please empty your brain below
Failure-proof computers exist - they just cost more than your flat. Granted, those usually don't run Windows or MacOS. (And anyone who thinks Apple's better at this is delusional) It's usually something *much* more arcane.

Chz | Homepage | 19.02.06 - 9:22 a.m. | #

Actually - it is possible to tinker around with the "innards" of mobile phones these days - e.g. engineering codes to enable certain functions. But also: now that more and more phones are coming with Windows and Symbian (another "open" OS) then it's becoming more and more likely that phones will blue-screen when they go wrong too.

Jag | Homepage | 19.02.06 - 9:26 a.m. | #

I think they tried to make the current versions of Windows too simple so that when it all goes wrong it goes from Tellytubbies to Open University in the blink of an eye. Most people don't even know where on the disk 'My Documents' is & it seems like the OS doesn't want them to know, in case they bugger things up. Patronised by our own computers ...

Disgruntled | Homepage | 19.02.06 - 9:32 a.m. | #

Having watched their development The reason that computers are like they are is that (especially with W95) Microsoft created a product backed by marketing, rather than technology. When IBM and MS were on the same track, life looked promising but there was never enough momentum behind OS/2 to turn it into usable system that M$ Windows is. Too many compromises is what it comes down to in the end. The separation of hardware and software never really happened.

Ham | Homepage | 19.02.06 - 10:22 a.m. | #

I have to agree with you 100\\%. I have worked in computing for 25 years and I still get into scenarios like the one you describe. When I am spending days trying to sort things out I ask myself how ordinary mortals with even less experience than me ever survive. I have come to the conclusion that if they can't get expert help they either live with the problem or decide it is time to buy a new PC - even though the problem may be simple and easily fixable if only they knew how to.

For what it is worth there are a couple of things I would do in your position regardless of whether you fix you problem or not:

i) buy a new disk drive and install the operating system on that. Disks are relatively cheap nowadays. If they have failed once they seem destined to fail again. If you know how to, keep your old disk but make it the 'slave' (ask if more info required) so that it comes up as drive D: Then you can copy what you want onto you new drive C: if you current disk is not completely knackered. This also helps separate and identify OS problems from disk error problems. If this all goes wrong you can put back your old drive as before and you are at least no worse off.

ii) buy a USB flash disk. They are incredibly cheap nowadays. When I started computing 500MB of storage cost £180,000. You can have 1GB on your keyring for around £35. It is very reassuring to know that a copy of your critical data is there and it is virtually indestructable.

This complex technology does sometimes work in our favour. I had a video hard disk recorder that had a small but irritating bug. More than two years after purchase the manufacturer provided an update that fixed it. In the meantime other updates lead to improved features. This is nornal for software but manufacturers don't tend to gratuitiously supply you with free hardware improvements.

Pedantic of Purley | 19.02.06 - 10:32 a.m. | #

"All those good kind souls who devoted their teenage years to learning machine code and taking motherboards apart when they could have been out socialising, and who now keep the nation's IT departments in full working order."

That being said, I know more about computers that some people in the IT department:

IT Dept: "So if you type in 122.345.10.3 into this box, you'll be able to connect to the internet."
Me: "Ah, an IP address then."
It Dept: "A what?"

Rhys | Homepage | 19.02.06 - 11:52 a.m. | #

a Mac is a PC. a windows computer is a PC. PC = Personal Computer! whether it runs Mac OS, or Windows!

And a hard disk can fail in any machine - friend of mine last week with a Mac, you know "One of those Macs that are better than those Windows machines", had their hard disk fail and they lost a load of stuff that was not backed up.

Anyway.

Spinrite! http://grc.com/spinrite.htm

It will get anything that IS salvageable back - promise.

geofftech | Homepage | 19.02.06 - 3:35 p.m. | #

I was particularly interested in your comments about designing a new OS. Programmers are usually the last people who should decide how software should work, it should be the users. So I would dearly like to know in general terms, how your ideal OS would work.

'PC' comes from the IBM PC released in the early 1980s, the standard on which all other Intel/AMD/Evergreen personal computers were based. Although PC does stand for Personal Computer, the term PC was coined by IBM. If we're gonna get really technical a computer is the processor. Specifically computers perform arithmetic, everything else is just peripherals.

Mac's definately crash, it's just that Mac crashes often do less damage because of the way the parts of the OS are kept seperate. Windows tries to do this with it's messaging but it's just not up to scratch.

Lew | Homepage | 19.02.06 - 6:17 p.m. | #

*yawns*

I feel sorry for Microsoft. Particularly in instances like this when it's not (I don't think) their software that is the problem. How they manage to cope with all the various hardware possibilities is beyond me.

Not any help to you at all and YES they make billions but that's not, totally, the point. As you point out the evolution of Windows is it's biggest problem. To completely recode something as complex as an operating system takes YEARS. Look at Linux, it's STILL not as feature rich as Windows or OSX but they've been doing it for donkeys! If Microsoft had stopped building ontop of previous versions of Windows you wouldn't HAVE a PC (most likely). Or if you did you'd still be running Windows 3.1 (ick).

Ohh and yes, programmers should not design any software. They don't at Microsoft.

Gordon | Homepage | 19.02.06 - 7:12 p.m. | #

Many years ago, the only people who used computers were programmers themselves, and they were written with this target audience in mind. With Windows, Bill Gates tried to appeal to a broader audience, but didn't really think it through.

As a result, 80\\% of the world's population are using computers without knowing how they work. Which wouldn't be a problem. But at the point at which things start to go wrong, Windows will abandon you and leave you to wallow in arcane error messages and obscure keypresses.

And it's not just since Windows XP that this has been happening. Every single version of Windows, right back to 1.0, has been an attempt to isolate the user from the silicon, to protect them from knowing what's really going on inside.

Pete | Homepage | 19.02.06 - 10:44 p.m. | #

Microsoft's existence depends on upgrades. It is much more important to them that they have enough flashy new features (or enough obsolescence from the previous versions) to convince you to upgrade to the next version rather than them spending their time on stabilizing the existing features. If a certain percentage of users do not upgrade their version of Windows or Office each time they come out with a new version, then they are in trouble.

mothlight | 20.02.06 - 8:55 a.m. | #

I can also recommend Spinrite, if anything can save your data it's Spinrite.

I use a Windows PC at work and switch to Mac at home last year. OS X is better than Windows XP in almost everyway. One big way is that backup is so easy on OS X.

Paul Burland | Homepage | 20.02.06 - 3:19 p.m. | #

I've thought the same thing for years. That the computing world desperately needs a visionary person or group of people to take the brave step of just starting completely from scratch - writing code for the chips and hardware we *now* have instead of what was there years ago. All they do now is layer more crap onto even more crap. I'm perplexed that it isn't happening now in someone's bedroom or garage - I mean Apple and Microsoft and Linux started from practically nothing.

groc | Homepage | 23.02.06 - 10:51 a.m. | #











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