2 power supplies
3 sticks of ram
1 blown hardrive
and 1 video card later....

It started back friday when I wanted to rebuild my webserver that has been plagued with issues for about a month. So I go buy two new sata harddrives that I plan to use for the Raid from tiger direct. I get home, put them in, set SATA drives to raid, his CTRL-E to continue

BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH!!!!

... I say to myself "That's not good...". Computer turns off by itself. Will no longer start. I take battery out, put it back in, still nothing. I check my cabling, make sure nothing is bad... turn off the power supply and turn it back on..

*FZZZTTTTT WOOOF*. Now anyone who knows electronics, when you hear that sound and your computer begins to emite the magic blue smoke from inside... it's not good. What's even more funny was sunday when I opened it up there was a cockroach scorched inside it. Just like the motherboard from my previous post. I don't think it caused it but hey I wouldn't put it past it. I had my house sprayed for bugs so that issue I thought was gone.

Anyway, I go run buy another power supply from Best Buy... overcharging bastards... I get it home and hook up it. Start the computer... "BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH!" Sonova bitch... I take out the harddrives and make sure there's not anything I'm supposed to set pinwise. I've never setup a raid system on a PC before so I wasn't sure. I notice a sticker on the top of one of the drives "Corrupt drive". Tiger direct had sold me a returned bad drive.

*drives out to Tiger Direct buys another HD*.

I get home and computer beeps at me on start. Missing Memory error. No no no... don't do this to me. I take the ram out and put it into another computer (all 3 sticks) and run memtest.

2 unstable, 1 dead. fkin A!

*drives back out to tiger direct and gets new memory* comes back....

no picture on the screen. Off a whim I take the video card out and put another one in. Works fine. Finally I get it to the windows boot screen and it says hit f6 to install third party raid drivers... hit that

"Please insert floppy disk into A: drive. *FUCK!*... I don't have an A drive.

So uh... I'm buying an A drive today.

Hope you enjoyed my misadventures.

[Edited on November 6, 2006 at 7:34 AM. Reason : !]

11/6/2006 7:33:48 AM

[Edited on November 6, 2006 at 7:57 AM. Reason : .]

11/6/2006 7:57:16 AM

it wouldn't' be a Raige thread without the sound effects

11/6/2006 8:28:34 AM

The only thing that has anything to do with RAID is that you forgot about A.

11/6/2006 8:36:04 AM

if the motherboard supports it, you can use a USB floppy

11/6/2006 8:41:08 AM

Here is the key problem with all of that:

Quote :

"from tiger direct"

Never buy any moving part from them, as now you see what happens.

11/6/2006 9:24:00 AM

Quote :

"The only thing that has anything to do with RAID is that you forgot about A."

Quote :

"from tiger direct"

ahahahahhahahahahahaha

11/6/2006 9:32:29 AM

I thought about posting some flame worthy comment, but you've endured enough irritation putting that machine together.

11/6/2006 11:43:22 AM

Hey! It's all the more entertaining with sound effects . Yeah I learned my lesson about tiger direct, I happened to be out there and picked up the drives while I was.

I'll order from newegg from now on. I was just impatient and didn't feel like paying Best Buy twice was something was worth. Yes yes I bought the power supply from them because I live right by it and didn't want to drive back out.

But all is well, disk is in hand and drive will be put in today. Unfortunately the setup given doesn't allow me to use anything USB or I would have used my thumbdrive. There's no option other than A, trust me I looked.

It's no big deal. Cost me $10.

11/6/2006 12:33:02 PM

Quote :

"bought the power supply from them "

Get ready to go through this again in 6 months

11/6/2006 1:17:28 PM

I have a Micronet 1TB desktop RAID5 at work. It sure takes away a lot of the anxiety of computing.

11/6/2006 1:25:10 PM

Technology vs Raige, round 252419

FIGHT!

11/6/2006 1:32:41 PM

^ hate you sooo much. I bought the power supply from Best Buy, one of the "named brand" not the ghetto.

However, what's a solid power supply if you know of hand. (don't feel like reading 20 Tom's Hardware articles to find a power supply that isn't vastly over what I need).

11/6/2006 2:02:03 PM

Antec

11/6/2006 2:04:32 PM

i've always thought anything by antec and sparkle should be pretty good. however the antec that came with my case crapped out and i bought some cheap $30 one from intrex about a year ago (250W, maybe it was FSN). so far its been doing well on a relatively high powered system.

11/6/2006 2:05:46 PM