Computer as my Teacher

Tiny Computer
CPU :: PIII 733MHz
RAM :: 128MB Memory
Display Card :: On Board
CD ROM :: WPI CDRW-4424 [24x 4x 4x]
Lite-ON Combo LTC-48161H [48x 24x 48x + 16x]
Speaker :: 2 Channels
Harddisk :: Fujitsu 15GB
IBM 60 GB
System :: Windows 98 + Windows XP w/SP2

The above is roughly my computer's configuration which I bought five years ago. From today's point of view, it's a rubbish; even an office won't use it as a typing machine! I've to admit that my computer is just like an antique, but it leads me to the wonderful world of computer. It just like my friend, who helps me whenever I get problems.

Unfortunately, my old friend is so old now that some of it's "organs" don't function very well. It has been always loyal to me in the past years, how can I treat it as a rubbish and throw it away when it gets troubles? In fact, the problem this time is not so serious. My friend is still usable!

The problem with it this time wass the Fujitsu 15GB harddisk. It had been used for five years, which wsa the original hardware of the model that I bought. It was so annoying when I found that some of the files of this harddisk were not able to read! Hopefully the files were just a very small part of the whole. Therefore I immediately backed up my files by copying them to the IBM 60GB harddisk. Then I examined the damaged harddisk with the program scan disk in DOS mode. It was a disaster to discover that there were some bad clusters, or bad sectors, on its surface. It was not able to recover by software. I didn't give up and I looked up the methods in books. I was so glad that I'd finally foundd the way to fix it! Although this method is not so good, but let me share it with you.

First of all, download the FBDisk(Fixed Bad Disk) from the internet. By using the boot disk, enter the DOS. Then, type the location of this application and it will run. This application will show you a list of your harddisk(s). Enter the number of the damaged disk as you see on the screen. And, it works for you. Whenever it finds some bad sectors on your harddisk, it'll record on the screen. After scanning the harddisk completely, it'll ask you if you would like to hide the bad sectors as a hidden partition. It breaks the harddisk into several partitions, according to how many bad sector it has found. It'll hide it and you can use the partitions that have not been affected. At last, your harddisk is saved and you can use it for a longer time. The disadvantage of it is obviously; if you have too many bad sectors on your harddisk, there will be so many partition with small capacity which is very inconvenient in use. For example, I can only use 6GB out of 15GB after the recovery. It's better than throwing it into the rubbish bin, isn't it?

As you can imagine, I've met many computer problems from both software and hardware. Every time when I fall into trouble, I've to solve it by myself. It's because some problems are so strange that none of my friends know the answer. However, ever time when I solve the problem I learn something. This time I learn how to reuse a broken harddisk. This may be helpful to my friends in the future! If it's the case, I can stand out and help them. Despite the fact that this computer contains full of problems, it's my teacher. It teaches me a lot, do you think so?