Hardware hacking - trying not to use the axe

[mdlbear]

Upgrading the disk and memory on my file server has been on my List Of Things To Do for a long time now, so having finally assembled 4GB of RAM, 3 500GB SATA drives, and a free afternoon in the same place, I prepared to do battle.

I think it came out a draw.

After going through a goodly fraction of the combinatoric space implied by the above plus three power supplies and two ethernet cards, I finally determined that the reason it was failing to boot was...

A bad SATA cable!

Maybe a marginal power supply, too. And did I mention the hunt for the four special hard-drive mounting screws that eventually turned up on my desk.

I also determined that almost all the noise in the office is coming from the CPU fan on my router. :(

Naturally, I haven't had time to run any of the errands I had scheduled for this afternoon, let alone trying to upgrade the server to Lenny and pull out the IDE drive it's currently running with. Or take a walk. Or deal with email, or the inkjet printer (which is still waiting for the server upgrade). And did I mention that the server isn't recognizing its Gbit network card? That's waiting for the upgrade, too.

And of course the LJ posts and email that have been hanging fire for a while now...

I am a grumpy bear.

Comments

[shadowe_wraithe]

(((((((((((((((((((((((MDLBEAR)))))))))))))))))))

Glad to hear it was a not expensive problem to fix!

Umm, at least it's better than the error I got on both my HD's when booting...

Disk Read Error
Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart (ad nauseum in the fatal loop)

Not sure how I managed it, but now have the original HD running old version of XP SP2 (am refusing to update to SP3 because that appears to be when/where the problem originally started)

Am going to be resorting out the poor old beasty, as we got a (new to us)new case, and for (our) Chaos' gaming machine which is also TU, a new power supply. If it can't run dual cores, well then 500W is not the cure.

Hope to see you next weekend...powers willing and work compliant.

Love, Hugs and Blessings,
Shadowe

[mdlbear]

YAY!! Definitely looking forward to that.

[septemberlilac.livejournal.com]

Well, if you're not going to be using that axe, mind if I borrow it? My laptop's problematic power jack keeled over dead Friday night with the battery at 20% and dropping - and the other aged laptop which was pressed into emergency service can see every wireless network for miles around but won't connect to any of them including mine. I had been thinking in terms of hurling them both out a second story window, but an axe would be even better. I promise to re-sharpen the blade before I return it.

[mdlbear]

Sure. You need at least five or six stories for defenestration to work properly.

Older laptops running Windows are especially problematic for WiFi; they don't support the most recent security techniques. It may be ok talking to an open network if you can find one.

[dsmoen.livejournal.com]

Grumpy but triumphant with diagnostic-fu!

Hugs!

[mdlbear]

*hugs*