Having Hard drive plugged in properly is a Good Idea(TM)

[Xon]

Recently the cabling on my computer's primary hard drive came loose. It could have been the power or the data cable.

Initially the problem manifested itself by a random crash(just hung, did not respond in any way shape or form).

So I rebooted (I am using windows, so hey I'm used to rebooting when ever the system crashes).

Working away for 1-5 minutes, it then crashed again. Reboot again after it didnt respond to anything.

Didnt reboot. Gave me an invalid system disk error message.

I opened computer case up and made sure all the cabling was plugged in properly, the rebooted again. This time it loaded!

But my problems didnt end there.

I go to log onto my profile (which isnt an Admin account), and the computer freezes solid. Reboot yet again, but this time login as the Administrator.

Browse to there my profile is stored on the hard drive, click on the folder name and I am greated with the message "File or folder is corrupted".

I then paniced for a minute. I had over a GB of stuff in there that wasnt full backed up. Plus a resent programming project which was well underway. I then remembered that the computer uses NTFS, and thus can restore from problems which would toast a FAT32 drive.

Using the chkdisk command line tool and several reboots latter, WinXP recoved my profile.

However, my problems didnt end there.

My dial-up 56K internet connection disappeared, so I had to recreated it. Then for a day or so, my upload speed could be measured in the single kilobit per minute range. The download speed was slightly better but not by much.

This ment I couldnt use any sites which require my to upload data, as the connection would timeout.

After 1 hour on the phone to my isp tech help line(local phone call, $0.18 Australian a call. ~ $0.10 - $0.09 US) they recommended I reinstall the modem drivers or reinstall windows. After reinstalling the modem drivers(had to find the suckers first) my internet connection works!

</Rant>

[Shinova]

Sooooooo..... all this was cause of a loose cable?

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Sooooooo..... all this was cause of a loose cable?

That, or the usual Windows rot. Though a loose cable would make the signals intermittent and/or 'dirty,' causing corruption of data.

<edit>
Minus the Windows rot bit.
</edit>

[Xon]

Sooooooo..... all this was cause of a loose cable?

Yes.

I still cant figure out why the modem drivers got nuked.