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New Years Eve Nightmare
https://mail.karaokescene.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=9070		 Page 1 of 2
Author:  jamkaraoke [ Tue Jan 02, 2007 11:20 am ]
Post subject:  New Years Eve Nightmare
My Saturday night regular KJ gig was great. It was a larger than normal rotation as I was fortunate to have some new singers as one Karaoke Bar in another town was closed due to the owner passing away.  But that’s just the start.

Since I was also working the next night ( New Years Eve) I left  most of my equipment set up , I just took my LAPTOP and my external hard drive. ( these I felt I could not afford to leave behind)

Since most of the equipment was already hooked up I arrived  about 8:30pm on Sunday for a 9pm start – I plugged the LAPTOP in and went about setting up the mics etc. –
I LOOKED OVER AT THE LAPTOP AND SAW A BLUE SCREEN WITH AN ERROR MESSAGE
No matter what I did or how many times I booted – regular mode / safe mode  /  I could not get it to boot up.  After spending 10 minutes on the phone with a friend of mine who is a PC tech
I ran the unit over to his house 10 minutes away to try and boot it with a recovery disc.
No F’in Luck.  30 minutes later after talking and waiting for the DELL service department it was determined that the Hard Drive was shot and they will have to send another one out !!!!!!

So here I am back in the bar at 10:pm at night explaining to the Manager that I am  screwed.
Its NEW YEARS EVE  - It’s an hour late and fortunately for me the crowd hadn’t shown up yet.
Manager tells me that the OWNERS and their families should be there “any minute” and what can I do !! -   I end up driving all the way home (25 minutes away) and taking the home DESK TOP PC which fortunate for me had most what I needed to DJ with……( No Karaoke )
And I was lucky to have music playing by 11:15PM.
Just in time for the New Year I stayed until 3:15 and the night was salvaged .

Now I am paranoid about using the PC to run the show with.
I guess I’ll need another complete system for a back up

DO ALL PC USING KJS CARRY BACK UPS ????
Author:  Lonman [ Tue Jan 02, 2007 11:32 am ]
Post subject:  Re: New Years Eve Nightmare
My backups are (or will be) players & discs  :whistle:  :wave:  

Man that sucks!  Sorry to hear about that, but at least they seemed to understand & you were able to salvage the night & make it work.
Author:  Kellyoke [ Tue Jan 02, 2007 12:10 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: New Years Eve Nightmare
I have been doing karaoke for 6 years.  For four years I have been doing it digitally.  Never had a back up.  Fortunately, never missed a gig.  However, last month I purchased a second laptop.  I now have a backup with me when ever I go.  If "karma" is correct.  I should never have to use it.  BUT, I will always have it.

I could have always gone back to using my discs.  But shudder the thought.  If my laptop were to go down, I figured it would take about two to three weeks to get another laptop coming and to re-import my songs.  I figured three weeks would cost me, around $1,400.  And I'm just part time.  I finally decided based on that that there was no reason for me not to have a back up.

Kelly
Author:  Karaoke Kelley [ Tue Jan 02, 2007 12:15 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: New Years Eve Nightmare
Oh Man !! Im soo scared of that very same thing !! I also take my cdgs with me (as Lonman will be doing) Just in case I need proof of legality or a song is imported screwy. I can just see us up there trying to figure out what went wrong. Although ya know Ive never thought about taking a player  :dunce:  Dunno why b/c if the pc doesnt work then I would be up a creek !! I will be taking one from now on though.
Author:  twansenne [ Tue Jan 02, 2007 12:17 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: New Years Eve Nightmare
jamkaraoke @ Tue Jan 02, 2007 1:20 pm wrote:
DO ALL PC USING KJS CARRY BACK UPS ????


I do have a HOME PC, like you, that in a pinch could be used for karaoke, but, like LON, my backup is my CDG player and discs.  IF I am doing a gig that is far from home, I will bring the discs and CDG player, but in 2 years of using a PC, I have never had to use it.
Author:  pflugerville [ Tue Jan 02, 2007 12:27 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: New Years Eve Nightmare
man, i'm sorry to hear that you had that problem, but at least you were able to salvage some of the night!  that's is the main reason i resisted going digital for so long.  i am digital now, but i carry my old player and CDs to the gig with me.  i don't carry them in, but at least i have them with me in case.  i also use an external hard drive, rather than internal.  i have a backup for that as well.  i also have all i need on my home desktop incase all else fails.  does that make me paranoid?  
HEY!  y'all stop talking about me!
Author:  jamkaraoke [ Tue Jan 02, 2007 1:19 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: New Years Eve Nightmare
I resisted bring the discs along every week - Its the sole reason I spent $2000 and hundreds of man hours ripping and organizing my laptop.  It is a hard lesson to learn but now my HOME pc is now my back up and I just had to go out and buy my wife a new Dell desktop for home.  So now after working all night New Years Eve I am in the hole about $500  :(  :(  :(

I'm going to install a 300gig HD on the desk top and purt all my MP3 and MP3+G on it and just carry it around for back up.

MURPHY'S LAW

Ya just never Know !!!!!
Author:  pflugerville [ Tue Jan 02, 2007 2:14 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: New Years Eve Nightmare
rather than lug the entire tower around, go get an external HD.  I got a 250 gig Lacie for $100 at best buy.  beats the heck out of lugging a big desk type tower around!
Author:  jamkaraoke [ Tue Jan 02, 2007 2:21 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: New Years Eve Nightmare
I'm not sure what happened on the laptop but the entire system would not even boot up.  An external wouldn't have helped.  It was something in one of the programs a that corrupted the hard drive
Author:  Babs [ Tue Jan 02, 2007 3:02 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: New Years Eve Nightmare
That is a nightmare ! I really feel for you. I think I'd come close to a heartattack.
I'm so glad to hear it turned out okay for you.

How old was your Dell? Did they give any explanation why your laptap would die like that?
Author:  Steven Kaplan [ Tue Jan 02, 2007 9:25 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: New Years Eve Nightmare
I wonder if you passed any electromagnetic field. Did the bar setup magnetic sensors for security NY eve ?  Did you pass anything with a strong magnetic field ?  Doesn't that mess up a HD ?  I've ruined my system just by vacuuming too close.  All it takes is static electricity and that's it...gone.  Strong surge ?
Author:  Guest [ Wed Jan 03, 2007 12:21 am ]
Post subject:  Re: New Years Eve Nightmare
Everyone laughed when I said I would never play out unless I had two of everything.   When I switch to computer there will always be two with me.   Two hard drives, two computers.   Everything.   That's how professionals do it.    

Biggest night of the year could have been the biggest disaster.

Are you using a surge protector??   How about a battery backup?    Never trust bar electric.   Too many heavy duty compressors and stuff running usually on limited circuitry.    I would only run the laptop with battery power.      Get extra batteries for it.     It can't take a hit, if it ain't plugged in.

Switching over to a computer system, I figure with back up everything and all the necessary electronics will cost me around $5,000 to do it right.


I blew out my laptop at work once.   I had a walkie talkie to close when I keyed the mike and it sent some kind of a charge through the laptop.   Killing it instantly.   I had to replace the voltage regulator.    It fried.      

Is there a way to keep the table that the laptop is on, static free?????     Drop a ground wire or something????    Can anyone answer that question???
Author:  SwingcatKurt [ Wed Jan 03, 2007 1:42 am ]
Post subject:  Re: New Years Eve Nightmare
Use static free pads, or foot matts. Also possibly a wrist strp to ground your self to the chassis.
Author:  Flipper [ Wed Jan 03, 2007 3:51 am ]
Post subject:  Re: New Years Eve Nightmare
I had a similar problem with My Shuttle PC system about a year ago. I accidently hit the power strip switch with my foot while windows was booting up. When I tried to turn the system on I got the "Blue Screen of Death" and could not get it to boot up again. Luckily I had my laptop with me as I had just come from my day job so I plugged my External HD in and was good to go.

By the way the fix was to wipe the HD clean and reload XP...and it was good to go again.

Now that laptops have come down in price I waited until I found a great deal on a 2nd laptop and purchased one for $650 and loaded a copy of my hosting software and DJ software on it. If I go down on my primary I can be up and running in about 5 minutues on the backup. I always carry a backup system with me just in case.
Author:  mrdelicious2 [ Wed Jan 03, 2007 5:05 am ]
Post subject:  Re: New Years Eve Nightmare
Wow...that makes my 'nightmare' look like a dream in the Bahamas.  I'm sorry to hear of the crash, but happy that you were able to salvage some of the night.  Always a good idea to have a back up, ready to go.....MrD
Author:  jamkaraoke [ Wed Jan 03, 2007 9:27 am ]
Post subject:  Re: New Years Eve Nightmare
Babs, The Laptop is 1 year old ---   Purchased in January 2006
Just made it under the warranty   LOL

The crash wasn't caused by any electricaly or ground problem according to Dell
It just WENT...  Which is scary in itself.  Nothing I did or could have done to prevent it.  I plan to have a backup with me now at all times!  

Lesson well learned and hopefully this bad experiance will help someone out in the future!    PLAN FOR THE WORST and you will be safe   LOL
Author:  Babs [ Wed Jan 03, 2007 11:37 am ]
Post subject:  Re: New Years Eve Nightmare
My experience with Dell desk tops has been good. We use them in the office and I have had a couple at home. I'm so surprised it died on you. I'm not very familiar with laptops. I'm assuming they are more fragile. I'm glad they are at least helping you fix the problem.  :hi5:
Author:  Lonman [ Wed Jan 03, 2007 11:42 am ]
Post subject:  Re: New Years Eve Nightmare
I love Dell myself, had the same PC for over 5 years now & is working great.  I have since added 2 gb of RAM, 512mb video card & a couple large hard drives, so even though it's processor (Pentium 3) is under 1GB (900 I believe) it's speedy as hell!
Author:  Chuck2 [ Wed Jan 03, 2007 11:44 am ]
Post subject:  Re: New Years Eve Nightmare
The hard drives on laptops are very fragile. A technician told me that the disks are made primarily out of glass. They are probably pretty thin too so it can have enough disks to offer hundreds of gigabytes of data.
Author:  pflugerville [ Wed Jan 03, 2007 1:35 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: New Years Eve Nightmare
being from the "land of dell" (pflugerville is inbetween austin and round rock) i have a lot of friends who not only work for dell, but are employed anywhere from grunts workers to management to board members.  i've talked to them ad-nauseum about quality issues in their products.  laptops are by far the least reliable for numerous reasons.  i can cite several issues from personal use and ownership, but will decline to do so here.  still, for the price they are the best value.  for overall performance and reliability at any price sony is the brand to trust.  as for the desktops, dell is the leader and probably always will be in the pc market.
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