A Funny Story + Computer Problems

[KoRo]

So...I guess it started back a week ago when my cousin was visiting during the week. I was in school all day so I was never around the house to hang out with him. Anyway, a few days earlier, I set my Firefox options to re-open the website that was up when the browser was closed.

The day he left, I went up to my computer and turned it on. I opened Firefox and, to my shock and surprise, two tabs opened up, and in big, black, bold letters.....

HARDCORE JAPANESE GIRLS

and

BUKAKE


Right, so....
This weekend, I started getting a lot of pop-up windows...that's not normal, because Firefox always blocks them. Then my computer started running slowly....I immediately downloaded the latest version of AVG and ran a scan, as well as used HijackThis, Spybot, and Ad-Aware. Every program found something, and almost everything failed to clean. Then my computer crashed as I was running a scan....now it won't boot up.

I have another computer in my house, but for some reason, the two hard drives just don't like to be in the same computer at the same time (I've checked and rechecked the master/slave settings, bios, etc. No joy.) Does anyone happen to have any explanation why two physically sound hard drives will not work with one another in the same computer?

The symptoms are the same...they're both seen in the boot-up check, but it freezes and/or restarts when it tries to load windows.


Anyway....I'm forking pissed because my finals are next week, and I NEED NEED NEED my computer for my CAD final.





So the moral of the story is: Lock your computer when family visits. And get lots and lots of disinfecting wipes.

[Lidge Farkley]

Ewww.  That sucks man.  I hope you learned a valuable lesson... eek!

Also, I don't know why your drives aren't working together.  I used to have a zip drive that would not work unless it was in the secondary master position on the computer, and would only work if there was only one hard drive on the Primary Master channel, with nothing on the Primary Slave channel.
May be some thing like this is occurring?

[villman420]

i would love to see koro pissed in real life. "im really just T.O. right now ugh this isnt fair!"

[Kyrie]

Need more info. When you try to boot up HDD1 (broken HDD with pr0nies), at what point does it not boot up? Does it freeze up at the windows login screen? At the OS loading screen? At the bios loading screen?

[KoRo]

Well, a lot has happened in the last few days. The main thing is this.....I'm now a regular Linux user. Ubuntu 9, or "Jaunty Jackalope" to be more precise. I know jack malarkey about Linux, but I'll be learning. The original problem was caused by a very bad virus that I just could NOT get rid of no matter how hard I tried. But it's gone now.

I'm dual-booting with Win XP, and at this moment I'm installing Wine. I just want to get through finals, then i'll have all summer to learn how to use linux and unix. Any advice would be appreciated.



And I'm so god-damn glad I bought that external hdd when i did. That sonofaunsavory woman has saved my life many times already.

[Kyrie]

So you got all your data back?

There's nothing inherently wrong with Windows. You should have given your cousin a list of pre-approved pornographic websites that you know to be safe (when viewed in Firefox with NoScript). Or at least tell him, if you have to view porn, don't download anything.

[Particle]

Some IDE hard drives have peculiarities that extend beyond how the master/slave settings are supposed to work.  Most WD drives for example will randomly not work as a master with any jumpers on it regardless of what the model may show (newer ones show jumperless as single master).  I've got a WD2500JB that also refuses to be the master with an NEC ND3500A on the same channel, even if it is set to slave and the WD is set to either master or master w/ slave present.  Just won't work.

Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to say is that IDE hard drives are weird like that.  We've even got a station like that at the national SkillsUSA competition, and that's the one I judge.  There are two hard drives that just WILL NOT work at all on the same channel.  The whole point of the station at the time it was created was to demonstrate and hopefully show the students going through that some times drives must be put on different channels to work properly.

It's kinda random.

[KoRo]

I was told that some hard drives come with some configuration setup discs, and when this sort of situation arises, you have to use some setup blah blah I forgot.


Anyway, Kyrie, yes I got all my data back (and just in time too). I know there's nothing wrong with Windows. I still use it a lot. However, I have had an interest in learning UNIX/LINUX for a while now, and from what I hear, it's popular in the engineering field. This just gave me a reason to. That and the whole lack-of-viruses-for-linux thing, but the same argument can be made for Macs as well.

[Lidge Farkley]

OS X also runs Darwin with BASH so you can BASH script...
http://www.gnu.org/software/bash/

[12Stones]

(when viewed in Firefox with NoScript).

noscript is the jam..  it should come standard with firefox.

have you tried google chrome yet?  i have been using it for about a month and it's nice..  much faster than firefox, but it freezes up once every couple days (i'm using the latest beta).

[Kyrie]

Nope, haven't tried Chrome, yet. I'm quite satisfied with Firefox 3, even though they say Chrome is faster. I haven't heard that it has full support for plugins and stuff like Noscript and Adblock. I have heard of work arounds, though...

How is compatibility? It's rare, but now and then I encounter a website that just refuses to work in Firefox. I have IE Tab installed, so a simple right click and that tab of Firefox jumps into IE mode and correctly displays the broken page.

There are other addons I use too...I'd miss them. It's kind of like Tribes. One thing that has kept Tribes running for so long is users' ability to easily modify it to do what they'd like it to do. That's a huge reason that so many people played so long Firefox is like that with extensions/plugins. They encourage users to create them to tune it to how they want it to run.

[12Stones]

Yeah, I switched back to firefox..  chrome is faster, but only because it's very simple.  After all this time, I still like Firefox better.  Chrome has been freezing a lot on me lately, too..  even with simple websites.  Maybe it will be good some day.

[Particle]

Opera 10 is where it's at!  As with linux, I don't typically recommend it to people, but if they see it in use and ask about then I proceed.  It's for the same kinds of reasons, too.

[Kyrie]

Yeah, my main thing is, if it does what I need it to do just fine, then there's no real reason to bother messing around trying to get something else to do it equally well. If I find something that can work better, I look into it and decide if it's worth the hassle of learning and configuring a new process.

That's the main reason I stick with Windows.

[Xenos]

Until an adblock plus extension comes to other browers Firefox is the only browser I will use.  It's available on almost any OS so I get to use the same setup no matter which pc I use.