@ Hot4, GrandpaTrout, Cambragol

First of all, sorry for doing this across a public forum. It was the quickest method to update project(s) status, and I do not have all of the relevant email addys memorized. Currently I'm on my wife's little 'web-surfing' computer.

My dinosaur HP gave up the ghost this moring at 6:30 am during a destructive system restore. It had numerous problems (fan bearing grinding, HD making burring sounds, outdated, etc.), so I really don't lament the loss. Since I was performing a recovery, all my files were backed up; I didn't lose any data.

I've decided to build a new system to avoid the bloatware which accompanies all packaged systems these days. I'm ordering the parts tonight and should be up and running by next week.

I'm afraid I'll have to put off sending the stuff to everyone until then. Sorry for the delay. Will be back up and running ASAP.

Cheers.

Ouch! I know that fan bearing grinding sound well. I lost every moving object in a system after some construction guys did some masonry saw work outside of my window.

Good luck on the recovery. Glad you had a second "emergency" system!

Well, thank the stars you were smart and made a backup. Which reminds me...I need to make one too. However...I have 4 hard drives...Looks like I will be needing one of those 1tb usb servers.

Good luck building the new system. Make it a nice one!

Though it delays the stuff I was to send off, it really couldn't have been better timing. The noises it made caused me no small amount of paranoia over the last few weeks; I'd become a backup fiend.

I believe the old system might have some worth down the line. I've a fresh copy of Windows 98 which has been sitting on my shelf for years. Perhaps I can fix up the old unit, toss in my Voodoo, and keep it as a dedicated I-War/Lightwave 5.6 machine. Might not be too shabby.

All in all, not such a bad thing.

Hey Shane, not to worry. I'm sorry your box gave up the ghost, but at least you were given enough warning signs to take precautions. I've had a fry-out with absolutely no funny sounds or anything to give me a hint that anything was amiss. Fortunately, only a few days worth of stuff was lost that time...now I operate between 4 different machines (home, work, laptop), with memory sticks going back and forth so often I have almost too much redundancy, requiring an elaborate and arcane system of dates, file sizes and guesswork to help me determine which was the most recent version of a given file....

Enjoy the new build. Try not to cheap out on parts, you'll be glad in the end.

Up and running, and glad to be back in the game.

Want some specs?

Case: Antec Sonata II Piano-black case (a thing of beauty!)
MB: MSI K8N Neo4 NVIDIA nForce 4 Chipset base
Processor: AMD 3500+ (939 socket)
HD: Western Digital 250 GB SATA
CD: HP Lightscribe Double-layer
Video: Nvidia GeForce 6600 GT 128MB
RAM: 1 Gb
OS: Windows XP Home Edition

As you can tell, I didn't completely max everything out. The prices for bleeding-edge tech are steep compared to the gains (and bugs). I just focused on upgrade-ability.

Compared to my old rig, this thing is sooooo fast!