of all the unnecessary garbage on my system.

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Yes I spell bad, but remimber Mighty are the stupid.

Check out my drawings at http://half-dude.deviantart.com/