Multiple Issues arising from a Lightning induced Electricity Surge

[DeepC]

Folks,

After the fun and games with my PC over the past few weeks (chronicled here uner various threads) my hard drive is dying a lingering death due to electical storm damage on Monday night.

I have brought a new Hard Drive (Western Digital 8MB Cache, 120GB) to replace my Western Digital 60GB version.

Xp was failing to boot under the old system since a power spike/shutdown event on Monday. It displayed a warning that the Hard Drive was unstable and to back up my data and buy a new hard drive.

I installed the new drive on the master connector on the IDE ribbon (CSEL) and the old one as a slave. I attempted last night to ghost across the 30Gb stored on my old drive but it failed about 5 hours into the operation with a sector error. This morning I elected to resinstall Windows XP and everything on the clean new drive. Windows XP installed correctly but Office 2002 XP will not accept my kosher Activiation Keys. This is causing me a major headache.

I have attempted to copy across vital and other files from the old disc but it will not read the My Music file. That is quite precious to me though not totally irreplaceable.

So the questions so far are.....

Any ideas why Office won't accept my activation key?

How can I demand read the My Music File and salvage some of the contents?

What and where are the files that Outlook 2002 stores the email messages?

Any help very very greatfully received.

DeepC

Edited to add:
My system is based around a AMD Athlon 1700+ XP Process on an ASUS Motherboard.

[mikeddavies]

The bad news is a power spike could have damaged any part of your system. However - CSEL is known to be rather unreliable, I would jumper the two drives as master and slave and retry installing on your new drive. You may, however, have corruption on your old drive (especially as you cannot boot from it) which would explain your inability to copy some files, and Ghost failure. Doesn't explain your Office problem unless this is tied to using CSEL. Could try reinstalling with the new drive only in the system jumpered as master.
Sorry can not be more helpful/hopeful - best of luck

MikeD

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

DeepC,

I am sorry to hear you were hit by a Power Spike. One thing I always do, is put a Battery Backup on each comp.

http://images10.newegg.com/productimage/42-101-123-04.JPG

http://images10.newegg.com/productimage/42-101-123-03.JPG

http://images10.newegg.com/productimage/42-101-123-05.JPG

They really do work for conditioning the power so you get good clean power all the time.

Take Care,

Richard

[Lost_luggage34]

Wholeheartedly agree with Richard wrt UPS/mains conditioners.

These days they are not expensive - APC IMHO are the best around.

You would be amazed at just how 'dirty' mains supplies can be at the best of times and PCs and the like can be very sensitive to spikes, surges, brownouts etc.

I have seen all manner of damage done to Computer equipment over the years caused by poor, unconditioned mains.

One particular example that comes to mind was a CISCO switch which kept blowing cards as it was in a bulding adjacent to a large water pumping station. All manner of mains interference when the pumps were switching in and out. A simple UPS solved the problem.

Plus you will still be able to surf when there is a power failure (for 30 mins or so at least) providing your ISP has UPS at it's local node - mine doesn't as I discovered last week !

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

Lost_luggage34,

The UPS lets me tell everyone I am online with, "Oops, the power just went out. TTYL." Then I shut down. ;)

Take Care,

Richard

[DeepC]

After about 20 odd attempts Office XP and Publisher accepted the Product Keys and let me install them. This evening I'll copy the old Outlook.PST file to replace the blank new one. That should restore my emails (Y/N?).

I'm then going to install Norton and Kerio before I connect to the net. I'll then connect to the net and download PC inspector to get to the Music Files if at all possible.

I now have a surge protector (90,000amp protection) but no UPS. I'll have to convince my other half that it is necessary.

It certainly focuses the mind over what is and what is not important on your PC when something like this happens.

Cheers for all help given so far.

DeepC

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

DeepC,

You can replace the .PST file to get your Email back. (But you will still need to setup your Email Account again though.)

Take Care,

Richard

[Memetic]

Hi DeepC ,

I'm looking at new drives at present and have stumbled across several references to problems caused by using "old" 40 conductor (NOT 40 connector) cables on modern IDE drives.

Your post has prompted me to look into it, here is one of the better references I have found:

http://www.mikeshardware.com/howtos/howto_connect_ide_hd.html

Basically new drives with faster transfer rates need 80 conductor cables (twisted pair I guess) if you don't use them you get read and write errors.

I'm not sure if it is relevant to your problems, but thought i'd mention it just in case.

Memetic

[Lost_luggage34]

Very good point Memetic.

Also be very careful with hard drive jumper settings.

I prefer the, probably, old fashioned method of hard jumper-ing.

I.e. not the cable select (CS) option which can get you in all manner of problems if you don't plug the hard drive into the correct terminator on the ribbon cable.

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

Lost_luggage34,

I have found the Western Digital JB Hard Drives prefer the CS Jumper Setting. Every Hard Drive is different. ;)

Take Care,

Richard

[DeepC]

The Western Digital Drives come with a new IDE ribbon which it specifically says must be used. Avoids any problems with that.

I still have them on CS and it is working ok. The old drive is still unstable and I get a number of warnings on booting to windows.

I have restored my email by replacing the PST file. It was important to know exactly which folder Outlook was looking for it in. I thought I had it right but when I asked outlook to show the folder it was in a different place to where I thought. Worked ok after I had copied the PST and other files into there.

I got my MP3 files back. The problem had been permission errors caused when XP loses track of the 'My Documents' folders. Administrator had the rights to the file and I was blocked. I logged into safe mode and obtained the rights. I then logged back in and transferred the files over to the new drive.

Only problem now is with Norton's live update to AV 2003. Recently bought a new subscription to live update stuff and now it won't install correctly. Have emailed Norton tech support after trying everything in their Knowledge base.

DeepC

[Lost_luggage34]

Sounds like you have worked hard there DeepC with a good outcome.

I live and learn !

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

DeepC,

Get everything copied over from the old Hard Drive then get it out of your system. Put it away in a safe place, should you ever need to get some more data off of it in the future. ;)

Take Care,

Richard

P.S. Great job so far. :ok: