kris kincaid
November 27th, 2005, 11:33 PM
I had a computer issue recently that I finally solved. I have both XP and Ubuntu installed on my PC. The initial hard drive that I installed Ubuntu Warty on "failed" after about 3 months of installation. The system would freeze up, X would crash and the screen would get flooded with an error that said something to the effect "drive not ready". After Googling for an hour or so I determined the hard drive was failing. This was strange to me because in the 10 years I have had a computer, I have never had a hard drive failure. I figured there's a first for everything, and bought a new hard drive.
Fast forward to about a month ago. The same thing starts happening with my new hard drive on Breezy! No freaking way I am having 2 hard drive failures in less than a year! After Googling again, it appears the hard drive is failing. I ran some diagnostic tests, and they all confirmed the new hard drive was failing. I was starting to wonder if maybe Ubuntu was hard on hard drives.
I was going to go over to Fry's this morning and buy a new hard drive, but just to make sure I was going to see if it was working or not before I left. When I hit the power on button, nothing happened. After checking all connections, I decided to replace the power supply and see if it fixed the problem. Bingo! That was the problem all along, a bad power supply! Now everything is working perfectly. The reason the last drive "failed" was because the power lead to it was probably no good.
I guess the moral to my story is, check everything before just throwing money at a problem. I should have known that from working on cars. :)
Fast forward to about a month ago. The same thing starts happening with my new hard drive on Breezy! No freaking way I am having 2 hard drive failures in less than a year! After Googling again, it appears the hard drive is failing. I ran some diagnostic tests, and they all confirmed the new hard drive was failing. I was starting to wonder if maybe Ubuntu was hard on hard drives.
I was going to go over to Fry's this morning and buy a new hard drive, but just to make sure I was going to see if it was working or not before I left. When I hit the power on button, nothing happened. After checking all connections, I decided to replace the power supply and see if it fixed the problem. Bingo! That was the problem all along, a bad power supply! Now everything is working perfectly. The reason the last drive "failed" was because the power lead to it was probably no good.
I guess the moral to my story is, check everything before just throwing money at a problem. I should have known that from working on cars. :)