I was very frustrated today when all of a sudden my 1TB hard drive crashed. I did nothing, just went with my normal routine… checking my email, facebook and watching my favorite one piece episode then playing Red Alert 3… when suddenly, a power failure occurred. I did not mind it at first because it happens frequently in our place and it did nothing to my PC. After a couple of minutes, the power came back and like my everyday routine I sat and turned on my PC… and the first thing that I noticed was that it stops right where the BIOS should come up. I stopped and thought, maybe it was just a glitch and turned it off and on again, but nothing happened, it just stops right after I see “Press F2 to setup BIOS”.

I pressed F2 and nothing happened my keyboard won’t respond. So I turned if off, removed the power cable, put it back again and turned it on but same thing. Then, this time, I removed the cover and reset the BIOS via its jumper. Turned it back on and got the same result.

It started to get to my nerves. Now what I did was try and remove the pieces that may have caused the error. First to be removed was the optical drives, but nothing happened. Then I tried and removed the RAM, it just beeps which meant that the RAM worked. Then, when I removed the hard drive then the BIOS appeared.

It was the worst thing that could happen, my motherboard was no longer able to detect my hard drive. I tried connecting my spare hard drive and everything worked fine. I said to myself it was a huge loss because all my files, videos and photo’s were in there. I got a glimpse of hope when I remembered that it was still on warranty. Good thing I keep my receipts.

After baby got home, we immediately set off to PC Express near SM where I bought my PC. The technician ran some diagnostic tests on it and as I suspected, the hard drive was no longer accessible. I asked if there was no other way that I could retrieve the data but the technician answered that there is a way but it involves dismantling the hard disk which will void its warranty. Weighing the consequences, I choose to have it replaced rather than using it again and repeat this event.

But not everything was bad. I’m still happy that I got to spend the whole day with my baby. Today was our 114th month-sarry by the way, and although we faced such problems (her files was in there too T_T) we had such a good time. Selecting PC parts, arguing over silly things and eating our favorite food. I got home with a new temporary hard drive while still waiting for my previous one to be replaced. I also got to try the new Windows 7. I also got myself a UPS and a 1GB Ram upgrade.

Tips to remember:

1. basic rule for PC users… BACK UP… BACK UP… BACK UP.
2. Protect your pc from power outages…
3. Keep all your receipts/warranty in a safe and easy to remember place
4. When all else fails… theres always a new one

I thought to myself, to hell with those files… everything was download-able nowadays… and it was just a matter of time before I delete them. What’s more important is the files we store in our “Hard Drive”. A Photo is only useful when you remember the memories that it captured, but if that memory is lost then it’s just plain paper.