PC Troubleshooting Guide

What is Data Backup?

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Data backup is the act of ensuring your important information (which could be customer contact details for a business or cherished photos for a home user) isn’t only stored in a single place, which leaves it vulnerable to being lost through damage or theft. Since a backup system contains at least one copy of all important data, the risk of total data loss is minimized. And any data loss does not result in a total standstill of the business or heartache for the home user. Using the backup data, the system can be restored and normal service resumed.

Finding the right data backup solution can be confusing. It depends on what to backup, how to backup and what type of computer or network is being used. It might sometimes seem difficult to choose the right backup solution. Not because they are difficult to find, but because there are so many of them.

Things to Do if Your PDA gets wet!

Lets face it, children and adult gadgets does not mix. Even grownups do stupid things like placing a softdrink right next to the keyboard, then all of a sudden, you knock it over and it pours onto the keyboard. It’s not limited to the keyboard, but pretty much any electronic gadget with spaces in between in it that liquids can seep into like remote controls, notebook/laptop computers, PDAs and mobile phones.

If by any chance one of your gadgets was spilled with liquids, switch off the device and remove the batteries if necessary, then take it apart as fast as you can. Particles in many liquids are conductive, especially softdrinks and milk. If the liquid shorts circuit something inside, then the device might be permanently damaged and you should bring it to its service center for proper diagnosis.

PC does not Boot Up

You are getting ready to work so you turn on your PC and, for some reason, it won’t boot into its operating system. One of the most scary scenarios is when you press the power button and nothing happens. Lights wont turn on, fans wont turn on, and you don’t hear the sound of the hard discs. It’s like theres no electricity at all. This situation happened many times in the past and i am pretty sure that the solution to this dilemma is very simple. This may seem like a stupid suggestion but you have to see the electrical outlet first because you may have forgotten to plug the computer.

Screech….ing hard drive – Finishing the Job (Part 6)

One drive systems usually have no jumpers while two or more drive systems can have them installed. Set your errant drive as the slave and the master drive (the new one) as the master drive. Install the drive and screw securely while ensuring all power cables and connectors are set in their proper places before you power up. Partition the new drive if desired and format each partition (this ensures no malicious programs might have been innocently???? left in the drive during testing by the retailer or manufacturer) even if the retailer who sold you the drive says it is factory formatted. Re-install the OS, drivers and all the other programs; re-copy all the necessary files and you’re all set to go. Oh, don’t forget to take out the errant drive after you copy all your documents and files (the drive can fail and damage the computer if the controller board shorts due to failure of the mechanical parts damaging the rest of your computer including the new drive).

Screech….ing hard drive – Installing a New Hard Drive(Part 5)

If you do not have a secondary drive, better get hold of one fast but try to determine the type of the drive the system board supports (IDE, SCSI, ATA or SATA) so you buy the right one. If the drive type is no longer available (most areas have already phased out IDE drives being replaced by SATA drives), then you might be in for more of an overhaul rather than a troubleshooting expedition. A change in most of the parts may be necessary and the files that have to be transferred might be done on another computer which still supports your drive type or by the computer shop should you like them to do so(for a fee of course. Professional data retrieval would be too expensive for the ordinary PC and the data stored in it). Remove the plastic sheath or case of the new drive and check the jumper settings.

Blue Screen of Death - Part 2

The �blue screen� as it is more commonly called can be a simple sign that your computer is overheating and more ventilation is needed. This can be addresses with a couple of extra cooling fans or that the existing fans might be dirty and chock full of dust and grime. This can even be a sign of memory module failure which can also be attributed to overheating ( some memory modules literally cook on the boards giving off the nasty smell of burned plastic). Cooling improvements and replacement can remedy the situation granted that no other motherboard components have been cooked to a crisp.

Screech….ing hard drive – Re-configuring the secondary Drive (Part 4)

Now, to make the secondary drive your primary drive (after you have transferred all necessary files to that said drive), open the casing and locate your hard drive. Don’t forget to discharge any static electricity by touching the casing for a few seconds to ground yourself discharging the offending static charge in your body. Turn the power off and remove all the cables from the rear and front of the casing. Unscrew the hard drives and try to find the master and slave which can be seen in the jumper settings near the drive connector, also disconnect the power supply from the drives. If you have managed to identify the master and slave drives, remove the failing drive and change the jumper setting of the slave to configure it into the master drive(this would be easier if the master and slave were both formatted with their own MBR’s or main boot records). Connect all necessary cables and power up your computer and begin the setup procedure of your OS. Once the OS is re-set-up, reinstall all applications, drivers and other programs you may need and you can now transfer the copied files to their rightful place for use.

Blue Screen of Death - Part 1

Many of us have experienced it many times over, the dreaded �Blue Screen of Death� when using personal computers or just about any computer as a matter of fact. Mostly associated with windows errors, this is called a memory dump which signifies that windows in it�s many versions has encountered an unrecoverable error and has ceased to function. This is a signal to panic for the term paper or presentation you�ve just spent the whole week making and refining has turned to dust hopefully which you might have had a back-up file on some other form of medium.

Screech….ing hard drive – Don’t count on System Restore Points (Part 3)

Don’t count on system restore for this one for it only works best for software errors and not for hardware failure. If you do not have a secondary hard disk installed, or you might not have enough space to house all your files and the OS in the drive you were left with, then sadly you have to get a new drive to augment or replace the drive that is about to fail considering the fact that the failing drive hasn’t seized up yet. If that were the case, you can curse all you want but say good bye to all your documents and important files whatever type they may be.

CPU failure

If you experience frequent CPU failures and get feedback from the store that the power supply has blown. Try to get a larger capacity or higher rated power supply. You might have too many devices hooked up to the power supply (internal and externally) both of which take power from the same power supply if they have no individual power adapter. Say if you have a 300 or 400 watt power supply, try getting hold of a 500 watt or higher model and try to get the bit pricy one so it would last. Repetitive power supply failures can cause damage to the internal parts of your CPU and even the board itself which has built in fuses to protect the Microprocessor unit itself from such damage. If the board has also failed, you would have to get another board to transfer the cpu onto.