I need help with a crash

We got the disk to run, and instead of typing in chkdks /r, we typed in fixmbr. We now a message that says caution this computer appears to have a non-standard or invalid master boot record. fixmbr may damage your partition tables if you proceed. this could cause all the partitions on the current hard disk to become inaccessible. if you are not having problems accessing your drive, do not continue. arfe you sure you want to write a new mbr?

what do we do? do we continue? Please tell me we won't screw up my son's pictures if they are still there!

 

As you wish ... won't do any harm (most likely), won't do any good (most likely). It is not something that I would suggest that you do, since I do not believe that it has any bearing, nor will it have any effect, on your current situation.

It won't harm the pics (most likely) ... which will be there .... so don't worry about that!

Edit: "we typed in fixmbr. We now a message that says caution this computer appears to have a non-standard or invalid master boot record. fixmbr may damage your partition tables if you proceed. this could cause all the partitions on the current hard disk to become inaccessible. if you are not having problems accessing your drive, do not continue."
This is a normal/standard message that would be seen at any time this command was run.

 

i need to teach computer class tonight last one for the year so i hope AustrAlien can work with you
i will be back
lee

 

Kari

There are 3 major benefits to taking the (little) trouble to create a Linux (as opposed to Windows Operating System) CD for yourself. (There are many Linux varieties, one of which is Ubuntu, that I mentioned previously.)
1. It makes an excellent "Windows rescue disk" for any time that Windows may give you a hard time.
2. It makes an excellent alternative Operating System (as opposed to Windows) that you can use anytime that Windows may give you a hard time (and you can do most everything with Linux that you can do with Windows, and it is FREE, and you might even like using it better than Windows).
3. You can run Linux as a LiveCD, meaning that you do not actually have to install it on your hard drive! Anytime you want, you can slip the Linux CD in the tray and boot from it, and carry on with everything you want to do as normal (regardless of the fact that your Windows lies broken and useless on the hard drive).

Need I say more? I think it is a must have for each and every user of Windows to have one handy!

For your future use, I am going to make the recommendation that you use one Linux version in particular. It is so good, that you will forget that you are not actually using Windows any more, as well as make you feel 10 years younger!
Download Linux Mint 8 Helena
http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php

(Now there is something ... a new version ... I will get right on to downloading myself a copy of the new version 8)

 

I had a question about linux. There were two choices download mirrors, torrents, and md5 and the other was direct download. Do I do both, or pick one? It was a little confusing. We tried to run fixmbr and fixboot, and it seemed to be working until it put us in safe mode, then told us the computer can't run in safe mode. So we are back where we started.

 

I am not entirely sure what you might be seeing, or what might be happening: It would seem that fixmbr/fixboot may have had some success by your comments. Let me take a wild stab in the dark with a guess .... and ask you to do the following at this time. It can't hurt, and you just never know .... ?

Problems that can occur by forcing Safe Mode using the System Configuration Utility
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/tutorial61.html#force_safemode

Get yourself to the Recovery Console prompt C:\Windows\>
Type ren C:\Boot.ini Boot.ini.bak (being careful to observe the two spaces) and press <ENTER>
Type "exit" and press <ENTER> to restart your computer.
Does it start ?

 

Re: the Download Linux Mint 8 Helena web page.
http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php
There are a number of places from which you can download the .ISO file in the normal fashion (that is, not using torrents/bittorrent software). On the first page, if you click on "direct download" that will download from the Mint site itself. If you click on "download mirrors", the next page will show you a lot of other places you might choose to download from, if you have trouble with the "direct download" option (for example, "direct download" might be very slow for you, in which case you would choose to download from one of the mirror sites closest to you, and then stop the download that you started first). You only need to pick one site to download the one file of 688MB.

The MD5 sum (in this case 06fc2f27f8352a2bac5516b86c020755) is used for checking that the file you have downloaded is exactly correct in every detail (and has no mistakes incurred during the download process). If you have any trouble getting the final CD to work, we may use this when trouble-shooting. Don't worry about this now.

So, to sum up: Pick "direct download" and then choose to save it to your computer (note where it is being saved to) and proceed to download the file. It might take less than an hour or several hours, depending on the speed of the download.

Good luck with that.
Edit: When the download is complete, or anytime you are ready, let me know and I will provide instructions for burning a bootable CD using the .ISO image that you are downloading/have downloaded for Mint 8

 

Kari

I am downloading and burning the Mint 8 CD now, so thought I would write up some instructions for you as I go through it.

Download and install the following two applications on your computer ...
WinMD5Sum
http://www.nullriver.com/downloads/Install-winMd5Sum.exe
ImgBurn
http://www.imgburn.com/index.php?act=download

You will then find shortcuts to both applications in your Start Menu
Click on Start > Programs >

Now, check that your download is good using WinMD5Sum.
Start > Programs > WinMD5Sum
A small dialog box will open, and at the top you will see "File Name", and beside the data entry box (field) you will see a small button with 3 tiny dots on it. Click on that button and then browse to the .ISO file that you downloaded for the Mint 8 setup "LinuxMint-8.iso" amd click "OK". WinMD5Sum will now calculate the MD5 value for that file. Now, copy and paste the MD5 value provided for this file on the Mint 8 download page .... namely 06fc2f27f8352a2bac5516b86c020755 ..... into the "Compare" field, and then click on "Compare". You will see a message. The values will either be the same .... or not. Hopefully the MD5 values will match, and you can move on to the next step.

Burn the Mint 8 .ISO image to CD.
Click on Start > Programs > ImgBurn and you will see a window with six options, one of which will be "Write image file to disc". Click on that.
At the top of the new window, you will see "Source" and "Please select a file", with two small icons. Click on the left one ("Browse for a file") and then in the Browse window that opens navigate to "LinuxMint-8.iso", select it, and click "Open".
Under "Destination", check that the correct CD/DVD drive is listed.
Just below that field, put a check-mark in the small box labelled "Verify".
On the right side of that window, under "Settings", change the "Write Speed" to a lower setting, such as 16x, or even 4x. (Lower burn speed = better quality of burn = better CD).
With a new blank CD in the tray, you should be right to click the START button (there is no name on the large button), sit back and wait. After burning the CD, ImgBurn with then verify that it has been burned correctly and without any mistakes or unreadable bits. You will see a message to the effect of either the disk is OK, or there were errors. If all is well, you can move on to the next step.

Restart the computer to ...
Boot from the Mint 8 CD.
Do this first on the computer that you used to burn the CD. This acts as a check that the disk actually does work, before trying it in the troublesome computer. At the Mint Desktop, when it has completed loading into memory, there should be an icon named "Computer". Double-click on that to browse your computer; then double-click on the hard drive icon to browse your hard drive.

Now boot the Mint 8 CD in the troublesome computer.
At the Mint Desktop, when it has completed loading into memory, there should be an icon named "Computer". Double-click on that to browse your computer; then double-click on your hard drive to browse the files and folders on the hard drive. Hopefuly this is all going well at this stage. You can then connect an external USB hard drive, or a USB flashdrive, and retrieve whatever data that you want.

Note: When connecting USB devices (such as a flashdrive), do so before booting to the Mint 8 CD.