Blue screen of death

so last night my comuter randomly shut down
then today morning i was on it, and then in the afternoon i was on it for like 10 min
and it shut down
and now it wont start up!
idont wanna do recovery because i dont wanna lose the pics!
any ideas?

 

Please post the full message of the BSOD, or if possible a picture. Also please post computer make and model.

 

m117n hp media center pc

its the usual blue screen of death screen
UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME

stop 0x000000ED (0x83362900,oxcoooooo6,0x00000000,Ox00000000)

 

This would indicate to me a failing or failed hard drive. Do not attempt to switch the machine on again until you are in a position to start file recovery.

My suggested method is to download and burn Ubuntu or another Linux Operating System to a CD and to boot from that. A guide on how to do this is here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BurningIsoHowto

Then when you boot from the CD you will be given the option to "Try Ubuntu without making any changes to your computer". Select this option with the arrow keys and press enter.

This will boot you into the operating system off of the CD and your computer's RAM, thus bypassing the hard drive.

Then find a source to back your files up to and copy them across. Please note programs should not be copied as they will not work, although saved files should be copied.

I recommend you prioritise your backups as the drive could fail at any time.

Then you will need to reinstall the operating system, your programs, etc on to a new hard drive.

 

ahh! what led to this?!?!
so i should back up my pictures to where?
what about my intalled microsoft word 2007?
and my printers?

 

You should back up to an external hard drive on a regular basis anyway, so just put them there. Your Office and printers can be reinstalled later, on the new OS, as long as you have the disk for office.

Make sure you download all the drivers for the computer as well, and burn them to CD or put them on a USB hard drive to make sure they are accessible.

 

what should i back them upto?
and what u mean save the drivers for the computer?

 

An external hard drive.

Drivers are the software that tells your operating system (windows) how to "talk" to the physical parts of the computer. They can be found on the manufacturer's website and should be downloaded before you do anything as the network controller is likely to need a driver so you will not be able to get on the internet after installing the new operating system on the new hard drive without installing the drivers first.

 

okay so how do i noe which ones to download

 

They should be on the HP site under m117n, although there may be another digit to this number, if this is a laptop there may be a more detailed model number on the underside.

 

okay i burned the ubuntu cd
and putt it in the other comp
it says "error reading from boot cd"
so i made several others but it doesnt work

 

ya i used infrarecorder which is what they told me to use..

 

okay i got it to the ubuntu loading screen
is it normal to take a long time?

 

How long is a long time in your case?

 

3-5 hours..

 

I could have sworn Linux works by creating a RAM disk in, well, RAM, but there you go, you learn something new every day.

 

i havent tried the linux
can u guys give me the exact website to burn the ubuntu off of?
cuz i heard some arent as legit..

 

http://www.ubuntu.com/

 

thats where i tried it..
i saved it onto desktop and used imageburner

 

no im using windows xp
someone told me to use imgburn..in this thread
nd thats what i used
at first i did use infrarecorder

 

it says "unbuntu" and then dots moving..
but no progress for the past 5 hours..

 

If you have not found a solution, this is what you may try. Get a good working hard drive and put it in the machine. See if you can get it going with that known working hd.

If it works with the new drive then truly your old drive has issues. If the HD is truly bad, it may only kick over one or so times for data recovery.

I would clone my drive at this point. You would save all your data and programs using the clone software. Do get someone who knows what they are doing to help you do this.

 

how do you clone a drive?

 

okay i tried pc recovery and some files didnt recover
which led to my computer not having specific files to start!!