I JUST HAD A NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE!

[Kudistos Megistos]

So, I turn on my PC and what do I see after the BIOS screen?

"Missing operating system"

Sh*t! What's worse, I'm a tinfoil hat wearer and everything I have is encrypted. This isn't just a case of slamming the Widows 7 disc in there and fixing everything in a few minutes. No, the system drive is encrypted and Windows wouldn't recognise anything. So I frantically searched the myriad optical disks in my room for the Truecrypt rescue disc for my desktop. I found it, but that wasn't the end of the story.

I stuck the rescue disk in there and still couldn't do anything. It kept telling me that my password was wrong so I pressed F8 and restored the key. Was that the end of the problem? Nein! It tells me the boot partition is missing. At this point I am no longer shitting bricks; I'm shitting houses. I try to get truecrypt to permanently decrypt the disk to see if that could help anything (would that make it easier to fix the problem with disc checking software or the Windows disc? Probably not, but I was willing to try everything). Then it tells me that it can't read the disc. What's worse, it told me that I had to press esc to safely abort the decryption; turning of the power would permanently f*ck up everything. But pressing esc didn't do anything! It kept beeping and telling me that it couldn't read the disk and I eventually had to press the reset button to get it out of this loop.

By this point, I had conceded that the data on my seven month old Spinpoint F3 was probably gone; I hadn't backed up for three months. By this point, I was no longer sh*tting bricks or sh*tting houses. I was shitting the motherf*ucking Palace of Versailles!

I trawled the internet for people with similar errors and found several conversations about disc checking software but nothing concrete. I'm downloading bootable disc checkers (because I couldn't boot Windows, see?) and meanwhile I'm putting an old Linux live CD in my drive and downloading a Linux version of TC because I'd heard that the rescue CDs often saw problems that weren't there. Would this be more successful? I didn't have a fucking clue what I was doing because I was tired and desperate.

So, I take the USB stick with the Linux version of TC I'd downloaded and was about to stick it in the slot when I noticed something

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v

There was another USB stick in there that I'd completely forgotten about. A while ago, I had set the boot priority for USB sticks higher than the priority for the internal HDD. I remember not being able to boot at other times when I still had a USB stick in there, but every other time I'd remembered that I'd left a stick in, so there wasn't a problem. Could this be the reason why it didn't boot? Had I not put the boot priority back?

I took the stick out, pressed the reset button and prayed to Richard Dawkins that it would work. I entered my TC password and, for a second, the screen went black instead of telling me there was no bootable partition. Then I saw Windows starting up.

I haven't been so relieved and embarrassed for a long time!

[ZL325]

lol same thing happened to me last night weird haha same exact problem O.o

[Bosola]

...Did you post this on /g/?

Anyhow, 'missing operating system' has tripped me up more times than I can tell. Not least when I've added something like an external drive, had my OS freeze, and restarted - only to (ostensibly) see that my OS has borked. That always makes me panic.

Anyway, why would you encrypt your Hard Drive? Shouldn't you do your 'special browsing' on a "throwaway" USB-OS like Puppy Linux?

I'm safe though. I put my chatlogs with Kim Jong Il and Saddam (that guy is such a riot) into a directory called 'gardening', so I think I'm alright.

[Kudistos Megistos]

...Did you post this on /g/?

Anyhow, 'missing operating system' has tripped me up more times than I can tell. Not least when I've added something like an external drive, had my OS freeze, and restarted. That always makes me panic.

Anyway, why would you encrypt your Hard Drive? Shouldn't you do your 'special browsing' on a "throwaway" USB-OS like Puppy Linux?

I'm safe though. I set put my chatlogs with Kim Jong Il and Osama (that guy is such a riot) into a directory called 'gardening', so I think I'm alright.

I didn't post this on /g/. I did think about it but decided to post here instead.

Why do you ask? Did someone post a similar thread? Or did someone turn this into copypasta?

I download stuff during my "special browsing", so HDD encryption is the only solution. I do find Live CDs handy, however, when I'm buying things online.

[Mako]

Speaking of /g/ or /b/ or /whatever/ I have to say, I visited there last night for the first time and oh man it was somthin else.

That place is not a good place to carry on a conversation. It's filled with people who flame and hate and spam nasty stuff summoned from the depths of the internet, I was scarred just visiting there for a few moments, simply sick.

I can see why Kudistos chose here, In-fact I think that site should be shut down...Just my opinion though :/

[yoshi314]

so you managed to recover your windows install. i'm sorry to read that

i also have an encrypted setup. so far no such issues happened, but i quite a few years ago i had a not-so-tech-savvy friend who had a similar problem, when he left a floppy in the drive, and pc would refuse to boot.

in my case it's not a big deal, as most of this stuff is redundant and easy to restart, like probably obsolete wallpaper collections or quake1 texture patches. when a disk failure of epic proportions comes, i welcome it.

actually the part "most of this stuff is redundant and easy to restart" sounds kinda funny, when a 750gb harddrive is involved ;]

[hotdog963al]

You should probably run a backup mate! 

[Kudistos Megistos]

Speaking of /g/ or /b/ or /whatever/ I have to say, I visited there last night for the first time and oh man it was somthin else.

That place is not a good place to carry on a conversation. It's filled with people who flame and hate and spam nasty stuff summoned from the depths of the internet, I was scarred just visiting there for a few moments, simply sick.

I can see why Kudistos chose here, In-fact I think that site should be shut down...Just my opinion though :/

Wait, did you go to /g/ or /b/? Your description applies to both of them, but /g/ is far more bearable.

The best description of /g/ I've ever heard was "a bunch of creepy weeaboo pedophiles with a vague interest in technology".

You should probably run a backup mate! 

As it turned out, there was no need.

Now I'll move on without learning anything from my experience.

[Covarr]

Speaking of /g/ or /b/ or /whatever/ I have to say, I visited there last night for the first time and oh man it was somthin else.

That place is not a good place to carry on a conversation. It's filled with people who flame and hate and spam nasty stuff summoned from the depths of the internet, I was scarred just visiting there for a few moments, simply sick.

I can see why Kudistos chose here, In-fact I think that site should be shut down...Just my opinion though :/

Wait, did you go to /g/ or /b/? Your description applies to both of them, but /g/ is far more bearable.

The best description of /g/ I've ever heard was "a bunch of creepy weeaboo pedophiles with a vague interest in technology".

She went to /b/ before us intelligent, non /b/tards (Dan and I) could warn her not to. I fear she has been scarred for life

[Bosola]

I didn't post this on /g/. I did think about it but decided to post here instead.

Why do you ask? Did someone post a similar thread? Or did someone turn this into copypasta?

Someone asked about something similar.

That place is not a good place to carry on a conversation. It's filled with people who flame and hate and spam nasty stuff summoned from the depths of the internet, I was scarred just visiting there for a few moments, simply sick.

You know, I could almost put up with the 'ironic' racism and casual homophobia. It's the fact that trolls from /b/ have started to think it's 'hilarious' to visit /g/, posting lolicon, shock images, and other frankly nasty stuff that I - and I think I'm not alone - want never to encounter. Which is a shame, because behind the Apple / nVidia rubbish are some genuinely knowledgeable people who have an awful lot to share. I've read some really interesting stuff (eg, how bootsector-resident malware get past security software; how HDDs really work on the electronic level) that's hard to find anywhere else.

But yeah. Unpleasant place. I do sometimes visit for the interesting threads, but I've become half-worried that someone's going to post something illegal, and that, because my browser caches, I'm effectively going to download something horrid. I know how I'd purge that material, but it's something I'd rather not have to touch. I guess, on reflection, that's enough of a reason not to visit again.

[Kudistos Megistos]

You know, I could almost put up with the 'ironic' racism and casual homophobia. It's the fact that trolls from /b/ have started to think it's 'hilarious' to visit /g/, posting lolicon, shock images, and other frankly nasty stuff that I - and I think I'm not alone - want never to encounter. Which is a shame, because behind the Apple / nVidia rubbish are some genuinely knowledgeable people who have an awful lot to share. I've read some really interesting stuff (eg, how bootsector-resident malware get past security software; how HDDs really work on the electronic level) that's hard to find anywhere else.

But yeah. Unpleasant place. I do sometimes visit for the interesting threads, but I've become half-worried that someone's going to post something illegal, and that, because my browser caches, I'm effectively going to download something horrid. I know how I'd purge that material, but it's something I'd rather not have to touch. I guess, on reflection, that's enough of a reason not to visit again.

The lolicons aren't from /b/. A few of the "how do I hack computer" posters might be, but as a rule /b/tards don't care about the existence of other boards and only go when there's a raid or when their retard filter board is down. Nope, the shock/loli images are from the same people who tell you all that cool stuff you didn't know before.

And why are you worried about downloading something horrid? The police aren't going to go after anyone who accidentally opens a CP thread (everyone who visits the *chans regularly will have done that at some point) or even the people uploading the stuff, and I assume that you don't look at any of the things in your browser's cache ever again. The only risk is accidentally seeing something nasty, and if you don't want to see that, stay away from the *chans altogether and stay away from these forums whenever Hermoor visits. In fact, stay away from the internet.

Oh, and 90% of the racism isn't ironic and is not intended to be.

The homophobia is not serious. If it were, the daily trap threads (that have nothing to do with technology) wouldn't be tolerated. As it is, they don't even get trolled.

[Bosola]

What exactly did our 'genetically different' peer post, anyway?

[Kudistos Megistos]

What exactly did our 'genetically different' peer post, anyway?

Wait. Who? Hermie-kun?

The first time around, he posted lots of porn. Everywhere. Even in NFITC1's threads. He probably thought that granny porn and bukkake was the most shocking stuff imaginable.

On a more recent visit, when Jari was admin, he made fake nudez of Mako (I'm not making this sh*t up) and posted lots of gore (including a little girl with her head cut off). Naturally, he blamed me for his propensity to post pictures of people being mutilated because I once took part in a conversation about shock videos which he then decided to seek out and watch. He seems to have difficulty taking responsibility for his actions. This attitude is probably the result of living in a socialist state. 

[Bosola]

That, or being a total Kanute.

Incidentally, I suspect that my HDD is about to die (life span: two weeks). I keep hearing it stop and then whir back into life. HD access is painfully slow, and some partitions won't boot.

I'm going to look into my BIOS settings (maybe power saving controls?) and verify nothing there's an issue.

Great. Just what I needed at this time of year.

[Kudistos Megistos]

That, or being a total Kanute.

Nope, he can't be Kanute. See, Hermie-kun has this theory that the Danes aren't really Scandinavians because they've been corrupted by German influence. He also thinks Iceland isn't a Viking country (apparently Vikings don't hunt whales).

Incidentally, I suspect that my HDD is about to die (life span: two weeks). I keep hearing it stop and then whir back into life. HD access is painfully slow, and some partitions won't boot.

I'm going to look into my BIOS settings (maybe power saving controls?) and verify nothing there's an issue.

Great. Just what I needed at this time of year.

Sounds like you need a new one. 2TB drives seem to be getting cheap now that the 3TB ones are out. The latter still have a much high price per GB ratio than the 1TB and 2TB drives.

PROTIP: don't get a Seagate 7200.11

[Covarr]

PROTIP: don't get a Seagate

fixed.

[Kudistos Megistos]

PROTIP: don't get a Seagate

fixed.

Indeed

I was going to write that, but decided that it might sound fanboyish.

Also, get a Fermi: it'll be very helpful in dealing with our current cold snap. The heat it produces will make your house 1.7 times hotter.