Computer Stuck In Weird Loop

A few goof ups from being tired, but we made it! I see the desktop now, mouse pad and keyboard are working and Windows 11 is installed. Thank you!

 

Still going good. I adjusted her settings back to the way she liked it. Tomorrow I'll work on downloading her stuff. No issues at all!

Do we need to change the settings in her BIOS back or anything, or should we leave well enough alone?

I can't believe we did it! You are amazing as always! Thank you for your help!

 

Her computer is up to date. I don't know how to tell about the drivers, but it seems to be functioning properly so far. You were right, the SSD is so much faster...I may be borrowing her computer from time to time to make up for how much she's been using mine

I didn't know we could do that with her old hard drive, will it work even though it is broken? I'll have to ask her and see if she's interested in trying that.

 

I don't see any exclamation points.

 

She's wondering if it would be possible to transfer some games from her old hard drive, since if she just downloads them fresh on her "new computer" her progress will be lost?

 

I didn't get back to this until late, so I messed with the BIOS without my friend. Look what happened!:

I followed the steps I did before, and enabled Intel VMD Controller, then hit F10 to save and exit. The computer restarted. Then it ran into some trouble and had to restart; Restart; then began Preparing Automatic Repair! I had terrible deja vu, but luckily it made it into the recovery environment. I just shut the computer down, went back into BIOS and disabled Intel VMD Controller again. After this the computer started fine.

I don't know why it would do this. What do you think we should do about it? Personally I say forget it. Why do we need Intel to control the VMD anyway? It's a free country...

Her games are by Big Fish, and since her computer broke they've updated their game manager. The games are the same, and download the same way. Could I start downloading some, or would it mess up things if we were able to copy her data files from the old hard drive?

 

The adapter for the hard drive is here, and her games are downloaded. Do I just turn on her computer, plug in the old hard drive, and browse around as if it were a USB?

 

Wow, that worked really well! I was afraid it wouldn't for a minute, the Users folder didn't want to open on the old hard drive and File Explorer stopped responding. I had to unplug it, restart the computer, and plug it back in, but then it worked fine.

We saved all of her documents and research, and even got her desktop back the way it was (her biggest complaint whenever we work on her computer). Thanks!

Now we just need to see if we can save her game progress. I don't know what to do about replacing data files, and could use some help. I had no idea you could just copy and replace files like we did and it would affect how your computer ran... There seem to be multiple folders for each game. Do you have any idea what I'm looking for?

 

Yes, she buys them from Big Fish Games, and then she downloads them onto her computer and they are sorted with Big Fish's game manager. The main one she wonders if we can save is Asian Mahjong. If I look on her new hard drive now that I downloaded the games, there is an Asian Mahjong folder in Program Files (x86), and when I open that there are a bunch of options I don't understand. On her old hard drive, as far as I can tell all the files seem the same for this game, so I'm not sure what to do.

 

Sorry it took me a while, it's hard to get her computer away from her now! She plays offline local. I may have figured something out!

I decided a simple thing to do would be to compare the information from the game on the new hard drive to the old hard drive, then figure whatever was missing on the new one was what we needed. I found a BigFishCache folder, but they seemed the same and not really relevant to a particular game. I found Asian Mahjong folders in her Program Files (x86), but their contents were identical on both drives, even the file sizes were the same. Then she told me the game developer was 8floor, and I remembered running across an 8floor folder when I was saving her documents and things the day before. I couldn't remember where I found it, thought maybe the Users folder was a place to start. It makes sense, I guess, that the person playing and "using" the game would have their specific game progress in their Users folder (computers are beginning to come together and make some strange logical sense in my mind...I never experienced this before). So I checked there and did not see it immediately, but finally found it in her Documents folder.

So, in Documents\8floor\Asian Mahjong there is a Microsoft Edge HTML Document called "player". On the new hard drive, it is 1KB. On the old hard drive it is 9KB.

Do you think this may be what we need? Can I open it up and read it without something terrible happening? I'm a little afraid to mess with the files now that I know they can make or break your computer. I guess I always new that in a way, but it is very different experiencing it first hand - copying and replacing them myself and watching the changes occur. Kind of like knowing the whirring sound is the computer working being so different from holding her hard drive in my hand while it is attached externally and feeling it move and knowing it is reading the information off the spinning disks... It makes it all seem more like the washing machine: real and understandable and doable and exciting...

I think your stubbornness and your geekiness are both a little contagious.

 

Here is the log. It doesn't look to me like it scanned the old drive, her computer calls it "D". Her computer detected it at the time of the scan, so I don't know why this would be. Maybe I'm not reading the log correctly.

Farbar Recovery Scan Tool (x64) Version: 31-08-2026
Ran by Hellhound Hunter (02-09-2026 17:38:46)
Running from C:\Users\Hellhound Hunter\Desktop
Boot Mode: Normal

================== Search Files: "FindFolder: Asian Mahjong;8floor" =============

2026-08-30 17:59 - 2026-08-30 17:59 _____ C:\Users\Hellhound Hunter\Documents\8floor
2026-08-30 17:59 - 2026-08-30 17:59 _____ C:\Users\Hellhound Hunter\Documents\8floor\Asian Mahjong
2026-08-30 16:09 - 2026-08-30 16:09 _____ C:\Users\Hellhound Hunter\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Asian Mahjong
2026-08-30 16:09 - 2026-08-30 16:09 _____ C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Asian Mahjong
2026-08-30 16:09 - 2026-08-30 16:09 _____ C:\Program Files (x86)\Asian Mahjong

====== End of Search ======

 

The log is attached.