NationStates Jolt Archive

To some people, it's when they perma-delete that document or folder that's important. For others, it's when they find out that they've loaded a particularly tenacious spyware/malware into their system.

For me, it's finding out that I accidentally tried installing the new OS into my storage drive and finding out that over 200GB of materials collected over several years just went up in smoke.

So, what's your biggest computer foul up?

I forgot my bios password back in the early 90's before I was brave enough to open the case and fix it.........so I had to take it in for a boy to open the case and fix it and he charged me $30.

melting the motherboard

Deleting my /b/ folder. So many images, both divine and hideous, lost...

for some reason the software side of my laptop has survived and nothing particularly bad has happened with it, although i think there might be something wrong with the videocard cuz it crashes when i play some games. physically however my computer is one big foul up and it's a wonder it still runs. i had a floppy disc stuck in the drive for about a year, had to stick a knife in it and break stuff to get it out. shortly after that was solved something snapped in the screen hinge so now it's a balancing act to keep the screen up and i've recently noticed that the lcd bit is comeing detached from it's housing at the top. there are several keys missing from the keyboard and neither the up nor down arrow work anymore. when i tip the thing on its side i can here stuff slidng about in it and when i first put the wireless card in a few months ago something small and electrical looking fell out of the slot. i have lost count of the number of cups of coffee, glasses of water and bottles of beer i have tipped over both the screen and keyboard.

I accidentally dropped the motherboard while building my computer.

Roundhouse-kicked the tower.

EDIT: It fell off the table in the process.

Not making sure my docs were saved to a back-up disc before I wiped out my comp and started over. It was heart-breaking when I loaded the disc back in and found nothing was saved to it.

So, what's your biggest computer foul up?Getting called in 'cos of a virus, seeing the AVs were dealing with it, and failing to recognise the AVs were in fact not coping, but were systematically infecting everything, destroying some 15 computers utterly (BIOS and boot sectors), was annoying, but not too bad, since I didn't get blamed.

Dropping a CPU pins down at work, but unbending the pins and mounting it anyway, was bad. Wiping the wrong HDD at work was worse.

Throwing a PC out the window in frustration was very damn bad, 'cos it was my own. Kicking a massively expensive 21" CRT monitor to shit was worse still, 'cos it was also my own.

But nearly choking to death and breaking and couple of teeth was the worst. Don't ever try to eat a mate's webcam on a dare, no matter how drunk you are.

Logging on to NSG

To some people, it's when they perma-delete that document or folder that's important. For others, it's when they find out that they've loaded a particularly tenacious spyware/malware into their system.

For me, it's finding out that I accidentally tried installing the new OS into my storage drive and finding out that over 200GB of materials collected over several years just went up in smoke.

So, what's your biggest computer foul up?

Was in / and did a rm -r *
oops

Was in / and did a rm -r *
oops
I'm wondering how many people will get that.

Haven't done anything hugely stupid, but I once friend my entire machine due to a power surge. Fortunately, it was still under warranty and I had recently backup up important data.

I'm wondering how many people will get that.

Haven't done anything hugely stupid, but I once friend my entire machine due to a power surge. Fortunately, it was still under warranty and I had recently backup up important data.

Lol there are a few of us ...

My worst foul up was when I was playing Star Wars Tie Fighter and there was one frustrating mission that I had already spent several hours on. When I finally finished it, I was so ecstatic that I kicked out my arms and legs in triumph, slamming my foot into the tower and ended up breaking the computer.

oh, there were some!

First of all: no matter how late it is /dev/hda6 is not /dev/hda5 so it is a bad idea to format the first if you want to initialize the latter. :p

When I was persuaded to help setting up a Gentoo-box for an acquaintance despite my obvious tiredness, I mounted the partition which was supposed to become / to /mnt instead of to /mnt/gentoo. Rather embarassing since I couldn't do anything then but hit the windows-button (which is for some reason labelled 'Reset').

For a while I repeatedly made my system refuse to boot my kernel. Basically I had weird hardware and the obsession to make the smalles monolithic (no modules) kernel possible. Only remarkable because it happened often.

Another story is a bit funny: Lil Rejis did her first steps in PASCAL and programmed an EDLIN-ish editor. Little Rejis did not know much English at that time. Also, her TurboPascal in Windows 95's DOS was always rather stable, so she did not save her programs that often. The first test of the routine, which printed a specified line on the screen was done with a textfile in C:\ and the last line. Well, the program said: "SUBSCRIBE WINDOWS" and Rejis, not knowing what subscribe means and that that was the last line of the text-file panicked and switched off the PC. Did I mention the 'not saving' bit?

My worst foul up was when I was playing Star Wars Tie Fighter and there was one frustrating mission that I had already spent several hours on. When I finally finished it, I was so ecstatic that I kicked out my arms and legs in triumph, slamming my foot into the tower and ended up breaking the computer.

Exactly why my computer isn't on ground level. Then again...I have punched it before in rage but now that I've upgraded it, it's far too precious to hurt. *pets computer*

Sounds like some painful experiences all around.

I had a friend who once had his CPU catch fire...with the casing open...while sitting right next to his leg...and the CPU fan blowing the flames onto his leg.

Letting a friend talk me into using his virus-scanner disk on my 8088 because "you should be sure it has no viruses" -- despite never sharing disks or being connected to the internet.

Want to guess what my computer got out of it?

I fried a videocard (original Geforce 256) due to excessive overclocking. It's ok thought I replaced it with a Geforce 2 and successfully got that one cranking at way over stock.

It's possible some silver thermal paste got where it shouldn't and shorted it out, or that it just died from overvoltage.

Let's see, Deleting my floppy drive on the 93.

Losing the MS DOS dll on the 98 I use. (Can't run DOS programs now)

Deleting System.ini ... twice...
(Second time I had to rename a text document in the windows directory to system.ini' in DOS Prompt)

Anything to do with XP. ARGH!!

spyware/malware or trojan .. heck I don't know.. I know one time it was something a computer person said they couldn't fix.. but either they were lying or didnt know shit.. because I fixed it myself after 12 hours. It hasn't happened in a long time, and I thank mozilla for that .. somewhat. But when it did happen it took me quite a bit of time and figuring things out as I went along to fix it. Those couple of times it was pretty bad. I still don't know how I did it, I just did it. I could never be a teacher. I do stuff when I have to .. can't retell how I did it.

Installing Linux, with LiLo (and not Grub) and forgetting to partition my disk before hand (though I did try with PartitionMagic, but when that failed, I still figured... what could go wrong?), only to have a kernel panic at LiLo and having to reinstall XP and losing all my documents, though luckily having a backup of my documents on hand, though not terribly recent. Though I did lose my assignments for school...

Nothing like installing an OS at 3am...when you've got class at 8am...

Well, some time last night my new computer decided to become one with the undead - I can turn it on, restart it and whatnot, and the power light glows, but nothing appears on the screen. This could probably be avoided entirely if Apple would only include a "monitor reset" button somewhere on the case.

But I don't think it's anything I did ...

Was in / and did a rm -r *
oops
Lol, that make me laugh.

Mine would be trying to change my boot order one time, and instead ended up change my CD drive to master, and my HDD to slave or secondary master. I switched it back, but couldn't boot at all (it somehow destroyed some Windows conf files).

Burning a motherboard with RAM I knew was dodgy, but thought I'd get away with. Caused the mobo to short and that was the end of that, and my burgeoning friendship with the guy whos motherboard I couldn't afford to replace.

I was pulling an all nighter to get a script re-draft in for the next day. Spent the whole night obsessively saving all the time so nothing could go wrong. Finished it, re-read it and just as I was congratulating myself I knocked the laptop off the table.

Thankfully it didn't break so not a foul up as such but it was potentially a $2,000,000 mistake

I was pulling an all nighter to get a script re-draft in for the next day. Spent the whole night obsessively saving all the time so nothing could go wrong. Finished it, re-read it and just as I was congratulating myself I knocked the laptop off the table.

Thankfully it didn't break so not a foul up as such but it was potentially a $2,000,000 mistake

You were lucky indeed.... *shifty eyes*

Well right now it won't even play any of my Source games, Battlefield 2142, and it simply breaks my Call of Duty games.

I've melted several computers with renders.

I've melted several computers with renders.

What kind of computers? I've never melted any of mine yet. Well, maybe a graphics card, but that was due to fan failure.

My worst foul up was when I was playing Star Wars Tie Fighter and there was one frustrating mission that I had already spent several hours on. When I finally finished it, I was so ecstatic that I kicked out my arms and legs in triumph, slamming my foot into the tower and ended up breaking the computer.

Oh my God... I have that game! It still runs on my 12 year old Micron computer.

I do recall that game getting fairly frustrating, especially if you're between the ages of 6 and 7 like I was.

Trying to boot up Linux off a disc. I think it permanently damaged my HDD.

burning out the power supply, which f**ked up the HDD. suffice to say, I lost everything.

What kind of computers? I've never melted any of mine yet. Well, maybe a graphics card, but that was due to fan failure.

Three macs, a PC and a Silicon Graphics machine. I'm no hardware expert, but the machines all had to be replaced. I taxed them to death.

Three macs, a PC and a Silicon Graphics machine. I'm no hardware expert, but the machines all had to be replaced. I taxed them to death.

How long ago was this, and what app were you using?

Three macs, a PC and a Silicon Graphics machine. I'm no hardware expert, but the machines all had to be replaced. I taxed them to death.

What the heck were you rendering? A 20 minute maxed out video show? I use my rig to render 12-18 second clips at most, and those usually take over 24 hours if I enable all the special effects.

Using a generic power supply, when it finally blew up - took out my motherboard with it. Over $350 later, new PSU and new motherboard.

I'm using a Seasonic 550W S12 energy plus now.

Three macs, a PC and a Silicon Graphics machine. I'm no hardware expert, but the machines all had to be replaced. I taxed them to death.

Impressive ... probably a good idea to stay away from thoes models they were not up to the cooling challange

Using a generic power supply, when it finally blew up - took out my motherboard with it. Over $350 later, new PSU and new motherboard.

I'm using a Seasonic 550W S12 energy plus now.

Good brand ... them Thermaltake and Enermax are my normal choices

Good brand ... them Thermaltake and Enermax are my normal choices

I think my new nVidia 7600GT (OCed to 580 Mhz) pushed the old PSU to the limit.

According to some sources, a generic PSU with it's crappy components loses 20% of it's capacity in 1 year so my old 400 watt was really doing 320 and the system at peak load pushed around 300 watts.

I think my new nVidia 7600GT (OCed to 580 Mhz) pushed the old PSU to the limit.

MY opterons plus 8 hard drives push mine all the way out too (Running a 7600 GT as well)

The time when I forgot I was working on the server at school and shut it down- the school was off line for three day and the lady's in the office were not to pleased to find out that the had lost a lot of work thanks to my stupidity.

There was also the time last spring that I wiped out the admin comp in the lab,( that was intentional) and then re installed windows including renaming the comp and giving it a new pass word ect...well every thing was all fine and dandy until I tried to install some new software last week and realized that I had no idea what the comps password ect was and despite my memory of writing it down- I cant find it.

My favorite is this one- I attempted to install Linux for the first time, by my self, with no real knowledge of how one goes about properly installing Linux or actually using it once one get it installed. Well it was going along fine until it started to partition my drives- I now have a computer that thinks it's half Linux half windows. I will boot in windows for a bit, then it dies saying that so and so file cant be found...if it boots in linux....i cant even tell you what it does...suffice to say I now have one really messed up computer

perhaps I should just stay away from computers:confused:

When using UNIX, be very careful with CHMOD ... had an accident with uni project with that command once, oops.

MY opterons plus 8 hard drives push mine all the way out too (Running a 7600 GT as well)

I now use an Dual Core Opteron 165 (socket 939) instead of the old Athlon64 3200+. I do get weird BSODs - but it might be something to do with using DEP (or NX bit) and dual core AMDs.

I now use an Dual Core Opteron 165 (socket 939) instead of the old Athlon64 3200+. I do get weird BSODs - but it might be something to do with using DEP (or NX bit) and dual core AMDs.

I am still at socket 940 Opteron 246's ... I have not had the motivation to move up these things plow through anything I can push at them, I run into bottlenecks elsewhere

Giving someone the info needed to build Giant Killer Monekyes.:(

I am still at socket 940 Opteron 246's ... I have not had the motivation to move up these things plow through anything I can push at them, I run into bottlenecks elsewhere

It's scary when your laptop running the slowish 1.83 Ghz Core 2 Duo Meroms is faster than my current desktop in all things except video and hard drive performance.

I am still at socket 940 Opteron 246's ... I have not had the motivation to move up these things plow through anything I can push at them, I run into bottlenecks elsewhere

Using an Intel E6600 myself, and I still find that I don't have enough crunch power sometimes. But then again, I do a lot of rendering so....

On a side note, when do you think the quad cores will be economical enough for those of us without massive bank accounts?

It's scary when your laptop running the slowish 1.83 Ghz Core 2 Duo Meroms is faster than my current desktop in all things except video and hard drive performance.

I bought a chepo Compaq vx2000 a year ago or so, turion and a gig of ram,, my desktop is good enough that I dont really need power mobile computing just good batt life some good hard drive space and portability

Using an Intel E6600 myself, and I still find that I don't have enough crunch power sometimes. But then again, I do a lot of rendering so....

On a side note, when do you think the quad cores will be economical enough for those of us without massive bank accounts?

Rendering ain't my thing but if it were I have the capacity to go up from here by a wide margin if I needed to, they were just the procs I could afford awhile back (they were about 300 a pice when I bought them)

I had a Commodore 64 ... and then the local cockroaches moved in. Never worked ever since. Lesson, don't let a family of cockroaches move into your computer.

Rendering ain't my thing but if it were I have the capacity to go up from here by a wide margin if I needed to, they were just the procs I could afford awhile back (they were about 300 a pice when I bought them)

Well, I do need to cut down on cycle times for each render, and the more processors I can bring to bear, virtual or physical cores, the better. I don't have a server mainboard on me, and I can't afford the infrastructure needed for it, so the best I can hope for is high spec multi-core processors.

Well, I do need to cut down on cycle times for each render, and the more processors I can bring to bear, virtual or physical cores, the better. I don't have a server mainboard on me, and I can't afford the infrastructure needed for it, so the best I can hope for is high spec multi-core processors.

The next generation of Intel quads will be hyperthreaded (and multi-cored of course).

I had a Commodore 64 ... and then the local cockroaches moved in. Never worked ever since. Lesson, don't let a family of cockroaches move into your computer.

that reminds me a friend of mine had/found a mouse in his computer, it had gotten in but couldn't get out and was making a lot of noise for a little mouse

Well, I do need to cut down on cycle times for each render, and the more processors I can bring to bear, virtual or physical cores, the better. I don't have a server mainboard on me, and I can't afford the infrastructure needed for it, so the best I can hope for is high spec multi-core processors.

Mine was about 300
K8nDL ... it will handle dual dual cores if I pushed it that far ...

But video is not my thing what I really need the power for is large scale virtual machinging and such, most of the stuff I do is hard drive and ram intensive more then anything

The next generation of Intel quads will be hyperthreaded (and multi-cored of course).

And probably cost about 3 times the price of an E6600. I did some price checking, and supposedly the quads coming out locally here are going for roughly $1000 USD or more.

Although sometimes I drool at the idea of an 8 core machine with hyperthreading giving me 16 virtual processors.

that reminds me a friend of mine had/found a mouse in his computer, it had gotten in but couldn't get out and was making a lot of noise for a little mouse

Mice make a lot of noise when electrified. Although I had a mouse attack my USB mouse once. Damned rodent chewed the wire through, causing a short in the whole system (overnight rendering).

Mine was about 300
K8nDL ... it will handle dual dual cores if I pushed it that far ...

Asus? I use a Gigabyte motherboard. Besides, looking at the board, I don't think it can support my Nvidia 8800 GTX.

Mine was about 300
But video is not my thing what I really need the power for is large scale virtual machinging and such, most of the stuff I do is hard drive and ram intensive more then anything

Hmmm, you run a server on the side?

that reminds me a friend of mine had/found a mouse in his computer, it had gotten in but couldn't get out and was making a lot of noise for a little mouse

Computers aren't nice places to live these days with all those spinning fans and sharp bits everywhere. :D

Mice make a lot of noise when electrified. Although I had a mouse attack my USB mouse once. Damned rodent chewed the wire through, causing a short in the whole system (overnight rendering).



Asus? I use a Gigabyte motherboard. Besides, looking at the board, I don't think it can support my Nvidia 8800 GTX.



Hmmm, you run a server on the side?

Gigabyte is alright I have had a better run out of Asus personally .... been a great board

And yes I do run servers of all flavors, as well as a lot of security projects and other projects of intrest.

Gigabyte is alright I have had a better run out of Asus personally .... been a great board

Gigabyte has done me quite well, better than my time with Asus. *shrug*



And yes I do run servers of all flavors, as well as a lot of security projects and other projects of intrest.

That explains the RAM usage. Currently, I've been using DDR-2 RAM, but I've got a friend urging me to go up to EEC RAM cause I've started doing fluid simulations which really much up the ram. Is it worth the cost to go to EEC or should I just slap on x4 2 gig DDR2 RAM chips?

Mice make a lot of noise when electrified. Although I had a mouse attack my USB mouse once. Damned rodent chewed the wire through, causing a short in the whole system (overnight rendering).
well this one had not gotten electrified, from what he could tell,all of the wire were still intact which he was thankful for.
arg thats a bummer about the rendering mishap. setting you comp to do something over night only to come back in the morning to find that all hell has broken lose is no fun.
Computers aren't nice places to live these days with all those spinning fans and sharp bits everywhere. :D

no kidding! its ridicules, its only a matter of time before some one sues! :D

Gigabyte has done me quite well, better than my time with Asus. *shrug*




That explains the RAM usage. Currently, I've been using DDR-2 RAM, but I've got a friend urging me to go up to EEC RAM cause I've started doing fluid simulations which really much up the ram. Is it worth the cost to go to EEC or should I just slap on x4 2 gig DDR2 RAM chips?

I put in 10 or 15 gigbyte boards back in the day and I had a bunch of fan failures and a few north bridge burnouts, a few issues with the first PCI cards as well.

They were good boards with TONE's of features but I just had too many issues

I am not sure for multy core, procs. With the dual procs it makes all the difference going with ECC registered (in fact my board requires it) but I have not compared latly

Personally I would throw more ram at it before going to ECC but that is me I may be mistaken

That explains the RAM usage. Currently, I've been using DDR-2 RAM, but I've got a friend urging me to go up to EEC RAM cause I've started doing fluid simulations which really much up the ram. Is it worth the cost to go to EEC or should I just slap on x4 2 gig DDR2 RAM chips?

If you run into a memory parity error with non-EEC ram, it will crash the entire system, but using EEC - the error is picked and corrected and no crash. However, it makes EEC ram slower so for 24x7 servers it's required but for people who don't run their PCs 24x7, not much point.

To some people, it's when they perma-delete that document or folder that's important. For others, it's when they find out that they've loaded a particularly tenacious spyware/malware into their system.

For me, it's finding out that I accidentally tried installing the new OS into my storage drive and finding out that over 200GB of materials collected over several years just went up in smoke.

So, what's your biggest computer foul up?

When I accidentally changed the file association for exe to Irfan View ( photos "hidden" by using the .exe extention) then re-started the computer, The OS (windows 3.11) would start to load then try to open every thing as a photo. it was fun watching all the windows pop-up as Irfan View couldn't be opened (as it was an exe)

I have a laptop, and one time after coming back from a weekend out I was plugging it back in and had two power cords, one to the laptop and the other to the external harddrive. Exactly the same power cords, with the only way to tell them apart underneath the desk. So when I plugged them in it went wrong and I fried my external cause for some reason they don't come with any safety measures putting a lid on how much voltage they can accept.

Bye bye 160 gigs worth of stuff...

I put in 10 or 15 gigbyte boards back in the day and I had a bunch of fan failures and a few north bridge burnouts, a few issues with the first PCI cards as well.

Odd, never had a problem like that with my gigabyte board. Maybe you got a defective batch?


I am not sure for multy core, procs. With the dual procs it makes all the difference going with ECC registered (in fact my board requires it) but I have not compared latly

Since I'm on a dual core duo at the moment, ECC might be worth the change if there's a significant performance boost. How much of a boost do you estimate over equivalent DDR2?

If you run into a memory parity error with non-EEC ram, it will crash the entire system, but using EEC - the error is picked and corrected and no crash. However, it makes EEC ram slower so for 24x7 servers it's required but for people who don't run their PCs 24x7, not much point.

I don't run a server, and the most I've run my PC concurrently is about a week at maximum. It's not so much memory parity error picking I'm looking for but just the ability to handle bigger RAM demands due to the fluid simulations. I mean, I tried running with the equivalent of about 200 liters of water in 3d worldspace and it ran out of memory real quick.

I have a laptop, and one time after coming back from a weekend out I was plugging it back in and had two power cords, one to the laptop and the other to the external harddrive. Exactly the same power cords, with the only way to tell them apart underneath the desk. So when I plugged them in it went wrong and I fried my external cause for some reason they don't come with any safety measures putting a lid on how much voltage they can accept.

Bye bye 160 gigs worth of stuff...

That's weird. My caddy and laptop battery charger don't have compatible power sockets. Odd that they'd make them that way for yours though.

Worst thing I have done was burn some house plans I made on software, for personal use, e.g. for stories and just cause I wanted to, onto a disc, then not put the discs contents onto the other computer, so when I erased the disc to do a reburn, I lost the plans.

Still annoyed I did that.

So, what's your biggest computer foul up?

I once threw up on my keyboard. I didn't even clean it. I just tossed it and bought a new one.

Either the time I turned on the computer and a big puff of smoke came out the back of the monitor, or the time I accidentally deleted my OS.

After building my first computer, turned it on to find it wouldn't start, had no idea why. Started checking some of the components and wiring, everything fine. Some time later I discover I hadn't pushed in the RAM correctly so it was half out of its socket.

Haven't had many cock-ups, few accidental deletions, graphics card dying, though recently had to underclock my cpu as I was getting memory errors and crashes running at full speed.

My sister downloaded a rather nasty spyware program onto the downstairs computer. Not only did it nearly kill my computer completely, it still runs slowly now. My next door neighbour is teh uber at fixing computer stuff though, so meh. Also, my battery on my laptop is fucked, so it currently runs completely off the mains - meaning one slight movement on the cable can pull it out and turn the whole damn thing off. When you're doing rather important coursework, this can REALLY piss you off.

I had a Commodore 64 ... and then the local cockroaches moved in. Never worked ever since. Lesson, don't let a family of cockroaches move into your computer.

Wow, you really DID have computer bugs! :D

I have two really memorable "oopses". One was when I was working on a long COBOL program at work. I'd been working for hours without saving anything. Without warning the network went down! Arrggghhhh!

The other was when I was experimeting with Linux. I wiped Windows, installed Linux, started to restore from my Zip Drive. It worked for awhile, but hit a bad spot on the disk, and the restore died! Luckily, my most important files survived, but I still lost some stuff. :(

Wow, you really DID have computer bugs! :D

I have two really memorable "oopses". One was when I was working on a long COBOL program at work. I'd been working for hours without saving anything. Without warning the network went down! Arrggghhhh!

The other was when I was experimeting with Linux. I wiped Windows, installed Linux, started to restore from my Zip Drive. It worked for awhile, but hit a bad spot on the disk, and the restore died! Luckily, my most important files survived, but I still lost some stuff. :(

I used a ZIP drive before changing to CD burners. ZIP disks are a fragile as floppies sometimes and then the drive died.

I have this annoying habit of emptying the recycle bin every time the mouse is anywhere near it. Which is a problem when the reason I clicked on it in the first place is to restore something I accidentally deleted.

Odd, never had a problem like that with my gigabyte board. Maybe you got a defective batch?



Since I'm on a dual core duo at the moment, ECC might be worth the change if there's a significant performance boost. How much of a boost do you estimate over equivalent DDR2?




That was over the span of 2 years and with 4-5 different models so dont think it was the batch

And I would say 3-4 percent but the opterons of my age dont like having non ECC Registered so I see more of a boost then most people would (in fact I have reports that it would not work at all without the registered ram)

But it is ungodly expensive

I used a ZIP drive before changing to CD burners. ZIP disks are a fragile as floppies sometimes and then the drive died.

Agreed we just had a prof come in with all her grades for the last 10 years ... on zip

Problem being that unlike floppies most of our recovery utilities dont really like them much

I have this annoying habit of emptying the recycle bin every time the mouse is anywhere near it. Which is a problem when the reason I clicked on it in the first place is to restore something I accidentally deleted.

I hope you don't the Mac habit of dragging stuff into the bin for your own sake. I think you pick up a floppy disk and drag it into the bin to eject on the old Macs, don't know about new ones.

Agreed we just had a prof come in with all her grades for the last 10 years ... on zip

Problem being that unlike floppies most of our recovery utilities dont really like them much

And then the drive goes click and clunk, it's stuffed. I use DVDs and CDs, including some ancient 8 year old CD backups which somehow still work.

Agreed we just had a prof come in with all her grades for the last 10 years ... on zip

Problem being that unlike floppies most of our recovery utilities dont really like them much

My dad still uses Zip to back up his accounts and stuff. Its the only original piece of hardware left in his PC (well, the power supply, I guess).

And then the drive goes click and clunk, it's stuffed. I use DVDs and CDs, including some ancient 8 year old CD backups which somehow still work.

Keep them out of light and non scratched and they will go a LONG time

We still use an archived tape backup along with large scale RAID on our SAN

So I just make sure it is backed up on the SAN personally lol

My dad still uses Zip to back up his accounts and stuff. Its the only original piece of hardware left in his PC (well, the power supply, I guess).

Yucky

My dad still uses Zip to back up his accounts and stuff. Its the only original piece of hardware left in his PC (well, the power supply, I guess).

CDs and DVDs are cheaper and well, so are DVD burners compared to ZIP drives. I've got a pile of ZIP discs lying around still ...

On my first computer, in order to make more room I went around deleting files I "wouldn't need" you know, like command.com. :headbang:

Not a fuck-up, because it still functioned afterwards, but in a fit of rage I shot my last PC 8 times with a pellet gun, you can see the dents and the hole where a BB went through.

Oh, I also spazzed and booted my old webcam across my room. The next day I bought an identical one, switched them and returned it. 'The screen must of gotten frozen, look, the LCD looks all messed up'. :D

That was over the span of 2 years and with 4-5 different models so dont think it was the batch.

*shrug* Well, I did switch around boards for a while, but Gigabyte hasn't let me down. I've had HDDs, GPUs, heck, even RAM, let me down, but not any of my motherboards.


And I would say 3-4 percent but the opterons of my age dont like having non ECC Registered so I see more of a boost then most people would (in fact I have reports that it would not work at all without the registered ram)

But it is ungodly expensive

Urgh, at 3-4 percent performance increase, I can't justify the near 200% increase in price. More DDR-2 it is. The 2GB sticks just came out locally, so I can theoretically get up to 8GB. Wonder if my OS can support it?

Dumping a glass of water all over my laptop...

...and then having it return from the dead. Zombie Laptop, :eek:

To some people, it's when they perma-delete that document or folder that's important. For others, it's when they find out that they've loaded a particularly tenacious spyware/malware into their system.

For me, it's finding out that I accidentally tried installing the new OS into my storage drive and finding out that over 200GB of materials collected over several years just went up in smoke.

So, what's your biggest computer foul up?



Ohhhh years ago I just started this new, job and was out one day on a client site. The job was to install a new HDD in an old Netware server.

Well I plugged it all in, entered the relevant commands, and sat there wathcing it format this new hard drive prior to incorperating it into the existingg array. Partway thorugh I thought to myself. Umm that looks like a lot of bytes being formated, I'm sure the new HDD wasn't that big!

Shit I checked, and the cables where not pushed firmly enough in, I was actualy formating the disks that held all of the data!


Whew, thank God for backups.

my PSU was faulty on a computer i'd built. i didn't know that at the time and, thinking it was something i'd done, i took it to the shop and ask for a fix.

next thing you know they format my HDD without telling me. i lose 250gb of my stuff :(

the worst part is that it was for nothing - it wasn't even remotely a software problem or anything to do with the HD :mad:



however, i've been quite lucky and rarely done anything majorly stupid with my computers myself... *touches wood*

For me, it's finding out that I accidentally tried installing the new OS into my storage drive and finding out that over 200GB of materials collected over several years just went up in smoke.


Yep, my brother did that. Too bad it was my older brother (hes bigger then me so i can't have my revenge :( ).

Logging on to NSGQuoted for mighty truth.

I was pulling an all nighter to get a script re-draft in for the next day. Spent the whole night obsessively saving all the time so nothing could go wrong. Finished it, re-read it and just as I was congratulating myself I knocked the laptop off the table.

Thankfully it didn't break so not a foul up as such but it was potentially a $2,000,000 mistakeOne hell of an expensive laptop you have there. ;p

I have this annoying habit of emptying the recycle bin every time the mouse is anywhere near it. Which is a problem when the reason I clicked on it in the first place is to restore something I accidentally deleted.Hehe, that's totally something I would do. >.<

I hope you don't the Mac habit of dragging stuff into the bin for your own sake. I think you pick up a floppy disk and drag it into the bin to eject on the old Macs, don't know about new ones.God, yes, I hated that! I remember sitting in a university computer lab in front of my first Mac ever and being positive I broke the floppy slot because I just couldn't get the damn thing out again. Luckily I panicked and turned the whole thing off, thus having the stupid floppy disk ejected as if nothing had happened... :rolleyes: