More computer crap

[la_belle_laide]

Basically the guy at the Geek Squad data retrieval place said that the Geek Squad guy who came here the other night was WAY WRONG on the price and it would be more like $500 andmaybe even $1500. And that if I tried to do it myself or have someone else do it, it could possibly wreck what was left of my data on my hard drive.

Also, Windows MovieMaker 2 is maybe the worst program in creation. At first I thought the random crashing problems were due to the K-lite codec pack I had installed. So I uninstalled it and then got the XP codec pack. The files still work, but now MovieMaker hangs every few seconds, quits randomly, and I've got this random thing popping up on my screen that says "AVI splitter" or something like that and I have absolutely no idea what it is.

The upside is that I talked to my Dad about this and he thinks I can put a claim in with LIPA to get them to pay for the wrecked hard drive. I doubt they will, but at least it's something to try.

Meantime, I hate Windows MovieMaker with the fire of a thousand suns.

Comments

[heywood.livejournal.com]

What exactly was the problem with it? What symptoms did it have? (e.g. was it making clunking noises, data corruption, non-booting, etc?) That would go a long way towards receiving help.

Power companies generally don't warranty the product they provide. What was he going to try and claim?

[la-belle-laide.livejournal.com]

It's non-booting, and the Geek Squad guy who came here said it was running hot and clicking. He didn't tell me anything else. I partly think that this is to keep me from finding anything out on my own, but I'm paranoid like that.

[heywood.livejournal.com]

Nonbooting is a relatively easy problem to solve. As for the clicking, when you had it in the machine, was it making periodic clunking noises like tapping hollow metal, or was it a higher pitched click-click-click?

I'm always a little leery of people who say "only we can fix it", etc. At worst, it's had a head crash and it's fucked anyway. Running hot is comparatively normal for hard drives these days. Did you get the hard drive back, or have they still got it?


(BTW - AVI splitter is a program that separates the video and audio streams from the movie file and directs them to the appropriate codecs for output. Is it popping up in the tray, near the clock, or in a message box?)

[la-belle-laide.livejournal.com]

I didn't actually hear any clicking; the Geek Squad guy just told me about it. I still have the hard drive. I'm thinking of just taking it down to Best Buy where they have all the gutted computers and just asking them to hook it up to see what happens.

That screen that popped up was a black message box with a red diagonal line through it. it's since stopped. O_o

[triforcekt.livejournal.com]

I think you would enjoy Macs thoroughly, especially with the movies and music things you like to make. They just make it so easy and logical for you.

[la-belle-laide.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's what I hear. But there's so much else I like that's not compatable with Macs, either.

[(Anonymous)]

Is the hard drive physically damaged, or is the operating system screwed? If it's not PHYSICALLY damaged, you could download a file recovery software to at least try and save your story. Those programs are kind of "last resort" attempts, but I have used them to success in the past.

Basically you hook it up as a slave to a working computer, and run the program on the working computer. It "reads" the damaged hard drive and pulls what files it can off. Let me know if that sounds like something you might need to do, ok?

[lauraceleste.livejournal.com]

That was me, btw - I thought I was logged in and wasn't :(

[la-belle-laide.livejournal.com]

'm not sure, because they wouldn't really tell me anything. THe only thing the guy yesterday told me was that if I tried to mess with it on my own, it woul ddefinitely be damaged even more and cost me more money to fix. >_> And it's not just the story I want--there are tons of GBs on there of stuff I need to save.

[skitty-kitty.livejournal.com]

Vegas is calling to yoooouuuuu. ;) You know, I wonder if it's just those DoC rips, because I piddled around with MovieMaker using a different file and it work okay, but with the DoC rips it blew up in my face.

Also, uploading the ol' vid file now. Wootness. You can play DiVX files, yes? That's what I used to shrink the file, though if not maybe I can search for something else to use.

[la-belle-laide.livejournal.com]

Really? I'll try to take some vids on my camera and see if that works.

I'm pretty sure I can play DiVX. We'll see. ^_^