(laptop) My Baby Is Sick!

hmm, depending on the connection(on the hdd), you could hook it up to a desktop and use it as a slave drive and just back it all up.

 

sorry to hear i had the same problem totally sucks but reinstalling the only way i had the setup CD but couldnt figure out how to make it work

 

Another possible option you have is to download Knoppix. Knoppix is a distribution of Linux that boots off of a CD. After downloading the .iso file, burn that file as an Image onto a CD.

Unfortunately I've never had to do this myself but it should work. Stick the disc into your CD/DVD drive on your laptop and let the system boot. Once your in, find a program called k3b. Once you start k3b (a CD burning program) you should be able to remove the Knoppix CD and stick a blank CD in your drive. Knoppix will have automatically mounted your Windows partition so it is just a simple matter of browsing to your Windows partition (likely /hda1) and burning your precious files onto a CD or DVD.

This is assuming your laptop has an optical drive that can write to CDs or DVDs. More system memory on the laptop always helps. I don't know what laptops are like nowadays but on my desktop I always load the entire knoppix disc into memory just because I have memory to spare. It may also be somewhat impractical to burn several CDs or DVDs depending on how much data you need to back up.

On other option is to make sure your dad's IT guys back up your data before they format and reinstall Windows. It shouldn't be too much of an inconvenience for them. Where I used to work there were spare hard drives kicking around for that very purpose and it was simply a matter of dumping all of your files onto the backup drive and then wiping your system and then dumping all of those files back onto your hard drive after installing Windows.Make sure you make it explicitly clear that you want them to backup your drive. It would be nice if you could trust them to think about that sort of thing when it comes to format/reinstalls but they often forget.

Apart from the obvious files people want to keep, a lot of people forget (including me a few times) to backup their favourites/bookmarks from their web browser as well as their email and address book files if they use an email client like Outlook, Eudora, Thunderbird, etc.

Hope everything works out.

 

Best of Luck . Get well soon.(&&&)

 

I've had this problem before, and luckily, I didn't need to reformat. What the IT guy just did was inserted the XP disk, then did some recovery procedures. Basically it checked all the files and replaces all the corrupt/missing files so you can start Windows again like normal. Nothing lost, and started up like the problem never existed. ^_^

Though I'm not sure what he might do, lets hope it can be fixed that way

Also, to answer your question, yeah, you can retrieve all the music files in your iPod, though you'll need a special program for it. Good luck for you baby

 

so, you pop open the back, take out the harddrive, open the newest desktop in your house, you should see some sort of cable that it can plug into, plug it in, turn it on, and it should appear as an external hdd. make sure everything is off and unplugged, and DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT TOUCH THE MOTHERBOARD.

 

If you are not sure what you are doing, the best thing is to do nothing and leave it to the experts. Especially since your important files are at risk.

Make sure your dad tells the IT guys that there is stuff on the hard disk that you do not want to lose. They should be able to either fix the system without harming that, or back them up onto CDs or whatever first. They need to know what you need keeping and where it is on the system (whether it's in My Documents or wherever). They will also need to know your password (if you have one).

Once it is back, make sure you do regular backups of everything important. Hard disks can fail completely without giving any warning, and you can lose the lot. Back up onto CDs, DVDs, a USB memory stick or a USB hard disk. And do it whenever you have updated, downloaded or created something you don't want to lose. Many USB hard disks come with software to automate that - look at the Maxtor OneTouch ones for example.

I suspect your hard disk is failing but not dead yet. This is the most likely cause of Windows system files disappearing for no apparent reason. If this is the case then the amount of time before total failure is not very long (a few hours perhaps) so don't keep trying to start it, don't try connecting the drive to another PC etc.

 

for the iPod, i would use YamiPod. it's a free download which allows you to get music (i'm not sure about video) from an iPod.

hope this helps

oh and btw, you may be able to hook your computer up to another via Ethernet (i'm not sure if it works when the computer is dead though)

 

It doesn't. You need a running operating system to access files on the PC over the network, PLUS file sharing needs to be set up on the PC.

 

I don't think you know how to do this but if you could find someone to do it for you, I highly suggest it.

It personally sounds like she doesn't need a full reinstall. If you have the set-up disk (which you don't; BUT you should be able to do it with a somebody else's disk if you can get a hold of one) then you should be able to keep your data. When you're computer tries to see if there is an operating system it should find one and ask if you want to reinstall or repair. +!!!+ if you repair you will lose all your data +!!!+ if you reinstall there will be a point later were it will ask if you want to keep your data when repairing. So if you do this (which I don't suggest if you don't know what you're doing) you will be able to keep your data.

 

Yeah, I have a habit of pushing computers way past their limit, in both the the overuse of the hardware, and abusing the software. Anyway, a few weeks ago I had finally pushed my laptop to the place where the sun don't shine. Yeah, I was able to back up MOST of my photos, but not all of emm(and nothing more than the photos). I had to format my hdd and reinstall vista. Moral: Back all your stuff that mean anything to you, even if you have to pay, cause I fucked up, and forgot that I put all the important photos in a separate area. So I lost 2 gigs of important photos that were headed to a gallery next month. So once more: Make sure it gets backed up, you will be pissed if you don't.

 

whoops, my bad. my friend did that with his old and new computers and i thought it would work