What is wrong with my computer?

shootist16

shootist16

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Icame home from work yesterday and tried to start my computer. Well, it won't. It says the registry is corrupted or missing. The real b**** is that I had lots of stuff on there that wasn't backed up. I don't know what the problem is or if I can save my stuff. It now goes to a prompt that says hit R for recovery options. It then makes me choose between a reformat or a recovery. I don't want to reformat, so I choose the other. It acts like it is restoring windows, but then restarts to the hit R for recovery options. Agghhhhhhhh!
 
It could be a simple software glitch that might be solved by re-installing Windows. You should be able to do a repair install without losing your personal files.

But it could also be a hard drive failure, with some files needed to boot the OS located in bad sectors. If that's the case, many of your documents could be recovered by connecting the hard drive as Slave to another computer.

Worst case, it's a serious failure in the hard drive internal mechanisms. I doubt that's the case since it boots part-way. Should that be the case though, there's no easy solution short of professional data recovery.

I had lots of stuff on there that wasn't backed up.
Click to expand...
Sorry to hear that. You'll know next time...

Best Luck with it,
-Bob
 
I had a problem like that recently, turned out to be corrupted system on some sectors. Luckily, I had a bootable Linux CD. I managed to not only boot the computer, but to mount the hard drive, then also mount an external USB2 drive, then back up all the data safely. Whoof. :)

That might be something you may try.
 
Hey, that's an excellent idea Hywhobo. It would, in effect, be the same thing as placing the hard drive as Slave in another computer. I've played with Linux for years now, including bootable CD versions, but not lately. Can you recommend a liveCD distro for Dennis that might mount a CD-RW drive, USB memory stick, or other recording device?

Best Wishes,
-Bob
 
Bob, I used Knoppix CD we use at work for an improvised "on-the-road" server. I didn't do any customizations to it. The only thing was, I couldn't mount the USB drive from the GUI. It worked fine from the command line, though. It was an old distribution, however. Perhaps they fixed that little glitch in more recent releases.

Also, I understand more distributions have "live CDs" these days. A quick look on Google shows at least these distributions offering Live CDs:

* Basilisk (based on Fedora)
* BeatrIX (based on Debian/Knoppix/Ubuntu)
* Berry Linux (based on Fedora)
* Damn Small Linux (based on Debian)
* FreeSBIE (based on Free BSD)
* Gnoppix (Knoppix/Debian plus Gnome, now merged with Ubuntu)
* Kanotix (modified Knoppix/Debian)
* Knoppix (the first big live CD, based on Debian)
* Luit (Debian/Xfce, rox filing system)
* Mandrake Move (based on Mandrake)
* Mepis (Debian)
* Morphix (modular Debian)
* PCLinuxOS Preview (a Mandrake fork)
* Sam (Mandrake/Xfce)
* SLAX (Slackware)
* Suse 9.1 and 9.2 (rpm-based)
* Ubuntu Live (Debian)
* Xfld (Debian/Damn Small Linux and Xfce)

Wow.
 
Hmmm... I'm familiar with some of those. I was wondering which distribution was successful at mounting the memory device - Knoppix it is. Thanks. Hopefully Dennis can use it.

-Bob
 
shootist16 said:
The real b**** is that I had lots of stuff on there that wasn't backed up.
Click to expand...

I've had two computers kick the bucket on me in the last year, both times without having my stuff backed up. Needless to say, I now back up my stuff regularly on disk, and always immediately after working on a individual project back up that individual file on a memory stick. I'm rather paranoid about it now.
 
hwyhobo's idea is good. I had a HD that was giving info that it was failing and to back up and replace. I didn't and it 'failed' two days after, except it didn't really. If you have SMART enabled (Smart Monitoring and Reporting Technology) disable it in the BIOS. If that doesn't work, remove the HD and put it into a removeable hard drive bay. I did this and the data was all fine. It was SMART that was at fault. I needed a larger HD anyway, so I inserted another, loaded Win XP and then the programs and transferred the data from the external HD.
 
if its telling you what files are corrupted they can be replaced using the windows repair console but it isn't for the faint of heart to use.

The linux idea is great but if its over your head then just pull the drive out and put it into another computer as a slave, pull your data off of it and do a clean reformat and fresh install then put your data back.
 
Had a new hard drive installed. They managed to transfer some of my files, but some were gone. The computer seems much faster. I got a 160 gig hard drive versus the 80 that was in it. I think I'll get an external hard drive to back stuff up to.
 
I think I'll get an external hard drive to back stuff up to.
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Not a bad idea if you want to back up the entire hard drive occationally.

A less expensive alternative, a CD burner is about $25 and works great for backing up computer documents. Best part, unlimited duplicates of your backup disks for fifty cents each.

Best Wishes,
-Bob
 
Glad you got a new HD.

I have 2 hard drives in all of my computers and I backup everything via Ghost to the other drive. That way if one fails I have the other.

If my entire computer burns up in a house fire I wouldn't worry about the data too much ;)

I think you can get Ghost for like $40 at Staples.

External drive is a good idea too. Either USB or Firewire.

I don't know why more people don't back their stuff up regularly. I have all my stuff that I've ever had, emails and all clear back to 1998.
 
Joe Dirt said:
I have 2 hard drives in all of my computers and I backup everything via Ghost to the other drive. That way if one fails I have the other.
Click to expand...

This is a good idea.

The other thing you could do is build a PC using a motherboard that has RAID support. Boards that support SATA RAID 1 aren't that much more expensive than boards without RAID.

Connect two disks and create the array and now you always have two copies of your data - one on each drive.
 
Something to consider with Microsoft Windows bloat ware - put the OS on one hard drive and all your data on another. With rebates you can get a 80-160Gb hard drive for ~$20 to $40.

Since all of my problems have been OS related, I put my data on a dedicated "data drive" that cost me a whopping $40 for 160Gb. When windows is toast, I can reformat the OS hard drive or replace it without loss to my data.

I also have a USB hard drive that I plug in occasionally to provide a separate backup source in case of some catastrophic system failure like a power surge zapping the hardware itself.

The time to do this is before you say "Oh @#$#". ;)
 
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