Recovering of Data in drive “D”

I note your preference in a couple of posts to let your computer run 24/7. I assume from the No of your posts that you spend a considerable amount of time on your computer it probably suits your operation to leave it on 24/7, but have you seen any definitive reports on this subject??

I have had a quick look on the net and cannot find any agreement one way or the other.

Regards garth CR4

I have been keeping my systems running 24/7 since my first IBM PC. The initial startup of any system is it's most vulnerable moment. If a surge comes through the line while you are booting it will, at the very least, fry your power supply.

I use the idle time to do backups, system scans, virus scans, defragmentations, updates - all of that can be automated and you don't loose any 'work' time.

Granted, back then electricity wasn't nearly as expensive as it is today, and systems have come a long way regarding boot-strap startups (that is what booting up meant) and power surges.

Still, using down-time (or when your system is 'idle') to do your back-ups, virus scans and the other stuff I mentioned is still the best use of the only commodity that any of us own - our time.

Please, as I took the time to respond to your question, take a couple of minutes and register. I don't know which 'Guest' I'm responding to. Not that knowing you as a user-handle (like Orpheuse) means I know you, it just makes talking to you easier on everyone in the group. Besides, what would you loose? If your afraid of Spam, you won't get it here. If you don't want to receive a notice of every new post you can configure for it, but, please, register.

Thanks Guest,

/Ari (Orpheuse)

Hi Orpheuse,

I am registered [ check out my user name garth] I am currently having a log on recognition problem, have just reloaded my browser but this has not helped. I do not receive notifications because of this so am currently storing my posts in a file so I can go back and check them.

If you have any idea why my log on cookies are not being transferred properly I would be glad to hear about it.

I cant say I fully agree with your explanation of frying the power supply the configuration of the power supply is the same whether starting or running it is just as vulnerable either way, as for heating expansion and contraction of components I would consider wear & tear 24/7 to be more of a problem than starting and stopping also don't like equipment connected to mains when I am not around to monitor it fans and power supply still running maybe I am overcautious but like the idea of the plug out, I am open to any other comments on this.

Thanks garth

Hey Garth,

Oh man, do I feel sheepish. I'm really sorry. I should never have embarrassed you like that. It was insensitive of me.

Are you running Vista, perchance? That could be one problem. You might also try to downgrade to IE6 from IE7.

If you don't need Inet-Explorer, I've also had a very good experience with Firefox. If you go with Firefox back up your favorites to a specific folder, then install Frefox and paste the backed-up favorites into Firefox. You can import your favorites' folder into Firefox while in the browser, but you will loose your folder structure. All your Favorites will be there, alphabetized, my technique preserves the Favorite' Folder's structure. That's really the only flaw I could find. IE7 was 'shaky' when it was first released.

There are certain websites, schools, certain parts of Government, that absolutely require IE7. If you don't need that feature take a look at Mozilla Firefox.

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/?utm_source=yahoo&utm_medium=ppc&utm_campaign=postlaunch

Good luck, and keep me as posted as you can.

/Ari (Orpheuse)

Hello Orpheuse , garth, and other users of Firefox Browser.

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Kind Regards....

Hello 'Guest' garth,

Hope by now you have downloaded Mozilla Seamonkey, and are using that as an auxiliary Browser, when Firefox gets snookered by the avariciousMicrosoft DUpdate/s.

While there is presently information both ways, I do believe in going to basic principles.

My electronics experience extends from 1950, a magical year for me.

I've just had another freeze in my Firefox, and have managed to copy/paste into Seamonkey Browser, so shall continue....

Hard Drives are an electromechanical device, with associated printed circuit boards, components of various types, and many soldered joints.

Likewise Motherboards, CPU's, Graphical cards and almost all PC sub-assemblies.

So, when any of these are switched off, they cool down.

Cooling = shrinking of measurements in 3 axes, and because the parts on each sub-assembly are not all made of the exact same materials, but many different materials, and are connected via soldered joints electrically, the shrinkage is differential, and so parts and connections come under stress.

Conversely, when cold or room temperature parts are switched on, the reverse happens, and the parts enlarge differentially, with stress between all parts and joints.

Thus, using the science of materials and physics, one may clearly see that it is far better to leave a computer switched on to minimise that on/off/on/off repetitive strain, distortion, stress and eventual failure of the weakest joint or part.

In fact, should you wish to have longevity in such a device as a computer, best to leave it in the carton, never plug it into power, and it should last until atomic movement and pressure leads to 'welding' of parts together.

Although there are two opposing schools of opinion, I find that the 24/7 operation is best, and still have hard Drives dating back to 1993 in full working order, far after their expected working life should be over. I don't use them, except to show folks that 24/7 operation is best by far.

HDD's are now made by reputable makers who offer some long-life HDD's:

Seagate 1000GB SATA 32MB Cache 7200rpm BARRACUDA 7200.11

STORAGE CAPACITY : 1 TB
TYPE : 3.5-inch Int DIM: 26.11 mm (H) X 101.6 mm(W) X 146.99 mm (D)
WEIGHT : 0.64 kg
PERFORMANCE: Transfer Rate Max Ext: 300 MB/s
Sustained Data Rate OD: 105 MB/s
CACHE : 32 MB
AVERAGE LATENCY: 4.16 ms
SPINDLE SPEED : 7200 RPM
CONFIG/ORGANISATION: Heads/disks: 8/4; Bytes per Sector: 512
5 years

MEAN TIME BEFORE FAILURE: (MTBF) 750 000 hours
RELIABILITY/DATA INTEGRITY: Contact Start-Stops: 50 000
Nonrecoverable Read Errors per Bits Read: 1 per 10E14
BEST-FIT APPLICATIONS: Workstations Desktop RAID Gamer PCs
High-end PCs Mainstream PCs
USB/FireWire/eSATA personal external storage
* Designed with four disks to provide the optimal balance of
advanced technology and low total cost of ownership
* Proven second-gen perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) tech
* Leverages best combination of tech (areal density PMR)
* proven components for volume shipping
* Industry-leading acoustics and power consumption levels

* Fast SATA 3Gb/s NCQ interface

So with that (MTBF) of 750 000 hours, as stated by the Makers, Seagate, you can easily see why they offer a 5 year warranty on their new HDD's.

Trust that assists you.

Kind Regards....

Hi Orpheuse and Sparky,

I am glad to say IE7 appears to be working OK for me, my problem browser Fire Fox was, sorry is not transferring cookies this was proved with some very good help from admin. [Thanks admin]. Apparently some privacy settings could be the area to look at, which is strange as all other web sites that I need to log on work OK. I really like Fire Fox and have a good set of bookmarks a lot imported from IE7, have to work out how to export them into IE7 although I don't like IE7 very much and will shift possibly to Sea Monkey if I cant fix FF.

Thanks for the notes Sparky I have not had the time to absorb all the info you gave me. Does not FF seem very much to be the same as Sea Monkey?

Your electronics experience has 5 years on me, my interest was weaned on all the great surplus ww2 equipment that was going very cheap the as you say happy days. I take your points re expansion & contraction large solder joints are problem areas I am wondering if this is such a great problem when you are down to microscopic sizes as in chips still the system as a whole is a mixture and only as good as the weakest link .

Hi Orpheuse,

No hurt feelings from me I was logged in as a guest.

My computer driving leaves much to be desired yet, would love to automate more operations [ am using XP ] but it is the old story as I am still working if not more slowly nowadays and finding the time to arrange things to my liking never seems to get done .

Thanks guys for your intrest and help.

Garth