What To Do When It Won't Work

Had something trying to take control of .pif's. Scotty the Watchdog (WinPatrol) kept giving alerts every couple minutes. Something trying to change .pif's from "CryptoPrevent" to "%1%*". I trust Scotty and I trust CryptoPrevent but not whatever it was trying to make changes. Did a couple reboots. Removed recently installed files. Ran CCleaner and it's registry scan. Still there. Ran Defender, SUPERAntiSpyWare, and MalwareBytes. Nothing found and it's still giving alerts. Somewhere among all this and rebooting all of a sudden - no boot.

Had a recent backup. May 3. Made with AOMEI Backer Upper so I loaded the AOMEI rescue cd and started the show. 220gbytes and estimated 1 hour. So i went to bed.

This morning it was done and waiting on me to reboot. No good. "A recent hardware or softwar......" You know.
Went back to the rescue cd to get into recovery enviroment to repair startup problems. Couldn't be fixed.
Went into command prompt and ran all the BootRec options: FixMbr, FixBoot, ScanOs, RebuildBcd. Still nothing.

Booted a Puppy stick. It and AOMEI could both read the disk clearly.
Went back to recovery enviroment to try a restore point. No disk!
Tried to do a refresh. Disk Locked!

Now what?

Also have a Macrium Reflect rescue cd so I put it in and booted. First screen top corner was the Fix MBR option. Used that and in 3 minutes my May 3 backup was booting.

I'm glad I had the tools. And also had made the system backup. And had made the rescue cd's and sticks. And that I had already made the effort to know how to boot from them on this pc.

Don't wait for a problem and then try to shuffle between 2 pc's to start getting help together. And Window's alone won't always fix itself. Just like here during hurricane season the motto is "Be Prepared"

 

My only external drive has copies of music, tech manuals, vids and pics I want to keep plus my backups and images. I see prices are getting better on 1T and 2T drives. I plan on getting another for just images. Your idea with note cards is a thing I need to do. I keep notes on how I did something but they are all scattered around. I need a dedicated index deck or such along with a dedicated drive.

 

Having tried them all there are only two imaging systems I feel I can trust whatever may happen - Acronis and Macrium Reflect and I alternate my monthly backups between them. Don't have plodr's patience though to keep noting the changes in between. You are right - you have to practice recovery until you are completely confident in it. Just making a backup and hoping it will work if needed is not likely to save the day.

 

I'm going to give a look a Acronis. It's one I haven't used yet. I have syncback free, AOMIE, and Macruim that I use now. I like the idea about swapping or maybe even dual backups for security. Need the larger drive for sure. Only thing I lost between the May 3 image and now was a couple music videos. Recuva'd those already. The practice on booting other ways and knowing when to switch the bios to secure/legacy saved time for sure.

 

The problem with backups for many people is simply the time it can take. I've got my imaging times down to well under 15 minutes by moving all my personal files to a data partition, which has the added advantage of not overwriting your own stuff in the event you have to/want to restore the system partition.

 

Your husband reminds me of me. I still have boxes/containers of 3.5 and 5 1/4 floppies. Still have a Windows 1.0 on 5 1/4.
Had a drawer full of hd's till a couple years back. All were too small by today's tech. 80 gb or so. Recycled the parts. I work metal and sheet metal and solder a lot. The magnets from the drives taped to a piece of conduit are great for cleaning up after saws and grinders. Loose magnets are great for cleaning out power panels and cabinets after drilling holes for conduit. The disc are really reflective and great for inspection mirrors and when soldering in tight places. You can see the backside in places where you can't get your head. Dual uses for old technology.

Every post gives good ideas. Dual programs. Dual backups. Dual drives. All good things to consider.

 

I also make montly copies of my computers . . . save one restore copy to a second drive on the computer, and another copy to the network drive.

Those work really well magnetizing a screwdriver.