question about getting a new computer

[hdansjr]

So my computer was making some odd noises last night, and then in an almost dramatic last stab at life, the computer made a LOUD knocking noice from the inside at start-up, it was so loud and hard that you could feel whatever parts that were hitting by placing your hand on the top of the unit, it was vibrating to the point that it almost shook. It then just quit running. It won't startup, even in safe mode and it will not boot up from the reformat disks....so i'm thinking it's dead. The computer was purchased in June of 02 so it's fairly old, but i've never had any problems with it until i attempted to uninstall Norton about 5 weeks ago, and it's been downhill ever since. Here's my question. I'm planning on building(maybe, i think i'm too much of a noobie though) or buying a new computer. My question is, should I attempt to purchase a computer that is Vistas ready or should I purchase a middle of the line computer that isn't Vistas ready and wait a few years and just continue with XP? How long will most of you wait until you go out and buy Vistas? I do not game, unless you count a few games off of shockwave.com gaming I mostly surf the net, view DVD's and online streaming videos, and edit photos.

 

[Trifid]

So your HDD died? I assume it turns on and gets through post by that.

If you are tight for money you can just buy a new hdd and get a new PC when you have some more.

Building a PC is easy all you need is some patience.

About Vista, you can run it on most PC's, but you need lots and lots of RAM. If you want you can get the final beta now that is valid until June. Don't buy a PC because of it, it isn't that great. Heck the new iTunes is more exciting than it (apart from crackly sound sometimes.)

 

[hdansjr]

Well i'm not sure what is actually wrong with the computer. Wehn i turn it on it will go to the page that has the window symbol, then the screen goes black and stays that way.

 

[turtile]

Does your video card have a fan? It could be that or the HD.

I would wait for Vista if you want to use a lot of ram.

 

[hdansjr]

I do not have a video card. I'm just currently using the onboard video. so i'm just thinking that it's my hard drive. So here's a question. I currently have a hard drive that's partitioned so that 15 GBs is the "C" drive and 40 GBs is the "D" drive. If i buy a new harddrive and install it, do i need to have the new drive partitioned before I hook it up? I have a Sony Vaio that has 3 system recovery disks with it, and that's it. Do i just unhook my old hard drive and hook the other one up and run the disks on startup? Should the first disk already be in the CD drive since the new hard drive will have nothing on it? Can i partition it after I run the system recovery? I've never dealt with this before and i'm hoping that by swaping my HD with a new one, it'll fix the problem.

 

[Blind_Arrow]

check out your fans first, if they are intact, means Harddrive only. though I havent seen any H/D spindle getting loose.

if any of your fans (case, CPU, VGA) had cut lose, means sure kill to your motherboard transistors. check carefully before deciding to buy whole new thing.

 

[hdansjr]

Ok so i checked the fans and all of the fans are in place and not loose. So i'm just thinking it's the hard drive. It is 5 years old. So i'm looking at a Westeran Digital 80 GB hard drive. I have an external WD 180 gb hard drve, so i don't need a big internal one. Will my VIAO System recovery disks work on a brand new hard drive? I do not have a windows disk, i just have the system recovery disks. Also, I can partition the new drive, so that i have a d drive, after i run the system recovery disks right?