My Tecra is dying.....

OK, today, just today, my Notebook sort of died. I have been having this problem of switching it on and then, when either it comes out of hibernation or from a normal bootup, it sort of freezes once I start an application or when it is loading something. This is very bad because I had to clean up and reinstall my anti-virus and Zone Alarm Firewall software as it was totally corrupted while loading. Luckily, no other major software was affected. (If it was, I wouldn't even know)

But a few days ago, it went from bad to worse. When I pressed the "ON" button, the hard disk light would not even light up at all. Normally, I would switch it off and after waiting for about half an hour, everything would be OK. But not today.

Luckily, my Wife's "Hak Kerajaan" Notebook was still there and since she does not need to return it until tomorrow (Monday), I decided to borrow it for the afternoon. The main thing now, is to try salvage any data on my Tecra's Hard disk and onto my portable hard disk. Luckily, most of my data is quite up to date and so, there were minimal data transfers. Then again, I am lucky as my 80GB portable hard disk has only 1.6GB left.

How did I do it? I panicked for a while because I realised I do not have any IDE cables at hand, especially the 2.5 inch versions. Meanwhile somewhere deep inside my head, a dim lightbuld lit up. Slowly, I examined my portable hard disks outer casing and realised that I could take it apart. Once it was opened, I took out the USD2IDE interface and put it into my Tecra's hard disk. And surprise! It worked! So, I quickly transferred all the data using this method onto my Wife's Notebook and then, later, when I put my portable hard disk back again, I transferred the data to it. Phew, all done!

But I am not out of the woods yet. I need to take my beloved Tecra for diagnosis. And I know, come tomorrow, it would be in my friends' safe hands.....

On the left is my 80GB PHD and the right is the Tecra's 20GB HDD

All it took was just two screws to hold everything together
And the HDD just sits in there without any shock protection
At least, I got the IDE2USB interface (right)

This is the Tecra's HDD housing. Only four screws and
it sits on an aluminum tray.