Guys,
My brother in law is sparring w/ his local VAR re a weird system problem that appears to be hard disk related, but could be power supply or mainboard related also. Computer is used to manage a small resort and restaurant. Here's the details as I know them:
Custom built system: Asus P3B-F mainboard, Pentium II-450, 128MB SDRAM, 8G Seagate HD (I don't know the model#), ATI XPert98 AGP video, Enlight 7237 case w/ 250w p.s.
Twice in the last four months the HD has crashed. The first time the data was barely able to be recovered (small town VAR's technical capability is suspect IMO); second time, just this past week, the drive is unrecoverable. Data files are backed up to floppy, via WinZip and two critical programs' internal back up utilities. So, this is a hassle: not critical, but nevertheless contributing to a lack of confidence in the system.
My question is this: what troubleshooting steps would you follow? I've suggested to my brother in law that two drives failing in such a short time period is unlikely, and there likely is another reason(s) for the failure. I said two areas I'd look at are the power supply and mainboard, since they're the two items that physically hook to the computer.
I'm open to any and all suggestions to help him aid his VAR is troubleshooting this problem. TIA for any ideas!
My brother in law is sparring w/ his local VAR re a weird system problem that appears to be hard disk related, but could be power supply or mainboard related also. Computer is used to manage a small resort and restaurant. Here's the details as I know them:
Custom built system: Asus P3B-F mainboard, Pentium II-450, 128MB SDRAM, 8G Seagate HD (I don't know the model#), ATI XPert98 AGP video, Enlight 7237 case w/ 250w p.s.
Twice in the last four months the HD has crashed. The first time the data was barely able to be recovered (small town VAR's technical capability is suspect IMO); second time, just this past week, the drive is unrecoverable. Data files are backed up to floppy, via WinZip and two critical programs' internal back up utilities. So, this is a hassle: not critical, but nevertheless contributing to a lack of confidence in the system.
My question is this: what troubleshooting steps would you follow? I've suggested to my brother in law that two drives failing in such a short time period is unlikely, and there likely is another reason(s) for the failure. I said two areas I'd look at are the power supply and mainboard, since they're the two items that physically hook to the computer.
I'm open to any and all suggestions to help him aid his VAR is troubleshooting this problem. TIA for any ideas!
