I bricked my computer

Discussion in 'Software' started by jimpeel, Aug 10, 2012.

  1. jimpeel

    jimpeel Sergeant

    A friend sent me a free computer; but it had his stuff on it. I assured him that I would do a system recovery to kill everything on it. I was trying to get to the recovery partition but got frustrated that it was bypassing the setup screen. I held down the power button to force a restart but it then said that the system file was missing or corrupt and it won't start at all.

    I have tried safe mode, safe mode with command prompt, last known good configuration, start normally, nothing works.

    Thinking of using DBAN but don't know what damage that would do or if it would solve my problem.

    All I need is to get this thing to do a system recovery from the recovery partition to take it back to factory, as shipped, condition.

    Any help on this?

    It is an HP Compaq nx9010 notebook with XP as the OS.
     
  2. sach2

    sach2 Major Geek Extraordinaire

    DBAN will erase everything on hte HD including the recovery partition. You don't want to use DBAN.

    Try hitting F10 or F11 during the HP screen and see if it offers any recovery options.

    It sounds like that model may not have come with a recovery partition but with recovery discs so there may not be a recovery option using those keys. See what f10 and F11 bring up.
     
  3. jimpeel

    jimpeel Sergeant

    I have tried every F(en) key on this thing to no avail. The HP site says that pressing F10 will get me to the recovery partition; but it doesn't work. I downloaded the user manual for the thing; and I'm still going through it.

    HP now charges for chats. CHATS! Is that pathetic?

    They also state that there is a QuickRestore System Recovery disk that comes with the unit. I don't have that disk. I'm trying to download one from a Bittorrent site; but there are no seeders and all of the peers have only 90.2% of the file. I have low levels of confidence that file is going to download completely -- ever.

    I am trying to find another site to get that from. I'll keep ya posted.

    Thanks,

    j
     
  4. sach2

    sach2 Major Geek Extraordinaire

    Their manuals can be very generic on recovery options. They just paste the same text in for all the models.

    One thing you could try is using the XP recovery console to run a chkdsk /r on the C: drive. It is possible the hard shutdown caused a system file to get corrupted and chkdsk might fix it.

    You can use any XP installation CD or download rc.iso file and burn it CD as an IMAGE file. Boot the computer from it and run chkdsk /r.

    My basic thought is that perhaps, the recovery discs were never burned and if you can get back into Windows you might have the option of creating the restore disks.
     
  5. sach2

    sach2 Major Geek Extraordinaire

    Oh, I did find this spec sheet that say it came with discs (search for system recovery). Like I said there docs can be wrong but it is beginning to look like there is no recovery partition.
     
  6. hrlow2

    hrlow2 MajorGeek

  7. plodr

    plodr Major Geek Super Extraordinaire

  8. jimpeel

    jimpeel Sergeant

    PROBLEM SOLVED

    The rc.iso file worked flawlessly. I'm going to keep that one around for the next time -- and there WILL be a next time -- something like this happens.

    Once again, the brightest minds on the face of the planet have saved my bacon.

    Thank You All,

    j
     
    Last edited: Aug 10, 2012
  9. sach2

    sach2 Major Geek Extraordinaire

    Good.

    A couple of places to see what your recovery options are would be

    1) Control Panel >Administrative Tools >Computer Management>select Disk Management from the left pane. The window that opens should show you all the partitions on your HD. See if you have a 6-10gb recovery or HP partition.

    2) Start>All Programs, look for anything from HP or Compaq and see if any relate to System Recovery

    If no recovery partition then one idea would be to create a new user with Administrator privileges. Make sure it works and you can install programs etc. Then you could delete your friends old account from Users window in Control Panel. Then go to C:\Documents and Settings and delete the folder for his oldusername to get rid of any leftovers. This would probably delete anything that he was concerned about being on the computer or at least most of it.
     
  10. jimpeel

    jimpeel Sergeant

    I was considering looking on Craigslist for a nice used boat ...
     
  11. hrlow2

    hrlow2 MajorGeek

    Or an anchor?rolleyes:-D
     
  12. jimpeel

    jimpeel Sergeant

    Had and anchor. Needed a boat.
     

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