Computer just goes idle, no XP logo, no nothing.
Mollygizer
New York, NY
Looks like I'll be falling behind in my folding@home tonight. Sadness. But thank god for roomies with computers that aren't fried tonight.
Alright. So I've been a neglectful sot and ignored the fact that I've occasionally been getting a bluescreen of death which forces my computer to restart. Normally, it would restart and all would be well, so I kindly ignored it. Ran virus scans with AVG and Panda, AdAware and Spybot and Microsoft Antispyware... clean as a whistle. Started using Firefox to boot. I update Windows regularly, eat three square meals a day, lots of fruit, etc. I run Windows XP SP2 (WinNT 5.01.2600). According to my last HiJackThis! log from when I was victim to Home Search Assistent.
The occasionally when it would restart from bluescreen of doom, it would give me an "Operating System not Found." I'd restart again and all would be well. So I ignored it. (See where this is going?)
The bluescreen occured earlier this evening. They go by so fast I've never been able to catch a single word on them. Computer restarted as normal, but as it loaded programs suddenly "services.exe" had an unexpected error and it threw the computer into automatic shutdown.
I tried to restart it and it'll check my memory, etc, etc, then when the "Windows XP" logo should appear, it goes blank. Dead. Not a sound. I can pull up the window to try starting it in Safe Mode, last known config, but none of these options actually start anything. It all goes silent.
Popped in the golden XP disk of joy, went to first chkdsk from a C:/ prompt, and it froze at 50%. Went to try and reinstall XP over itself, and it informed me that the disk was either too full or too damaged and it would have to reformat the disk. I'm a college gal -- last thing I want is to lose all my semester's files right here before finals next week. Good thing I'd been procrastinating on my essay.
I run XP on my ChemUSA Laptop. It's one of those fun cheaper offbrands that came with the perk of not having 24/7 tech support like a normal computer. If anyone has any ideas, PLEASE respond... or at this point, call me. 615-417-6981 is my cell. I'm a little desperate. Okay, a lot desperate. Thanks, guys.
Alright. So I've been a neglectful sot and ignored the fact that I've occasionally been getting a bluescreen of death which forces my computer to restart. Normally, it would restart and all would be well, so I kindly ignored it. Ran virus scans with AVG and Panda, AdAware and Spybot and Microsoft Antispyware... clean as a whistle. Started using Firefox to boot. I update Windows regularly, eat three square meals a day, lots of fruit, etc. I run Windows XP SP2 (WinNT 5.01.2600). According to my last HiJackThis! log from when I was victim to Home Search Assistent.
The occasionally when it would restart from bluescreen of doom, it would give me an "Operating System not Found." I'd restart again and all would be well. So I ignored it. (See where this is going?)
The bluescreen occured earlier this evening. They go by so fast I've never been able to catch a single word on them. Computer restarted as normal, but as it loaded programs suddenly "services.exe" had an unexpected error and it threw the computer into automatic shutdown.
I tried to restart it and it'll check my memory, etc, etc, then when the "Windows XP" logo should appear, it goes blank. Dead. Not a sound. I can pull up the window to try starting it in Safe Mode, last known config, but none of these options actually start anything. It all goes silent.
Popped in the golden XP disk of joy, went to first chkdsk from a C:/ prompt, and it froze at 50%. Went to try and reinstall XP over itself, and it informed me that the disk was either too full or too damaged and it would have to reformat the disk. I'm a college gal -- last thing I want is to lose all my semester's files right here before finals next week. Good thing I'd been procrastinating on my essay.
I run XP on my ChemUSA Laptop. It's one of those fun cheaper offbrands that came with the perk of not having 24/7 tech support like a normal computer. If anyone has any ideas, PLEASE respond... or at this point, call me. 615-417-6981 is my cell. I'm a little desperate. Okay, a lot desperate. Thanks, guys.
0
Comments
If you know the brand of Hard Drive in the machine, go to the manufacturers website and download and run their diagnostic tool.
You could try running TestDisk and see if it can recover the partition(s).
Your situation is complicated somewhat by the fact that your laptop drive needs a special adapter to fit in a desktop computer. If you can get your hands on one of these you could hook the drive up to another computer and see if you could copy your data over that way. Unfortunately, if the problem is that the drive is physically failing you may have trouble doing even that much.
Oh. And now when I restart, all I get is a happy flashing cursor. Joyous.
I'm generally screwed, yes?
Try booting from the XP CD and go into the recovery console. Give the Fixboot & Fixmbr tools a try.
If those don't work, try TestDisk. Does your laptop have a floppy drive?
Another roomie has the ability to make floppy disks. What's the method there? I'll go wake her up. ha.
Put a blank floppy in the drive.
Open Windows Explorer, right-click on the A: drive, then left-click on "format".
Put a check in the box that says "Create an MS-DOS startup disk" and click "Start"
When done, copy the contents of the "DOS" folder located in the TestDisk download to the disk you just made.
Boot from the floppy, once you get an A:\ prompt type in testdisk.exe and the program should start.
Let it analyse the drive. If it finds a partition it can repair, let it do so and cross your fingers.
(You've tried Fixboot & Fixmbr with no luck, right?)
Partition Start End Size in Sectors
1 * HPFS - NTFS 0 1 1 4863 254 63 78140097
I think I'll miss my .mp3 files the most, for sure. Sadness.
Time to see if the beast will reformat? :/
Cylinder Boundary Yes
Allow partial last cylinder No
Ask Partition Order No
Halt on Errors Yes
Expert Mode No
Partition Table Type Intel
Sound familiar or right?
If the format stalls, it may be a sign that the drive is going. I really hope that isn't the case...
If you can hang on a day I'll see if I can think of something else. A data recovery center could probably get your files (or at least some of them) back for you, but it might be $$$...
Of course, it'll be hard to live without my entire collection of Sifl and Olly sound clips. Okay. Maybe not impossible. But that'll never be recovered.
If you get any new ideas, let me know. If not, I'll probably try to reformat tomorrow and see how that goes.
In any case, I have class in 6 hours, so I should try to sleep. you get some too.
Have any friends with a desktop pc? Find one quick....you can remove your laptop harddrive, hook it up as a slave to your friend's master hdd, and recover your data to another format (cd-r or dvd+/-r). This involves a few jumper settings on each hdd, and opening up the desktop pc for a little bit, but nothing too major. The only catch is that your friend's pc needs to have an IDE harddrive instead of SATA. If it is a brand spanking new pc, it is probably SATA. Look for a desktop pc 1-2 years old and you will be in luck.
Wait a sec...i just realized i don't know the specs for your laptop. How new is it? Make/model number? Can you kindly post? Some of the newest laptops have 2.5" SATA hdds. You can still get your data back in the same way, but you won't have to worry about the master/slave thing.
Just don't format and you can get your data. Let me know 1) specs of lappy, and 2) if you have access to a good friend's desktop pc. Then we will take it from there.
Waiting for further love.
anyway...if you can get the computer guy at work to help you out that would be great. you can point him to this thread, but if he's a good IT guy he'll know what to do. you will need an IDE laptop to desktop adapter. they look like this below....
after that, you will need to remove your hdd from the laptop. check the manufacture's website for instructions. there will probably be a hdd cage of some sort, but it shouldn't be too tricky.
take the adapter and your lappy hdd to the IT guy at work and he should know what to do. If not let us know...
"A problem has been detected and Windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer."
But Windows had never even STARTED. Rrrrgh.
So it's dead. I give up on home remedies. Dead, dead, dead hard drive. Tomorrow morning it's off to the NYU computer store to see if they can fix this shell of a laptop. Woe.
Thanks for everything you all tried. At least this way I get a clean slate?
That's the bright side. At least at that point you'll know you are starting out with a clean system. Good luck, Molly.
i still think you could have gotten something off of there before it totally pukes, but it's too late now that you tried re-installing XP ---oh well.
at least this will teach you to BACK UP all of your important data.
My hard drive had a physical crack in it. He guessed it was from when I carry it in the overhead when I travel, since I don't go slamming it into walls or anything. So that was the dealio. $314 later, I now have a brand new old computer! :P Thought I'd drop a message before I redownload Folding and start up again.
I'm at least glad to hear you have it going again. So many times people here try to help someone out, then never hear the conclusion to the story (whether positive or negative).
Good luck with the Folding. I don't know if you saw this or not, but Team 93 looks forward to celebrating your next milestone.
Check out this link... it's for an 80gb lappy hdd for about $115. Plus estimate $100 for labor (which is way too much) and you still should be no more than $220.
http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144376
I bet you could have installed it yourself and saved even more...oh well, at least it is working now!