Praying you guys can help . . . computer might be a paperwieght . . .

So yeah, not sure if this is the correct forum but let me know and i'll redirect . . . ok my roommates $1500 paperweight, sweet . . . I would love to get in and grab the contents of my "My Document" folder before i reformat c:\ and reinstall XP.

Currently i am unable to boot up and keep getting messages like "Unnable to start operating system" or "Drive error please press ctrl-alt-del to restart" OR if im lucky it'll get to the screen prompting to boot in safemode or regular but then just sit there accessing the harddrive repeatedly for 20 min and then turn off . . .

OK, are there ANY tricks or methods of getting to the hard drive to transfer files or any last minute thing to try before giving up? Please let me know as i'd love to not lose every doc and picture from the past year . . .

 

Off the top of my head, you could install a second hard drive with an operating system on it, make the new hard drive the master, make the original hard drive the slave, and then access all your files and copy them to the new hard drive. Once that's done, you can format the original hard drive, install windows on it, and then get your files back from the borrowed hard drive, and remove the borrowed hard drive....or keep it, if you want!

Make sure there is virus protection on the borrowed or purchased hard drive, otherwise you may infect yourself again, or infect someone else.

There very well may be some other way to get to everything, so someone hopefully will jump in and give you some tips, but as a last resort, the above info should help you out.

Take care,
Eric

 

eclayton's suggestion is a good last resort attempt to retrieve your files, but before doing that, when you hit hit f8 at boot to get to the option menu to choose safe mode, try to choose the option "Boot to last know good configuration". I apologize if you have already done that.

 

Thank you both so much for the replies . . .

So, an update fellas . . .

Well, i used the last known settings that worked and the computer went straight to CHKDSK where while "verifying files" 4 file record segments (352, 353, 354, 355) came up as unreadable but it finished verifying the rest to 100% - then while verifying indexes it said "correcting error in index $I30 for file 124" twice . . . and said "sorting index $I30 in file 124" - then while verifying it just shut off - is this a sign of hope or no?

 

So after running the last known good configuration, and it shut down, what happens when you power back up? Does it say the same message as originally? I'm not sure what those errors were, but sounds to me that maybe your hard drive is going out. But I am not positive. I am out of ideas for now, but if you get no other replies, that idea of adding a second hard drive as the new master drive with an OS, and transferring files from the first drive to the second drive might work. If you have an old hard drive I would definitely try it, but don't buy a new one just yet.

 

also, i would try booting to knoppix linux, it is another operating system that boots right off of the CD, you can download it at www.linuxiso.org, basically it never installs anything to yoru harddrive, but boots into the ram, and from there you should be able to go onto your harddrive and burn your files out to a cd

 

Computer vendor and model? operating system? maybe if you give more details on the paperweight some more specific suggestions will surface.

 

IT HAS BEEN DONE!!


I restarted after my last update above and left it (the paperweight) alone as i went out this evening and came back to a windows screensaver!! . . . started the cd burning program asap and backed up my "my docs" folder successfully onto a CD -

WHEW!!!!

Don't know how it decided to come back to life (it's still sputtering and sounds like a yetti) but i managed to burn at 4x and it worked - backing up music and everything else i can before it craps out indefinitely this time - what a two day debacle

THANK YOU GUYS SOO MUCH

peace

Wiz

 

Further update and LAST question fellas - thank you again for the help so far . . .


Running the free version of System Mechanic 5 that i downloaded just now and am running the works on the former "paperweight" . . . could this computer be salvageable without reformatting?? What signs should i look for? seems to be running better now . . . are there any specific programs you reccomend e running to repair a semi-faulty harddrive back to as close to normal as possible?? Please let me know as i would love to see if i can fix this . . .

 

anyone?

 

If you can start to get it booted then press C and this will allow you to fully boot from the CD

Hope this is of some use but maybe you have tried this already. If so sorry

 

I went threw something very similar to this a while back. The drive eventually died. It would boot sometimes, then not at other times. Was getting errors like......."No Operating System found" & a few other I cain't recall at the moment.

I did finally get it to allow me to start a reformat, but about half way threw the format the computer shut down & would not boot after that. Stuck a different drive in & it booted up fine, tried the suspect drive in other machines & no boot.

If you can get things you don't want to lose off the drive. I would suggest doing just that & look to be purchasing another Hard Drive. Sorry to say that, but I have to agree that the drive is most likely going south.

 

once again some great ideas guys thank you , , ,

haha, yeah as far as the yetti sound goes, its quiet as a mouse now (besides the fan which was never quiet) . . . but the fact that it could be compared to a star wars character at some recent point is not a good thing i agree , , ,

so im running the fully optimized version of disk defrag from system mechanic 5 and am almost complete - seems to be working ok but i havent restarted since my last two updates to this thread . . .

and i WAS able to back up everything i needed to onto 4 disks . . .

after full defrag, im going to run norton AV and the restart with a boot defrag and registry clean up and then see how its acting from that point . . .

ill be checking in soon . . . you guys are life savers

 

oh and i haven't figured out what exactly is wrong withe the HD but maybe since i can assume (read above) that the CHKDSK program completed itself . . . maybe the problem has been isolated??