ninight

"Recovered" hard drive, sounds like to me that it wasn't formatted, but rather they did a system repair and restored windows for you. In those cases, the best thing to do is, once the operating system is running again, save all your stuff you want to save somewhere (CD,DVD,Memory chip) and then reformat the hard drive, that means wiping the whole thing clean, do a sector check and a performance check and then reinstall a whole new clean copy of Windows on it.

On the other hand, hard drives do not cost a 100 bucks nowadays, unless you want to get a 1 terrabyte one, which is really an overkill for a regular daily user. I have at least 4-5 hard drives laying around all of them came to me free, being claimed as "bad". I wiped them clean and I use it for testing purposes since they aren't so big (80gigabytes) but still capable of running just fine if I would be having an emergency and my current hard drive would fail on me.

My favorite maintenance method for PCs is 'percussive maintenance' ... it involves a hammer and repeated blows to the machine. Might not always work, but y' feel so much better ...

That's an expensive habit you've got there, my friend...

it has yet to be recovered, i'm waiting on the disc.
they said a 1tb hard drive was $100. i dont really know what size drive i need but the price doesnt sound unreasonable.

Assuming that $100 includes the labor of putting it in and everything, that might not be too bad, even though 1TB is A LOT of drive for what it seems like you use it for.

then what amount of storage would be appropriate? i can install the drive, i'm not worried about labor.

Hard drives are like closets, you can never tooooo much space. Other than a few games, a few movies, pics and the average everyday kinda programs and such I can get by just fine with 50 or 60 gig. I'm not even sure they sell anything that small anymore, but for around $50 (or less) you can find them from 320 Gig and up.

so...I got a new computer.

Does that mean that I can uncross my mustache now?

no...i still have to try to recover my old hard drive. we had a deal mister

ok, a deal's a deal.

t minus 1 hour until i give the old hard drive a try...anyone want to help me through it since i hardly know what i'm doing?

Okay, first things first, you're gonna wanna take out the motherboard. Then, take out the defective fatherboard and replace it with a (refurbished) daughterboard.

If you've reached this step, congratulations! Now it's time to get to business. Next to your daughterboard you will notice a wire. Don't touch it, just look.

This is where it get's tricky. You have to telepathically tell this wire, "you're a good wire, and you're gonna work!"

Once you believe this process is complete, Flip the floppy disk, and you're all set!

You forgot to tell her to press the 'anykey' first.

and am i supposed to fo all of this whilst in the attic watching the "real" ending to paranormal activity?

You don't have to, but it adds to the effect if you touch the red wire to the black one.

crisis averted!! I got muhhh stufffff! woot!