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Author Topic: The best VHS machines, Joe's repair video (& Phil's little hard drive crash problem) Phil Hill I love my cootie bug Posts: 7595 From: Hollywood, CA USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 12-11-2004 06:12 PM                  For the 3rd time since I bought it 2 years ago, the harddrive in my POFS laptop has lost the boot/partition information and is not recoginzed. The computer is a HP Pavillion 2.26 gHz laptop with all the bell and whistles and a 60G harddrive. After I remove the drive (to see if I can recover the data), I'm going to throw the computer over the hillside and watch it smash into a 1000 pieces along with that POS Mitsubishi DVD player, Mistsubishi SVHS deck, HP PhotoSmart S20 film scanner, and Sony 20" TV, and... that already rest there! I'm not kidding. I got great pleasure in watching them all smash into pieces! AND! Of course, I was just about to do a backup, but it failed before I could do it. I run XP pro on all my machines and that is the ONLY one that ever crashes. I WILL NEVER buy another HP computer! They suck the big weenie... and not even to orgasm! (Gee, does that give yous some clue as to how frustrated I am?) Anyhow, does anyone have a suggestion for a program that might be able to restore/recover the data? I really don't want to lose all those porno pics... err, oh and business files. BTW: I ***DON'T*** need any stupid comments about getting a MAC or some other lame cynical comment like I shoulda/coulda/etc. Thanks in advance. Also, any "constuctive" suggestions for a PC laptop under $3k? >>> Phil  |  IP: Logged Kyle McEachern Expert Film Handler Posts: 165 From: San Francisco, CA Registered: Feb 2004 posted 12-11-2004 06:28 PM                 If you can't find a software solution to it, this is the list of Western Digital's supported data recovery centers: ActionFront Data Recovery Labs (800) 563-1167 (905) 474-2220 (800) 563-6979 FAX Data Mechanix (800) 886-2231 (949) 263-0994 (949) 263-1549 FAX DriveSavers (800) 440-1904 (415) 382-2000 (415) 883-0780 FAX ESS Data Recovery (800) 237-4200 (618) 529-2579 (800) 299-7815 FAX Ontrack Data Recovery Services (800) 752-7557 (714) 641-0530 (714) 641-1543 FAX Reynolds Data Recovery 800-223-7483 303-776-7110 303-776-7277 FAX email: reynolds@data-recovery.com Vogon International (800) 392-5373 (405) 321-2585 (405) 364-8242 FAX email: data.recovery@vogon.us They seem to have a general price range around $300-$400 for recovering data from a drive, so it comes down to how important the data is to you. Good luck!  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 12-11-2004 06:51 PM                     After you have destroyed your HP unit, buy only a Dell or build your own. I agree, every HP product (except for their printers) has given me nothing but trouble. If you build your own, buy only WD drives with the 8MB cache (not available in stores - online OEM drive). Make sure you are running Norton antivirus as well as AdAware and Spybot.  |  IP: Logged Phil Hill I love my cootie bug Posts: 7595 From: Hollywood, CA USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 12-11-2004 07:04 PM                  Thanks K-Y! I thought about using those services, but then they would recover and see all the naked pics I have of you... quote: Brad Miller Make sure you are running Norton antivirus as well as AdAware and Spybot. I agree, Brad! I have been using those for ages...plus one called "homepage hijacker" or something. They all are the best! I am thinking of a Dell, based on our convo about those machines.  |  IP: Logged Joe Redifer You need a beating today Posts: 12859 From: Denver, Colorado Registered: May 99 posted 12-11-2004 07:27 PM                        What do you use your computer for? Is it to run specific programs that are Windows only? Brad tells me that Macs NEVER crash ever. Also, do you videotape your banned machinery crashing and shattering? You should. After a few years you'd have enough to make a cool compilation video set to music! What was wrong with the Mitsubishi SVHS deck? If you think that's bad, you should try JVC. I went through about 4 JVC SVHS decks and they all sucked ass, watched a girlfriend's JVC SVHS deck also suck ass for her as well as a few friends who had JVC SVHS decks. Yeah, I was pretty dense about the JVC not to see all of the warning signs, but their first deck that I had was good, so..... Finally settled on a Mitsubishi SVHS deck and it still runs great. You must have got the crappy low-end one, you cheapo!  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 12-11-2004 10:18 PM                     Yup, I went through 3 of the top-of-the-line JVC S-VHS decks. Not only did they end up being wholly unreliable, but the sound was out of sync by about 2 frames with every other machine on the planet! JVC definitely sucks ass. I don't care if they own the format or not, they still suck. My Mitsubishi deck just keeps running and running.  |  IP: Logged Dave Williams Wet nipple scene Posts: 1836 From: Salt Lake City, UT, USA Registered: Jan 2000 posted 12-11-2004 10:26 PM                        I ran a mitsubishi svhs deck for about 11 years before it tanked out on me. The picture was perfect every single time. On the flip side, jvc and sony seem to build nothing but plastic crap for machines. On the dell issue... not a bad machine, for standard everyday average stuff. If you want a seriously high powered laptop guaranteed to never break down on you, try this place. They are pricey, but they make a great machine. PC LAPTOPS ciao baby dave  |  IP: Logged Joe Redifer You need a beating today Posts: 12859 From: Denver, Colorado Registered: May 99 posted 12-11-2004 10:32 PM                        Brad, which model is your Mitsubishi SVHS deck? I am too lazy to check mine right now but I will before the night is over (hopefully). Does yours have the flying erase head? Flying erase heads rock. I hate that rainbow (of course I insist on only USED tapes, thus the flying erase head becomes important). I bet my Mitsubishi SVHS deck is better than yours. We should have them fight in a stop-motion-animation pay-per-view action-fest!  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-11-2004 10:39 PM                     quote: Brad Miller After you have destroyed your HP unit, buy only a Dell or build your own Well said Brad. I thought Phil was a cooler guy than to buy an HP product! The only decent HP printer I have owned so far is a Laser Printer. Brad... wait till your plastic gears crack! Another hint Phil, Don't buy a laptop with just one huge drive in it... thats a deadly mistake. Its basically a guarantee that it WILL fail. If you have two smaller drives then neither will ever fail. Large HD's seem to be more unreliable today than ever. I have two smaller 20 gig drives in my Dell laptop. I use one to back up important files to just in case. At home my SCSI conversion has worked out really well. My computer even benchmarkes quite a bit faster than it used to and I can still double my present HD through put when I get a more up to date SCSI card. The conclusion is that IDE HD's suck and todays IDE drives are getting larger in size and worse in reliability. Mark  |  IP: Logged Ben Holley Film Handler Posts: 65 From: Texas Registered: Feb 2004 posted 12-11-2004 10:55 PM                    you could always try the hard drive in the freezer trick as a last resort before you chuck it. Put the harddrive in an antistatic bag and put it in a reallllly cold freezer for a couple hours, then take it out and pop it into another computer as a slave and if it works just copy as much over as you can. If you try be sure to post results. little better directions here  |  IP: Logged Mark J. Marshall Film God Posts: 3188 From: New Castle, DE, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 12-11-2004 11:12 PM                    I have had nothing but trouble from HP Laptops and servers. However, since they bought Compaq, I have to say that all the Compaq stuff is still pretty good. That is, the HP Compaq laptops and servers run great... at least for me. But the HP Pavillion stuff... forget it.  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 12-12-2004 04:25 AM                     Joe, I have the Mitsubishi HS-U69 deck. (No Phil, the model number was not the reason I chose to buy this particular machine.) It does have flying erase heads to eliminate the moire effect on used tapes, which definitely kicked much ass back in the pre-nonlinear editing days. So I got off of my ass and looked at my model number, which one do you have? You too Phil! Which Mitsubishi model did you have? (Phil probably used Sony tapes in his Mitsubishi. Those would always clog my heads. I used 3M tapes exclusively and never had problems.)  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 12-12-2004 04:50 AM                        I guess I must have been lucky, but I have an HP laptop and a JVC S-VHS deck and neither has given more than minor problems. The battery on the laptop is a bit shite - after a year of very light use and practically no charging from half-full its running time is down to around an hour. But other than that no problems, and I do appreciate it having a floppy drive built into the unit rather than having to faff about with an external USB one. The VCR sometimes refuses to play the hi-fi track on standard VHS tapes, but that niggle is more than offset by the excellent timebase correction feature which can do wonders for older tapes. I do agree with Brad on Dell laptops, though - well built and with excellent support (you only need to type the serial number into Dell's website and it automatically gives you any driver updates tailored to your hardware)... but the two I've used have no internal floppy drive.  |  IP: Logged Joe Redifer You need a beating today Posts: 12859 From: Denver, Colorado Registered: May 99 posted 12-12-2004 04:52 AM                        I have the HS-U795. Notice that my number is larger than yours. Much larger. For every unit of increase in the number, my VCR is that much better than yours. So therefore my VCR must be 726 times better than yours. It is undeniable. Look at the reviews it gets online. It ruleXorZ.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-12-2004 09:16 AM                     Having come from a Video background and factory service of VHS equipment I can honestly say that ALL of it is built like crap . If yours doesn't give trouble you're just lucky........ Mark  |  IP: Logged

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