Travel Technology - Ever have a laptop die on a trip?

My work laptop (IBM Think Pad) had been a little sick, so I took my personal laptop (HP Pavilion) on my last few trips.

Well, I got the BSD (Blue Screen of Death) last week when I tried to boot it up on a trip, with a message "Unavailable boot volume." I immediately asked someone in the office where I was for local repair shops. I called both Circuit City and Best Buy first, to see if they could give me an idea in advance when they might be able to look at it. There would be no time to have someone send my system disks to me, since it was 2 days before I was scheduled to return home.

First I took it to Circuit City, but the service technician had called in sick, so off I went to Best Buy. I emphasized that I had to retrieve the laptop in 36 hours whether it was done or not, since I had to leave town. They said there was a chance they could at least diagnose the problem by then. They called me the next day to say it was a bad hard drive, and they had a larger one available that they could install immediately. I then checked with a friend who said that the 100G Seagate for $199 was a good brand at a decent price. I then checked with the stores near my home and they couldn't look at it over the weekend and didn't have a large enough drive in stock.

So the Geek Squad at Best Buy burned the data I needed to keep onto a DVD and replaced my hard drive my PC in a timely manner for a decent price. And I didn't have to ask for the return of my old HD. They already had it boxed up for me in the box the new one came in. I will still need to reload Windows and all of my software, however. :(

Has anyone else had tech problems on the road?

Is there a chain that had been outstanding for service?

Is there anything my fellow travellers do to prevent or mitigate technical problems on the road? I have never made a "boot disk" although my Norton keeps telling me to create one. If my problem had been just corrupted Windows, would it have helped?

Does anyone keep data you need to carry with you or save on a jump or flash drive?

If the problem had been a corrupted OS (i.e. Windows was sick) then yes, a boot disk from Norton might have helped you out. There are also some similar products that may have been able to recover such a thing. In fact...I'd be surprised if your HD was truly, totally dead. Of course, I'm something of a tinkerer and I've been able to bring drives back that many people thought were gone.

I'd suggest carrying around two things:
1. A USB key...back up critical business data/files/emails, etc. to the USB key on a daily basis. If you read in the Windows help feature, it will show you how to set up a "briefcase" that you can set to sync automatically. Just make the USB key your "briefcase".
2. Carry a bootable CD with Knoppix on it. It's a "live" Linux install that runs completely out of the RAM on your machine. If your PC drive goes dead, you can boot the CD and still have full function. It will open Windows files, you can surf the 'Net, check email, etc. etc. etc. It's worth carrying around the CD "just in case".

I travel a lot overseas and I always carry two laptops for exactly this reason. This was also the excuse I gave my wife to buy an IPOD...I told her that I needed it as an external drive to backup my data!

You're very lucky!

Most of the time when a HD dies it *DIES*. You don't get your data back unless you send the drive to a data recovery place and they *MIGHT* get it back for you--but with a major case of sticker shock. You'll almost certainly pay more for their services than you paid for the machine.

Backup everything important!

Personally I've never had one die on the road but I came close once. I decided I wanted a bunch of extra data on the laptop. Before I went to bed I left it copying data, expecting to find it done in the morning. I find it stuck with a disk full error--despite the fact that there should have been about 10gb left when the copy was complete. I'm trying to figure out what's up when it blue screens. Reboot--no boot device. Some research reveals that I now appear to have an 18mb HD in there. That's not a typo, I mean mb, not gb. I let Norton Utilities have a look at it but after a bit I realize that's not an option, I'll run out of time. I grab an old HD that should boot the machine and install it--no boot. It's now about 3 hours before a one-month international trip.

I scramble for install disks and burn the critical data to CD's. The computer store is on the road to the airport, I run in and grab the most suitable looking thing they have in stock. I don't get it out of it's packing materials until we are waiting at the gate.

It turns out both HD's are fried. Something must have gone wrong with the MB in the old one and it destroyed whatever drive was connected. No, I didn't fry it by mishandling--I've been building my own desktop units for 10 years now and that was not the first time I had been inside my laptop case by any means.

That was a few years ago, at this point I'm going to get a laptop specifically for those trips and use it only then. I'll keep the current one for all other laptop use--if it blows up here in the states I only lose a day's work, not potentially a month's work.

I have not had a problem myself, but a business associate accidentally sat on his laptop on the first day of a month long trip to Asia. His screen was FUBAR, so he went to the Windsor House computer market in HKG and was lugging around a 15" flat monitor for the rest of the trip.

No.

But, a computer's power supply literally exploded on me when I was attempting to finish a report once. :eek:

Fortunately for me, I had been saving sections of my report on one of those portable flash drives. I removed the unit and went off to a friend's place to finish it up. I did lose some data, but at least, my report was finished on time.

Worst that ever happened to me was a fried built-in modem when I made the mistake of plugging my laptop into a telephone wall jack without making sure it was an analog line. Fortunately, I had time to take it to a local service shop. (And fortunately, I was in Manhattan where there's no shortage of these.) A couple of hours and a couple of hundred dollars later I was back in business.

As for disks, I'm reminded of the old adage: "There are two kinds of computer users: those who have lost data because of a disk failure, and those who will." I'm in the first group. Now my backups have backups.

I travel with a subnotebook and with the abuse it takes it's a matter of when, not if, the HDD is going to die. Based on that, I won't buy a notebook with an inaccessable hard drive. Invariably there's a newer/faster/larger notebook drive that's out than I can order with the notebook. So, I buy the drive, image the existing drive over using Acronis (http://www.acronis.com) software, install the new drive and put the old drive into an external USB housing (http://www.addonics.com/products/enclosures/aesexdiiu2.asp) that I keep with me (I use the external enclosure to house the new drive when doing the initial imaging, Acronis is smart enough to work with USB devices if the computer recognizes them).

Acronis is fast (takes about two hours for 80 GB) so I do a full image to the external drive regularly and carry that external drive in my laptop bag (it's VERY small). That way I keep up with configuration changes as well as data, Email, etc.

Should my drive go kaput, I'll just pull the original HDD that came with the computer back out of the external enclosure, install it into the notebook (truly a one plug operation but you must take care doing it) and off I go with a minimum of downtime and only losing as much data as I'd created since I backed up.

It's an inexpensive solution ($200 for the drive and $35 or so for the enclosure) and one that gets you back up and running with a bare minimum of downtime.

Note that this doesn't obviate the need to back up important data to CD or whatever offline archival media you choose. The worst could always happen and BOTH drives could fail.

I do the same thing as Kanebear. Ever since my T41 developed an affinity for trashing IBM supplied-under-warranty Hitachi HDD's on the road (5 in a year and a half, then MB replaced-suspected HDD controller), I started mirroring my C: drive before leaving and backing up files altered during the trip with CD-R's or a USB thumb drive.

A mirrored "backup" 60GB HDD goes in a padded envelope inside my laptop backpack, ready to serve in less than 2 minutes if needed. After 5 completely successful restores using Acronis Ture Image, I swear by it...and use it on all personal and company PC's (along with RAID on workstations) and laptops.

I do the same thing as Kanebear. Ever since my T41 developed an affinity for trashing IBM supplied-under-warranty Hitachi HDD's on the road (5 in a year and a half, then MB replaced-suspected HDD controller), I started mirroring my C: drive before leaving and backing up files altered during the trip with CD-R's or a USB thumb drive.

A mirrored "backup" 60GB HDD goes in a padded envelope inside my laptop backpack, ready to serve in less than 2 minutes if needed. After 5 completely successful restores using Acronis Ture Image, I swear by it...and use it on all personal and company PC's (along with RAID on workstations) and laptops.

Wow! That's a pretty comprehensive backup process. I stay away from laptops (as a student there is no real need for one), so never had that problem before.

But I was pretty mad when my iPod mini died at the start of a holiday trip, not a happy camper!!!

When a HD fails like above, one of the options of last resort is to try Spin Rite from GRC: http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm

If the problem had been a corrupted OS (i.e. Windows was sick) then yes, a boot disk from Norton might have helped you out. There are also some similar products that may have been able to recover such a thing. In fact...I'd be surprised if your HD was truly, totally dead. Of course, I'm something of a tinkerer and I've been able to bring drives back that many people thought were gone.

I'd suggest carrying around two things:
1. A USB key...
2. Carry a bootable CD with Knoppix on it. It's a "live" Linux install that runs completely out of the RAM on your machine. If your PC drive goes dead, you can boot the CD and still have full function. It will open Windows files, you can surf the 'Net, check email, etc. etc. etc. It's worth carrying around the CD "just in case".

Well, they said they backed up data onto a DVD, but I tried to read it just now and it said "please insert a disk." Like I hadn't just inserted one! So maybe I don't have a backup.

I had bought a USB flash drive a few months ago, and tried to use it on my IBM T40. As soon as I did, the PC started acting up, and it took me a while to get it stabilized. So I'm concerned about trying it again, although I got it to work on other PCs just fine.

What is Knoppix?

I may have questions on some of the other responses, when I have time to study them.

My techie friend/co-worker said I need a +R drive to read the DVD, and I must have a -R drive. So maybe I do have my data, just can't get to it from this PC.

My techie friend/co-worker said I need a +R drive to read the DVD, and I must have a -R drive. So maybe I do have my data, just can't get to it from this PC.
Yeah, DVD's come in -R and +R flavors. Modern drives read (and write if they capable of it) both types but many of the earlier types did only one type, generally -R. Our old DVD player would only do -R's also.

Last year my 15'' G4 hard drive died while working! It was a night of much drinking as I had not been home in two months to back up everything, thus I started over. It was not a fun experience. But the good thing was that I got a new 12'' G4 PB out of it. I think this month I will purchase another 15'' PB becuase the larger screen is much nicer, but the 12'' is nicer to travel with.

Wow! That's a pretty comprehensive backup process. I stay away from laptops (as a student there is no real need for one), so never had that problem before. But I was pretty mad when my iPod mini died at the start of a holiday trip, not a happy camper!!!

Had to do something. My accounts were getting tired of hearing "my laptop crashed"; they thought I'd developed a new work avoidance technique while on the road. :D

Wow! That's a pretty comprehensive backup process. I stay away from laptops (as a student there is no real need for one), so never had that problem before.

But I was pretty mad when my iPod mini died at the start of a holiday trip, not a happy camper!!!

I had a new iPod shuffle all filled up for a 3 week business trip where I'd be on planes for over 10 straight hours no less than 8 times. After the 2nd leg I plugged it into the laptop to recharge and mistakenly told it to associate with the empty iTunes on the machine. All music instantly deleted from the iPod. Since then I've backed up my music library on DVDs to lug around.

Also had a Dell machine stop working on me in NYC on a trip. Ended up at a CompUsa where they were able to work some magic and get it up and running again.

If the problem had been a corrupted OS (i.e. Windows was sick) then yes, a boot disk from Norton might have helped you out. There are also some similar products that may have been able to recover such a thing. In fact...I'd be surprised if your HD was truly, totally dead. Of course, I'm something of a tinkerer and I've been able to bring drives back that many people thought were gone.

I'd suggest carrying around two things:
1. A USB key...back up critical business data/files/emails, etc. to the USB key on a daily basis. If you read in the Windows help feature, it will show you how to set up a "briefcase" that you can set to sync automatically. Just make the USB key your "briefcase".
2. Carry a bootable CD with Knoppix on it. It's a "live" Linux install that runs completely out of the RAM on your machine. If your PC drive goes dead, you can boot the CD and still have full function. It will open Windows files, you can surf the 'Net, check email, etc. etc. etc. It's worth carrying around the CD "just in case".
Had a similar problem and it a common issue with Win NT and 2000. The boot file was corrupted (more then 6MB) and thus couldn't be used when booting the PC.

I virtually split the HD, installed Windows again, copied the data from the "old part" of hte HD. This way I was able to work and use the files. Later we did a full reformating of the HD...

Win XP is more stable

OK, the patient has survived the brain transplant, and I loaded Windows XP Pro and Norton Anti Virus and Norton Internet Security 2005. I couldn't get my ethernet card to work, so I used wireless to download the updates I needed for Windows and Norton, and also the driver that I thought I needed from hp.com for the ethernet card.

Cool! I took it to work to install yet more software that I needed, and the ethernet card worked. But when I got home, the ethernet card still didn't work with my DSL. I know my DSL and modem are fine, because they work for my other PC. But when I try to use them on my HP, it can see the connection and send out packets but it said "firewalled" and no packets came in. So I turned off my Norton firewall and I turned off my Windows firewall and it still didn't work. The only thing I didn't try was rebooting after I turned off my Windows firewall. Maybe when I first brought up Norton I might have accidentally hit "prohibit always" when my home DSL network came up, and I don't know how to change it back.

And, you guessed it! My HP is home and I'm not. I'm trying to think now of what I can try quickly when I get home. I'll be home about 8 hours between this biz trip and my SJU trip. Same thing between SJU and my next biz trip, and about 4 hours between that biz trip and my trip to OGG... I could probably have someone go to my house and test something if I had an idea what to change. Any ideas?

Well, I called Verizon DSL help desk, and they said I have to release the connection before I can unplug one computer and plug another one into the same DSL modem. Apparently their server saves history for 2 hours before it automatically deletes the connection information. So I'll try that when I get home.

Computers never get "sick" or die on the road, it just doesn't happen *laughing hysterically*. Lets see... have had a CD drive eat itself, a hard drive committ suicide, my wireless port give up the ghost and numerous other catastrophes in hotels. This is part of why I swear by Dell, I have the at home protection warranty and no matter where I have been they have sent me a technician (if needed) or the part the next day wherever I was.

I had this happen once in San Fran. I Fedex'd it overnite to Boston and they fixed it and Fedex'd it back in 2 days

I got some backup device religion after watching a colleague try to recover from a worker dropping a 1' long 20 lb. bolt onto his ThinkPad.
My own is a Panasonic Toughbook, which is hardened against minor knocks but still susceptible to damage, not to mention viruses, etc.
I bought an Iomega 80 GB portable HDD for ~$60 that comes with backup software, and periodically allow it to update. Keep the HDD at home and if some hardware or virus problems occur, MsVandelay can FedEx it to me for recovery, either by formatting the original and installing the backup, or if the original hard drive dies, backup all the info on a new one.

Yes, when I booted up to make a presentation to a potential customer.

Unbelievable. Turned out that the CMOS battery was the one that died :rolleyes:

I was on UA, SEA-ORD-LHR about three weeks ago. Leaky Nalgene with about 1 oz of Gatorade in it. T41 w/about everything not backed up. It managed to boot sporadically and it worked for about two days with sticky keys and bizarre LCD liquid spots. I got another one and put the hard drive from the sucrose-enhanced machine and everything worked great. The new one was a T42 w/Biometrics (fingerprint reader), so i got a nice upgrade...

The backlight on my IBM t23 died about a week before I left Korea to go backpacking in Thailand. I scrambled to find the IBM PC Service Center in Seoul (a hell of an adventure, being unable to speak Korean) and left the notebook with them, believing that the problem was with the power inverter for the LCD backlight. Took them two days to inspect, and told me a new screen would have to be ordered at the cost of over $1000 USD. Being a student, this wasn't feasible, especially considering a new laptop could be obtained at relatively near the price.

So, I took the laptop back, noticed a few screws were actually missing, cursed IBM PC Service Center in Korea, took my hard drive out, put it an external case, and brought that with me around Thailand and Cambodia for a month (while leaving the laptop and a ton of other luggage w/ a friend in Korea, prior to returning to the US). Best decision I ever made considering an external hard drive case was much smaller than a laptop... finding a PC cafe to transfer pictures from a memory card to an external hard drive was a breeze.

I've lost all my data once... just before a day of meetings and presentations... don't even want to get into it anymore..

I carry a $30 256MB USB drive on my keyring. I load it with all of my presentations/documentation prior to each trip "just in case". Places like Kinko's are accustomed to printing documents from USB drives, so this has been a big help at times.

The only time my laptop totally died was back in 2001 while on a trip to SAN. Since e-mail was of vital importance to me at the time, I simply went to Staples and expensed a Palm VII handheld (the one they had with built-in wireless internet access/e-mail). It was $300 and I was back online in a few hours. I then FedEx'ed the notebook to our HQ for repair and had them send it back to my house when it was fixed.

I had this happen once in San Fran. I Fedex'd it overnite to Boston and they fixed it and Fedex'd it back in 2 days

but can you be without a computer for 4 days?

I'd be dead