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Urgent help needed: Something is failing.

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jamesgig

Disabled
Joined
Jul 2, 2006
Location
Harrisburg, PA
I have been working on my hand drawn animation and when I plugged the camera into the usb port, everything froze immediately. I had plugged in the camera at least 5 other times today without a problem. I could no longer move the mouse, the music stopped playing, etc. So, after waiting 5min, I did a hard restart and the computer turns off before it can even post. Once I plugged the USB cord and the computer froze, I heard a strange sound, almost between a scratching and clicking sound coming from the hdd. I have checked all of the connections and everything seems to have been connected properly.

Now, the main problem is that my hand drawn animation is currently stored on that hdd and it is due in 9 days. So far I have 906/1630frames drawn all of which I cannot access.

At the time of the crash the only programs running were Adobe Premiere CS4, Foobar2000, and Norton antivirus.

The camera appears to be fine and I can access the pictures on my old computer through the usb cord just fine.

What happened and can it be easily fixed? This is the system in my sig.

Thanks for the help.
 
We can't be sure from just the description what the problem is. The important matter is getting your drawings off the HD.

To that end, I'd take that drive and set it as a second drive, on another system. Don't let it be the boot drive - and see if the other system can read the drive and get your data.

If the drive can't be read, then you're looking at a recovery shop, and seeing what they can do, and what they'll charge to do it. Their time is money, so it may not be affordable.

IMO as soon as you try it in another drive, and if it should not be possible to read the drive, I would immediately consider that data lost, and start re-drawing (and always back it up to a CD or two drives).

Good luck!
 
I have about 2/3 of the drawings on a computer at school. However, I also need to get that computer back up and running as I have several upcoming projects that will require it. I will try and take the drive to a friend's house as my old computer is IDE. How would I go about diagnosing this? I dont really have time to try and guess what is wrong nor do I have the money to go and buy a new computer. Any suggestions?

Thanks
 
Check the power supply, you can get one of those PS checkers at best buy, radio shack. it almost sounds like thew usb might have fried the 5 volt.
 
So you can't even get into BIOS before it shuts off? Try running the system with the bare minimum plugged in.


Being one stick of ram and the videocard. Thats it no hard drive, extra fans nothing. Got try try to get into the BIOS first. If you can get into the BIOS you can make the cd rom be the first boot device.

Oh, when you get into the case clean out the Heatsink and fan on the CPU and GPU.
 
So you can't even get into BIOS before it shuts off? Try running the system with the bare minimum plugged in.

correct. it powers down after about 3-5 sec and no post is heard.

Yes, I have removed all non essential items and everything is as clean as i can get it. The only items connected are the motherboard, one stick of ram, and cpu/fan with all applicable power cables.

Check the power supply, you can get one of those PS checkers at best buy, radio shack. it almost sounds like thew usb might have fried the 5 volt.

would that be good news for my hdd? I dont know much about voltages, but I see that hdds run on around .5V, so it may be unaffected? If that diagnosis is true, would that mean only a new psu, or possibly more?

Can I use a multimeter to test it or must it be a psu specfic tester? I can get a multimeter from the physics department at school.

Some other diagnostic efforts of unknown significance).
Today, my scanner (also connected through usb) stopped working. Do scanners have a life expectancy? Any suggestions on this problem would be helpful as well. The power indicator light comes on, but the internal light and mechanism appear to be unresponsive.

When I power on the computer, I do not see any indicator lights on my usb mouse and keyboard (I do not know if these items get power before post, so this may not be relavant).

Thanks

EDIT:
quick question. when i take my hdd to my friend's house and plug it in, is that all that i have to do? the hdd is partitioned, will that cause any problems?
 
Last edited:
I took my hdd to my friend's computer and my files are all fine.

Unfortunately, the physics teacher would not let me borrow a multimeter.

It seems like the most likely problem is that I fried my motherboard which is still under warranty, so I emailed asus and asked for a replacement. I have yet to get a response.
 
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