Main Machine Merrily Mounted the Mongrel

[Capmaster]

Got home from work yesterday and was preparing to capture a VHS tape and backup 3 other commercial DVDs. I powered up my main PC and I got the BSOD (in this case, the black screen of death). Dead. Kaput. Das Geffuckendie. Tits-up. Screwed the pooch. Cornholed

It was a 3-year old Compaq laptop (1.13 GHz P3, 20GB, 256MB RAM) that was probably just worn out from all the thousands of captures I've done with it Oh well, I needed a new machine anyway ...3 years is the limit on any machine, right?

New machine: Sony Vaio Digital Studio model, 2.8 GHz HT P4 w/1MB L2, 160GB HD, 512MB DDR Ram, 17" Sony LCD Flat Panel, DVD +/- RW (8X DVD+/-R, 4X DVD+/-RW), 8 USB2 & 4 IEEE 1394 ports. $1399. I pick it up at Circuit City after my telecommute day at home today. I'll be loading SW and tweaking all weekend, no doubt. Gotta transfer all that midget clown porn on backup too ...

[DVD_Ripper]

Sweet machine -- make sure you reformat that laptop HD before you donate the computer to a local technical school... image them getting it up and running again only to find the megs and megs of clown porn...

Image the two pimpled face boys trying to convince their teacher the pics were 'already on there'

[Capmaster]

Sweet machine -- make sure you reformat that laptop HD before you donate the computer to a local technical school... image them getting it up and running again only to find the megs and megs of clown porn...

Image the two pimpled face boys trying to convince their teacher the pics were 'already on there'

Already taken care of. Last night I got the same thought, so I took the 20GB HD out of it and introduced it to my baby sledge hammer in the garage. There was this sparkly stuff coming out of the drive when I was done ...I'm assuming that's what is left of the recording platters It was fun

[The village idiot]

Ummm, are you sure the HD was bad? Did you plug it in to your other machine to see if it would still function? You may have just wasted a good hardrive that could have been put in a firewire box and used for lots of stuff.

[DVD_Ripper]

Ummm, are you sure the HD was bad? Did you plug it in to your other machine to see if it would still function? You may have just wasted a good hardrive that could have been put in a firewire box and used for lots of stuff.

I have an old 2.5" 20G HD at home and thought about a Fwire box to create a transportable drive... but those Pyro and other (reputable) Fwire boxes are pretty expensive... almost to the point of getting an external Maxtor or WD for an extra $50.00 above the price of the box.

[Capmaster]

Ummm, are you sure the HD was bad? Did you plug it in to your other machine to see if it would still function? You may have just wasted a good hardrive that could have been put in a firewire box and used for lots of stuff.

Leading up to the catastrophic failure, the HD had been showing signs of impending failure too - bad sectors, the occasional tick-tock until it found something. It got alot of use over the last 2 years as my primary capping drive for about 2,200 VHS movies. I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did. The laptop had also shown an overheating problem recently, with it just going dead if I left it on too long. It wouldn't have been a good school donation candidate.

I got the new one at Circuit City because they usually pimp-slap places like Best Buy on price,availability and selection. They also have the best return policy - up to 30 days after purchase, no questions asked refund if you want. Plus, if you say it fast, "Circuit City" sounds like "Circus City"

[housepig]

I got the new one at Circuit City... They also have the best return policy - up to 30 days after purchase, no questions asked refund if you want.

well, Costco has them beat... even though they just reduced thier return policy from 1 year to 6 months, as long as you have your reciept and all original packing materials, it's full refund, no questions asked.

so in a way, you could run it like a free rental with a large damage deposit...

[Capmaster]

I got the new one at Circuit City... They also have the best return policy - up to 30 days after purchase, no questions asked refund if you want.

well, Costco has them beat... even though they just reduced thier return policy from 1 year to 6 months, as long as you have your reciept and all original packing materials, it's full refund, no questions asked.

so in a way, you could run it like a free rental with a large damage deposit...

We have a Costco membership too. That's unbelievably long. I wonder how long that'll last - that kind of policy just begs to be abused.

[Capmaster]

Update: Got the machine and have it set up and burning DVDs. Strangely enough the PC is a Sony Vaio but the DVD burner is a Pioneer A107 (8X +/-R, 4X +/-RW) Maybe Sony knows something we don't know?

It's burning the Maxells at 3.9 - 4X, right where it should

[tekkieman]

Glad to see you back up and running Cap!

[Rookie64]

Leading up to the catastrophic failure, the HD had been showing signs of impending failure too - bad sectors, the occasional tick-tock until it found something. It got alot of use over the last 2 years as my primary capping drive for about 2,200 VHS movies. I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did.

Was it by chance a Maxtor?

I, along with quite a few others, have had bad experiences with those hard drives.

[Capmaster]

Leading up to the catastrophic failure, the HD had been showing signs of impending failure too - bad sectors, the occasional tick-tock until it found something. It got alot of use over the last 2 years as my primary capping drive for about 2,200 VHS movies. I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did.

Was it by chance a Maxtor?

I, along with quite a few others, have had bad experiences with those hard drives.

No, it was a Toshiba HD.

I've heard the same things about Maxtor drives. I've never owned one so I can't say from personal experience. Western Digital is another matter - I've owned WD drives that were junk. So I switched to Quantum, Seagate and IBM. Then Quantum bailed out of the market and IBM sold out to Hitachi. And the band played on ..... The 160GB in the new machine is a Seagate 8) The DVD burner is a Pioneer DVR-107D. They also put a Samsung DC-ROM on it which is a nice touch - saves wear and tear on the writer. And we have a wireless LAN at home and my other 802.11 card was for a laptop so I bought this little USB dongle that does the same thing

Nice to have a new machine, but I was never off the air - I still had the Dell laptop and the Libretto at home so I could get my videohelp fix But I'm glad to have a desktop and be rid of the laptop - they're impossible to upgrade, run hot, are more expensive, and are still slower than desktops.

This LCD panel is nice I've got a 20" on my HP work machine and I'm kinda spoiled by them, and this one wasn't too expensive ($499). I'm a happy camper once again 8)

One strange little hiccup - I got DVDShrink installed and tried ripping a ST DS9 disc. It gave an error saying there was a copy protection error I got on the Digital Digest forum in the DVDShrink section and they luckily had a sticky there about it - it seems that's a version bug if you have the "Enable burning with Nero" option turned on. I turned it off and it works fine now
Cheers!

[flaninacupboard]

One strange little hiccup - I got DVDShrink installed and tried ripping a ST DS9 disc. It gave an error saying there was a copy protection error I got on the Digital Digest forum in the DVDShrink section and they luckily had a sticky there about it - it seems that's a version bug if you have the "Enable burning with Nero" option turned on. I turned it off and it works fine now
Cheers!

Useful tip, been getting errors since i upgraded to 3.17, guess i'll check that tonight. ive just been ripping to HD with dvddecrypter in file mode and then shrinking...

[DVD_Ripper]

Cap, give us the low down on the machine? Working ok? Doesn't this machine come with a built in MPEG Capture card?

[VCDHunter]

I've heard the same things about Maxtor drives. I've never owned one so I can't say from personal experience.

I purchased and fitted an 80gb drive for a mate, one month later I am taking it back for replacement My two Seagate Barracudas have been taking a battering for years and have not once thrown a wobbly.