In brief: House had two power outages recently, both times computer would not boot afterwards. After much tinkering (more the second time than the first), got it to boot.
More info: Windows 7. Error messages varied (‘cannot boot to disk’, ‘a disk read error occurred’). After several attempts I was able to boot into safe mode and then try a disk repair option that could not repair the disk.
I re-started and was able to bring up Windows in regular mode, but everything seemed sluggish. I am now running disk check. I did drive D and it found and fixed errors. Drive C is scanning as I type.
Questions:
Is this a sign that my hard drive needs hospice care?
Would a battery backup likely prevent such a crash in the event of a future power outage (I am wondering if the switch over from electricity to battery - even if brief - might cause the problem again)?
Yes, absolutely. A battery backup will keep the computer running when the power turns off. It’ll give you plenty of time to go and shut to down properly and in most cases more than enough time for the power to come back online before it runs out of juice. Also, many of them come with software that you put on the computer that will just shut the computer down in the event of a power loss. A USB cable is connected from the UPS to the PC to let the software know it needs to shut the computer down.
Having said that, if you’re running Win7, I assume your computer is newish, so it shouldn’t go on the fritz just from losing power. This make me wonder if there was some surge activity at the same time. You might want to invest in a surge protector as well. The UPS will probably have one built in one half the outlets.
I know, I know, you already have a surge protector/power strip on your computer, but what most people don’t realize is that on most surge protectors is that after they’ve been used they don’t work anymore. That is, they work once then the rest of the surges go through. It’s good to replace them from time to time or check the little light on it if there is one.
Also, to answer your other question, these don’t work like whole house generators. There’s no ‘down time’. The computer won’t even know the power to the house got shut off. In fact, with some UPSes, the power is always being supplied by the battery so there isn’t a ‘transfer’ to begin with.
#2. If your area is prone to power outages, brownouts, spikes or thunderstorms, an UPS is the way to go. The cheaper battery backups will keep your computer running through a short power outage, like 10 minutes, plus provide surge suppression from spikes.
A better UPS will provide a longer amount of time before shutdown. Many hook into the computer through a USB port to gently shut down the computer when the UPS’s battery is getting low.
Make sure to buy an UPS with rated wattage greater than what you are going to plug into it. Something like 750 watts will handle most PCs and even a monitor.
Specifically, what you need is an ‘Inline UPS’. A decent one should protect you from power outages, brownouts, spikes, lightning strikes, and more.
Regarding lightning strikes, remember that your PC will also likely have a wired network connection to the ADSL or cable point and that can be another way in for a lightning strike.
It probably is not your harddrive itself. Your OS is probably corrupt. Find someone else with Win7, and ask if you can make a boot disk. Use a blank CD to make a boot disk (the computer knows how to do it), and then go into your BIOS and tell the computer to boot from disk. It should repair whatever is wrong with your OS without you losing any files, and is a better option than booting from an installation disk, which may not be able to repair without wiping out your files.
Check the Event Logs in Computer Management, Event Viewer. Look for red errors with a source of Disk or ATAPI. If there are one or two, keep an eye on it; if there are loads, replace the disk ASAP.