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About 2 hours into the show, a song started skipping. Computer locked up, restarted and got the dreaded BLUE screen! After that it wouldn't even boot up past the Windows screen. Continued on disc for the rest of the night with no one noticing a thing except that the next singers weren't appearing - I still use my original program that I had designed, so the rotation list was still available for view. They actually had to get up out of their chairs to see the list though - man what a task for them !
I am hoping it's just a hard drive failure & will have it back up tomorrow.

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LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

...Way to be on top of it all by being prepared for a crash! Good luck with your computer!

don't carry discs so I would've been screwed

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Sound Choice and Chartbuster Certified

Happened to me 6 months ago. The laptop crashed & won’t boot-up. I always carry an extra laptop just in case. I told them the system will be down for about 5 minutes while I swap laptop. That other laptop was already pre-programmed with the existing external drive & Lexicon sound card.

Hooked-up the ipod for continued dance music. No dead air. 4 minutes later I’m up & running & on with the show.

The laptop was toast. The tech said some components short-circuited & fried the motherboard. Could it happen to my external wd drive? Makes me wonder at times because I don’t bring my discs to this venue due to space constraints. If I bring an extra harddrive, then I won’t be 1:1 ratio. That would be 1:2. Your thoughts?

Well, Lon, good luck – hope nothing major.

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To be fortunate enough to derive an income from a source as fulfilling as karaoke music has got to be as close to heaven as we can get here on earth!

Yep, happened to me at a wedding a few months ago. Wouldn't power down for nothing. After the battery drained, the next day it was as if nothing had happened. I keep an extra laptop on standby, in fact just upgraded and now the one that blue screened a couple months ago is my back up.

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KingBing Entertainment C'mon Up! I have a song for you!!! [font=MS Sans Serif][/font]

Brian A--I had transferred a lot of personal files like photos and things to an external drive both as back up and to free up space on the laptop. One morning the dogs came bounding in and sent my coffee flying and there went the external drive. So yes, guess they are not immune.....

quick tip:
if you hold the power button down for 10-15 seconds it will power down..... on any pc based windows/linux

and i always have a backup laptop for just such occurances...

and if my external hard drive fails, then i'm screwed at the show but i can run off disc if i have too, but i would have to run home to get them....

at home i do keep a backup of the external on my home computer (internally on a internal 1 terabyte hdd) so it's not ever accessable for use on a second karaoke system.

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It's all good!

Oh, same here, at home I backed up everything from my computer to another 1tb hardrive. I'm more concerned about bringing an extra hardrive karaoke files as back-up at my show. When the real big dogs start sniffing around, they might make a big stink about it as I'm no longer 1:1 but 1:2. even the 2nd is just for emergency. Short of shutting down the show for the night - my option probably would be just leave the hdrive in the car.

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To be fortunate enough to derive an income from a source as fulfilling as karaoke music has got to be as close to heaven as we can get here on earth!

Brian, when I had my audit with Sound Choice, I told Kurt up front that I have a second external as a backup along with a backup laptop in case something happens. He said, as long as we (SC) don't know about it and it's not used parallel at another show, there's nothing they can and will do about it. He said that with a wink...

So my educated guess is, as long as you only use it as a real backup in case your main drive gives up, they won't bother with it...

Awesome! Thanks, Alex. Good to know. I always bring an extra laptop with me, but never a back-up external. Now, I might as well bring that one too. You’ll never know. I believe in Murphy’s law, anything that can go wrong will go wrong. I found out in more ways than one that it can spring up on you when you least expected.

So, be prepared! I’d rather have both items when I don’t need it, rather than not have it when I need. That makes sense.

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To be fortunate enough to derive an income from a source as fulfilling as karaoke music has got to be as close to heaven as we can get here on earth!

Well, formatting a new drive 1 TB, only at 15% in half hour . Re-installing Windows XP Pro - just because I know it works well with the system & Hoster. Plus my Win 7 Pro is already installed on my desktop at home - can't put another copy on the show system.
Going to have to locate all the drivers for the video and audio cards again and transfer them over. Fun times. Already got Hoster cleared for the reinstall so that shouldn't be an issue.

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LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

Let me kow if you need anything..

Sorry that happened to you Lonnie. I've been wondering what Sound Choice's attitude would be about a backup hard drive. Sounds like they are being very reasonable.

imho, I think it’s just common sense to bring a back-up just in case. No different than - I certainly wouldn’t be driving my car around without a spare tire.

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To be fortunate enough to derive an income from a source as fulfilling as karaoke music has got to be as close to heaven as we can get here on earth!

Wouldn't matter, my back up are my discs. The hard drive with my songs on it was still in tact. I have 3 hard drives in my computer.

Sucks though, I got the damn thing working at home, but got it to the show, no audio - the sound card wasn't recognized once I got it back. Plus my home ripped video discs wouldn't show on the extended screen, but would show on the main screen, so I have to figure that one out.
I was on discs all night again tonight.

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LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

wow, that sucks. hope you get it sorted out soon.

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Paradigm Karaoke, The New Standard.......Shift Happens

, yeah me too, running off discs SUCK!!!!

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LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

What exactly happened? Do you still have the drive that gave the blue screen intact? Can you list the message and codes from the blue screen? Not all blue screens are equal and we might be able to help you recover that drive. If nothing else, you might be able to get it up long enough to get a backup of it that can be restored to another drive which could save you a bunch of hassle.

You might think this crazy......but put the drive in the freezer for 1/2 hour then piggy back it to another computer and see if you can read it. More than likely it will work. I have had success with this about 90% of the time on failed HDD's.

The drive in the freezer is good for stuck heads. I think if he's getting blue screens it isn't a stuck head. But that is a very worth while trick that helped me recover several IDE drives.