Down the rabbit hole / PC horror stories
Posted: Thu Feb 05, 2015 9:56 am
Ever have one of those "wtf is going on with my PC" days? Here's a thread where you can post your favorite horror stories and help destroy whatever PC Cred you have.
My latest happened yesterday (full disclosure: I don't think it's over, yet). The components came in for my Zbox build and the day was open. The goal was to pop in an old OCZ Agility SSD to use for the boot drive. This SSD had a clean Win 7 64 Update 1 build on it and it's sole purpose was to be the 'keep on the shelf and use in case of emergencies' drive. I've had bad experiences with backup programs not able to restore images and figured being able to clone a clean build drive onto another would be a high probability of success. Apparently, this SSD was on the shelf too long.
The Zbox had issues recognizing the drive. It would show up in the UEFI, but I was unable to get it in the boot sequence. I thought maybe it was an IDE/AHCI vs Intel issue as there were problems with the early consumer SSDs and which drives would support what mode with what controller under what OS. I should have tested the SSD in my main PC, but instead opted to mount it on my backup PC, reinitialize it and reinstall Win 7. Hmm, need an optical drive. Hmm, the only ODD I have with SATA is in my main PC. So, furthering the pain, I moved the ODD from my R4 to the Solo. Plugged the SSD into the eSATA port. Turn on the PC...and the PC didn't turn on. No lights, not even PSU fan movement. Crap. My backup PC isn't working.
New plan, move the ODD and the SSD over to the main PC. A brief mention that while I love my R4 case, some front panel wires are right where one of the ODD screws goes in. Dropped screw disappears. sigh. Ok, SSD is clean. Set up UEFI profile so Win 7 will install on Agility Drive. Install Win 7. Done. Move SSD back to Zbox. Fiddle with clunky UEFI. Reboot a bunch of times. Drive boots Win 7. woot. Next, update BIOS, install drivers, then update Win7. Zbox comes with drivers on CD. No USB ODD in the house. No problem. Drivers on CD are way old, anyway. Hmm, no network access yet as no drivers...No problem. Download everything on R4. Build a bootable USB drive for BIOS update. Transfer drivers to a separate USB drive.
BIOS updated. (longer version: the small thumb drive is unrecognizable to the Zbox. Hmm. Reformat it on the R4. Win7 doesn't ship with a utility for making a thumb drive bootable in MS-DOS. wtf? Find a program called RUFUS. Format the drive as a bootable MS-DOS drive, add the BIOS update, and update the Zbox BIOS).
Chipset driver installed. Network driver installed. WLAN driver instal...BSOD. gah. BSOD screen flashed by too fast to read the code. Tried again...BSOD. hmm. Maybe there's a critical Win 7 component missing. Windows update: there are 200+ important updates (I think 175 were security patches). Scan thru, find a Win7 Update 1 patch. Install that. Reboot. Decide to let Win7 update rip thru them all. BSODs partway through and reboots on me while I'm afk. hmm.
Download Memtest and install on bootable thumb drive. 1.5 runs and 2.5 hrs later, no errors.
Download Prime 95. Run small FFTs for an hour (CPU stability) - no errors. Run Blend FFT and it BSODs with a usable entry that I'm able to catch and it points to the SSD. CHKDSK confirms it.
So, a day blown where I find my backup SSD is fubared, my backup PC has a power on issue, and my quick little media PC isn't built. Bah.
Next step - rip the OS SSD out of the backup PC and try again.
My latest happened yesterday (full disclosure: I don't think it's over, yet). The components came in for my Zbox build and the day was open. The goal was to pop in an old OCZ Agility SSD to use for the boot drive. This SSD had a clean Win 7 64 Update 1 build on it and it's sole purpose was to be the 'keep on the shelf and use in case of emergencies' drive. I've had bad experiences with backup programs not able to restore images and figured being able to clone a clean build drive onto another would be a high probability of success. Apparently, this SSD was on the shelf too long.
The Zbox had issues recognizing the drive. It would show up in the UEFI, but I was unable to get it in the boot sequence. I thought maybe it was an IDE/AHCI vs Intel issue as there were problems with the early consumer SSDs and which drives would support what mode with what controller under what OS. I should have tested the SSD in my main PC, but instead opted to mount it on my backup PC, reinitialize it and reinstall Win 7. Hmm, need an optical drive. Hmm, the only ODD I have with SATA is in my main PC. So, furthering the pain, I moved the ODD from my R4 to the Solo. Plugged the SSD into the eSATA port. Turn on the PC...and the PC didn't turn on. No lights, not even PSU fan movement. Crap. My backup PC isn't working.
New plan, move the ODD and the SSD over to the main PC. A brief mention that while I love my R4 case, some front panel wires are right where one of the ODD screws goes in. Dropped screw disappears. sigh. Ok, SSD is clean. Set up UEFI profile so Win 7 will install on Agility Drive. Install Win 7. Done. Move SSD back to Zbox. Fiddle with clunky UEFI. Reboot a bunch of times. Drive boots Win 7. woot. Next, update BIOS, install drivers, then update Win7. Zbox comes with drivers on CD. No USB ODD in the house. No problem. Drivers on CD are way old, anyway. Hmm, no network access yet as no drivers...No problem. Download everything on R4. Build a bootable USB drive for BIOS update. Transfer drivers to a separate USB drive.
BIOS updated. (longer version: the small thumb drive is unrecognizable to the Zbox. Hmm. Reformat it on the R4. Win7 doesn't ship with a utility for making a thumb drive bootable in MS-DOS. wtf? Find a program called RUFUS. Format the drive as a bootable MS-DOS drive, add the BIOS update, and update the Zbox BIOS).
Chipset driver installed. Network driver installed. WLAN driver instal...BSOD. gah. BSOD screen flashed by too fast to read the code. Tried again...BSOD. hmm. Maybe there's a critical Win 7 component missing. Windows update: there are 200+ important updates (I think 175 were security patches). Scan thru, find a Win7 Update 1 patch. Install that. Reboot. Decide to let Win7 update rip thru them all. BSODs partway through and reboots on me while I'm afk. hmm.
Download Memtest and install on bootable thumb drive. 1.5 runs and 2.5 hrs later, no errors.
Download Prime 95. Run small FFTs for an hour (CPU stability) - no errors. Run Blend FFT and it BSODs with a usable entry that I'm able to catch and it points to the SSD. CHKDSK confirms it.
So, a day blown where I find my backup SSD is fubared, my backup PC has a power on issue, and my quick little media PC isn't built. Bah.
Next step - rip the OS SSD out of the backup PC and try again.