Is the patient ready?
Monday morning. Normally it would be about as welcome sharing a shower with a rottweiler, but today is different; it's a bank holiday, and all is right with the world.
In true tradition of the British bank holiday, it's raining. Not that I'm really that bothered, it's a good excuse for not working on the garden, a project for which I've been finding excuses for the past year. I'll start next weekend. Honest.
But it's not all good news; the occasional clicking that was coming from the hard drive has now built up to quite a steady rhythm, which is sounding more like a death march each day. So today, for the fifth time in the five month life of this PC, I'll be opening it up and operating; once again returning faulty drives and re-installing Windows. With any luck, and providing I don't burn out the remaining two drives, I should be back up and running by this evening.
As a bit of a background story; five months ago I decided a home theatre PC was what I needed, and came to the conclusion; "If I can program a PC, surely building one can't be that much harder". How naive.
It started out one Sunday afternoon, thinking I would just buy the case, and get more parts each month. Four hours later and with the help of a friend who is a very bad influence when it comes to spending, I had a complete set of parts on it's way. They arrived, and what first seemed like a couple of hours work, soon went on late into the night.
Attempt 1: RAID setup would not work on the motherboard, forcing me to have four individual drives. Realised the firewire port was not connected. Connected firewire port. Fire ensued. Supplier kindly exchanges fire damaged motherboard for a different make, with the hope RAID setup will work.
Attempt 2: New motherboard, no burnouts, RAID successfully configured. Then the drives start clicking. The clicking drive is identified, but in the process, another drive slips and touches life circuits on the metal case. More fire ensues. Two drives returned.
Attempt 3: New are drives in, no fire, RAID configured and everything looking good. Until now.
So now with some new drives on the way, and fire extinguisher at the ready, I'm hoping this will be the final operation I have to perform on this PC. And the lesson for next time; let someone else build it.
In true tradition of the British bank holiday, it's raining. Not that I'm really that bothered, it's a good excuse for not working on the garden, a project for which I've been finding excuses for the past year. I'll start next weekend. Honest.
But it's not all good news; the occasional clicking that was coming from the hard drive has now built up to quite a steady rhythm, which is sounding more like a death march each day. So today, for the fifth time in the five month life of this PC, I'll be opening it up and operating; once again returning faulty drives and re-installing Windows. With any luck, and providing I don't burn out the remaining two drives, I should be back up and running by this evening.
As a bit of a background story; five months ago I decided a home theatre PC was what I needed, and came to the conclusion; "If I can program a PC, surely building one can't be that much harder". How naive.
It started out one Sunday afternoon, thinking I would just buy the case, and get more parts each month. Four hours later and with the help of a friend who is a very bad influence when it comes to spending, I had a complete set of parts on it's way. They arrived, and what first seemed like a couple of hours work, soon went on late into the night.
Attempt 1: RAID setup would not work on the motherboard, forcing me to have four individual drives. Realised the firewire port was not connected. Connected firewire port. Fire ensued. Supplier kindly exchanges fire damaged motherboard for a different make, with the hope RAID setup will work.
Attempt 2: New motherboard, no burnouts, RAID successfully configured. Then the drives start clicking. The clicking drive is identified, but in the process, another drive slips and touches life circuits on the metal case. More fire ensues. Two drives returned.
Attempt 3: New are drives in, no fire, RAID configured and everything looking good. Until now.
So now with some new drives on the way, and fire extinguisher at the ready, I'm hoping this will be the final operation I have to perform on this PC. And the lesson for next time; let someone else build it.
posted by Loaf at
1:16 pm
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