Boiling a kettle?

[lil chris]

Peter if you need a new hardrive, do not got to PC world and pay their inflated prices. Check your pc to see which type of drive is fitted, if its fairly old it may have the wide ribbon cable( IDE/ interface) if it has the later thin cable, that is the SATA interface. If you have the old IDE you might have trouble locating a drive. Cheap drives are available from Scan computers here.3.5 drives http://www.scan.co.uk/shop/computer-hardware/all/hard-drives-int/166/699 or 2.5 drives which are a bit cheaper, you might need a adapter to fit in a 3.5 bay. http://www.scan.co.uk/shop/computer-hardware/all/hard-drives-int/sata-ii-3-gbps-250gb-1tb-hdda copy of some cloning software would make it easy to swap to your new drive.

ps if you are not sure which drive it is, post a pic on here.

[petercharlesfagg]

Peter if you need a new hardrive, do not got to PC world and pay their inflated prices. Check your pc to see which type of drive is fitted, if its fairly old it may have the wide ribbon cable( IDE/ interface) if it has the later thin cable, that is the SATA interface. If you have the old IDE you might have trouble locating a drive. Cheap drives are available from Scan computers here.3.5 drives http://www.scan.co.uk/shop/computer-hardware/all/hard-drives-int/166/699 or 2.5 drives which are a bit cheaper, you might need a adapter to fit in a 3.5 bay. http://www.scan.co.uk/shop/computer-hardware/all/hard-drives-int/sata-ii-3-gbps-250gb-1tb-hdda copy of some cloning software would make it easy to swap to your new drive.

ps if you are not sure which drive it is, post a pic on here.

Chris, thankyou very much for your informative post.

Over the years I have purchased most of my PC stuff either through Novatech or Dabs, PC World is somewhere I have only been once and I am pretty sure I knew more about the items than the assistant!

Anyway, the PC is not mine, my stepson has loaned it to me, he built the server and so I have informed him of the situation and he will visit next Saturday.

Many thanks again, much appreciated, Peter.

[chub1]

Agree it's probably the scan on start up. Our's whirs away and clicks, rattles and  swears,  when switched on as we have a scan on start up as well.
Needed a new fan a while back but that was a totally different noise altogether

[railsquid]

By the way, every time I see this thread pop up, I imagine a model steam locomotive in a saucepan of hot water.

[austinbob]

Anyway, the PC is not mine, my stepson has loaned it to me, he built the server and so I have informed him of the situation and he will visit next Saturday.

Many thanks again, much appreciated, Peter.

Hi Peter
I can't help feeling that some of the posts responding to your problem may be an over reaction - that's just my opinion and I'm not knocking people who are obviously trying to help. Hard drives do whirrr, click and chatter to themselves when they're busy - like when they're doing a virus scan or indexing files - all my computers have done this.
Rather than panic about replacing a hard drive I would do a regular backup of your critical data if you don't do this already. So, if your hard drive does fail for some reason, all your data is safe.
If you don't have a backup drive then external hard drives are really inexpensive now and its a good idea to do regular backups of stuff you want to keep - sorry if I'm teaching you to suck eggs!!

Best wishes and good luck

[petercharlesfagg]

Anyway, the PC is not mine, my stepson has loaned it to me, he built the server and so I have informed him of the situation and he will visit next Saturday.

Many thanks again, much appreciated, Peter.

Hi Peter
I can't help feeling that some of the posts responding to your problem may be an over reaction - that's just my opinion and I'm not knocking people who are obviously trying to help. Hard drives do whirrr, click and chatter to themselves when they're busy - like when they're doing a virus scan or indexing files - all my computers have done this.
Rather than panic about replacing a hard drive I would do a regular backup of your critical data if you don't do this already. So, if your hard drive does fail for some reason, all your data is safe.
If you don't have a backup drive then external hard drives are really inexpensive now and its a good idea to do regular backups of stuff you want to keep - sorry if I'm teaching you to suck eggs!!

Best wishes and good luck

Thankyou Bob,

My stepson visited at the weekend and assured me that it was normal and that I should not be concerned.  He has a degree in computer technologies and built the server himself so I feel pretty sure that he knows what he is talking about!

Nevertheless, we HAVE taken the precaution of adding an external 180Gb HD and have transferred all our details, photo's etc.

Warmest regards, Peter.

[austinbob]

My stepson visited at the weekend and assured me that it was normal and that I should not be concerned.  He has a degree in computer technologies and built the server himself so I feel pretty sure that he knows what he is talking about!

Nevertheless, we HAVE taken the precaution of adding an external 180Gb HD and have transferred all our details, photo's etc.

Warmest regards, Peter.

A good solution I think - I'm sure you'll be ok - just make sure you keep your backup up to date (teaching to suck eggs again!!) still that's just me.

[petercharlesfagg]

Friends,

I thought you might appreciate knowing.

Sprintex and Bealman were correct in their thinking!

The PC crashed a week ago and now we are using my wife's laptop with a horrible screen, Vista (Which is terribly slow) and an external keyboard.

My stepson has taken the PC away and is going to load it with Windows 7 before he brings it back to us!

Hopefully we can be swift again one day!

Regards, Peter.