Hardware Tips: Take a Crash Course in Emergency PC Recovery
Take a Crash Course in Emergency PC
RecoverySooner or later, a faltering hard disk, CPU,
or other component will bring your PC to its knees. If a
dead machine means you can't do your job, the failure may
bring you to your knees as well, begging your boss or an
angry client for mercy. Waiting for the IT department or the local
repair shop to fix your system, or arranging to use a
loaner machine, can cost you hours of valuable work time.
What you really need when disaster strikes is a way to get
up and running
fast. First, find out what caused the problem: Wisps
of acrid smoke wafting from your monitor's case, for
example, send a very clear message. Unfortunately, the
source of problems is rarely so obvious. Maybe a chip has
failed, a Windows driver has been corrupted, or a cable has
come loose. You can easily lose countless hours just trying
to figure out what's wrong. Always remember the first rule
of do-it-yourself PC repair: Know when to quit. Or at least know when to ask--or pay--for
expert help. Place a dollar value on an hour of your time
and keep tabs on how much "money" you've invested as you
go. It probably won't be too long before paying $35 to your
PC maker's tech support line will seem like money well
spent. Save time by being prepared. When an airplane
starts to sputter, the pilot pulls out a checklist and
performs tasks that are known to work. Here's a
troubleshooting checklist for your PC.Check the obvious first: Make sure
that all your power switches are turned on, and that your
cables and cords are securely connected. Don't forget to
check the fuse or reset switch on your surge protector.
Look in Device Manager: Windows'
Device Manager will tell you if a component isn't working
properly. To open Device Manager in Windows 98, Me, and
2000, right-click
My Computer and select
Properties (or press
Windows-
Break if you have a
Windows keyboard) to open System Properties, and choose the
Device Manager tab. In
Windows XP, open System Properties as described above,
select the
Hardware tab, and click
the
Device Manager button.
A red X or a yellow circle with an exclamation
point appearing next to the name of a device indicates a
problem (see
FIGURE
1). Double-click the listing to display the
device's Properties screen, and then look in the 'Device
status' box for more information (see
FIGURE
2). Test your suspicions: If you think
a sound card, network adapter, CD-RW drive, or other device
is misbehaving, disable it and see if the problem goes
away. Open the device's Properties dialog box as described
above. Under the General tab, choose
Disable in this hardware
profile (in Windows 98, Me, and 2000), or
Do not use this device
(disable) on the 'Device usage' drop-down
menu (in Windows XP).Check the plumbing: Turn off and
unplug your PC, open its case, and make sure every cable,
cord, and connector is properly attached. Before you start
handling your PC's internals, make sure that you're
properly grounded. It's best to use a grounding wrist
strap, which costs about $10 at your local electronics
store, but you can also discharge yourself momentarily by
touching an antenna, water pipe, or other grounded
object.Sometimes detaching a connector and then
reattaching it will take care of the problem. Likewise,
expansion cards suffer from "creep"--they slowly work their
way out of their motherboard slots. Carefully remove and
replace them to ensure that they're properly
reseated.Try a different driver: Many
hardware problems arise from conflicts relating to a
device's software drivers. Check the Web site of your
system or device manufacturer for updates. To find the
version of your currently installed driver, open its
Properties dialog box as described above and click the
Driver tab (see
FIGURE
3). Windows XP has a handy button on the tab
that lets you reinstall an old driver when a newly
installed one causes problems. (This happens more often
than you might think, especially with graphics-card
drivers.)Perform some tests: Running a
hardware-diagnostic program such as #1-PC Diagnostics'
#1-TuffTest will perform a thorough check of your PC's
hardware. You can
download
a limited free version. The more powerful shareware version
of the utility is well worth the $10 price,
however.RAID to the RescueThe typical service life of today's hard
drives means that they will outlast the usefulness of the
computers in which they're installed. But hard drives have
internal parts spinning at thousands of revolutions per
minute separated by less than the width of a human hair. It
does not happen often, but sometimes hard drives fail
before their time. Recovering from a hard drive's premature
demise means buying and installing a new drive,
reinstalling and reconfiguring all of your software, and
reloading your data from backups. This can entail hours, if
not days, of downtime. And if you didn't back up your
data...well, we won't even go there. But with just a little
work, you'll never have to worry about a dead drive.
For years, mission-critical servers have been
protected from the consequences of hard-drive failure by
RAID, or Redundant Arrays of Independent Disks. RAID
spreads data across several hard drives and makes all the
drives appear as a single drive to the operating system.
More-sophisticated RAID systems allow you to replace a
failed drive without turning off the system; the data is
re-created automatically with no interruption to you.
RAID technology comes in many flavors called
levels, numbered 0 to 7, plus 10, 30, 50, 53, and 0+1. Each
level provides different combinations of redundancy and
performance. RAID levels 3 and up are in the realm of IT
network professionals; they require a minimum of three hard
drives and expensive controller cards. But levels 0 and 1
are affordable and easy enough to be implemented for single
PCs and small networks.Photograph by: Rick Rizner
Promise's FastTrak100 TX2 Pro RAID
system.
To add RAID to your computer, you need a
second hard drive and a PCI RAID controller card such as
Promise Technology's $80 FastTrak100 TX2, which supports
RAID levels 0 and 1, as well as the combination mode 0+1.
RAID level 0 distributes data across two
drives via
striping, which writes one bit of data
to one drive, the next bit to the other drive, the third
bit to the first drive, and so on. Because half as much
data is being written to two drives simultaneously, disk
performance is almost doubled. But RAID 0 offers no
fault-tolerance: If either drive fails, all data on both
drives is lost. RAID 1, on the other hand, provides
hard-drive mirroring that instantly duplicates your primary
drive--if either drive dies, you can continue
working.The FastTrak100 TX2 supports hot-swapping (the
ability to replace a failed hard drive without having to
shut down the PC); and for RAID 1 mirroring, it rebuilds
the drive's data in the background. To make hot-swapping
even easier, get at least one of Promise's SuperSwap drive
housings. SuperSwap sits in a 5.25-inch drive bay and lets
you replace a hard drive without opening the PC's case.
Of course, you'll need two housings, one for
each drive. At around $70 each, that may seem like a bit of
a luxury, but you can save a few dollars by buying the
company's FastTrak100 TX2 Pro combination for around $170;
it's the FastTrak100 TX2 RAID card bundled with two
SuperSwap housings. You can use a single SuperSwap housing
for instant, off-site backups. Just purchase an additional
hard drive and swap it with the one in the SuperSwap
housing whenever you want a complete system backup to
go.Be sure to check your motherboard before you
rush out and buy a RAID controller card. Some motherboards
have built-in RAID controller chips. Check your motherboard
manual or look in your PC's Setup program (your screen will
tell you which key to press before Windows loads) for RAID
options. If you're building a PC or having one built for
you, paying a little extra for a motherboard that supports
RAID is worthwhile.Get a Fresh StartMinor defects in a hard drive, an improper
Windows shutdown due to a power failure, or poorly written
software can damage critical system files. A RAID mirror
drive instantly copies these corruptions from the original
hard drive.Tracking down these problems is largely a
matter of luck. Restoring an earlier version of the Windows
Registry and running diagnostic utilities are a good start,
but they don't always work, and they can take hours to
complete.The fastest fix may be to replace your
operating system, software, and data. The Drive Image 2002
backup software from PowerQuest makes this easy (see
FIGURE
4). Drive Image allows you to copy an entire
drive partition to a single compressed file that you can
store on a CD-R or -RW disc, another removable medium, or a
second hard drive. The backup file can restore the original
partition in less than an hour--often much quicker.
Anything you added to the disk since you made the last
image file will be lost, however, so keep your operating
system and software in one partition and your data in
another--each with an individual drive letter. I keep two
backups of my software partition: one made when I first
installed the OS and software, and another made after my
most recent installation.Preventive MeasuresWhen trouble strikes, be prepared. A few
minutes of work now can save you hours of toil later on.
Take inventory: Copy the
manufacturer and model number of your key components.
You'll find much of this information in the System
Information utility. Click
Start, Programs (
All Programs in Windows
XP),
Accessories, System Tools, System
Information. Cut and paste the data into a
document and print it out. Hold on to your software, manuals, and
drivers: If you can't find a paper manual, look on
the product manufacturer's Web site for downloadable
manuals, even for older and discontinued models. Load Windows' .cab files on your hard
drive: Placing Windows' compressed .cab system
files on the hard drive makes reinstalling Windows files
much easier. Copy the files with the .cab extension from
the Windows disc to a directory on your hard drive.
Whenever Windows asks for the CD, just point it to that
directory. Make a copy of your PC Setup program's
settings: With a hard copy of your PC Setup
program's BIOS settings, you won't have to reboot your
system and enter Setup to know what they are. Enter the PC
Setup program when your PC boots and take digital
photographs of all the BIOS screens. Print the photographs
or store them on your system, or both. Or simply copy them
with pencil and paper. Click
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We pay $50 for published items. Kirk Steers is a
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