My computer's dead. :(

[Wayne]

What a topic for my first thread here, eh? Well, maybe sharing some misery can help. *chuckles* Here's what happened; to those [morbidly and otherwise] curious....

I was trying to uninstall Roxio Easy CD Creator earlier today-- because, y'know, it's bad-- upon downloading something else instead. Everything worked fine, and I removed the files (doing a system check to make sure I didn't miss anything). I restarted.

...and Windows does not restart. :/ I retry and hit the "use last successful configuration." No change. A bit worried now, I try Safe Mode. No change. I try safe mode/command prompt... and I figure out the problem. When the computer shows me its driver list, it hangs after reading the AGP driver. Something was deleted without my doing-- I'm assuming it had to do with Roxio's program-- and now I can't start the computer up at all-- so even if I knew what was missing, I can't do anything about it.

*sighs* And I have way too much unbacked-up data on my hard drive to justify a reformat and restore, and system restore obviously deletes everything. I can't use an XP boot disc since the operating system disc in the set doesn't work that way, nor can I download an ISO (my computer was the one with the burner and "software," heh).

So now Prometheus is dead and I'm using my brother's computer. The only thing I can think of is getting another internal hard drive, removing the current one, using the restore disc on the new one to get XP and my Dell info on it, transferring the data from the current hard drive (by using it as a slave) after that, and then reformatting the current one (and using it basically as a backup drive).

Does anyone have any better ideas? Remember, I can't even get safe mode or the prompt to work, and losing my data is unacceptable. If there's any suggestions, I'm certainly open to them now....

[Captain Southbird (EHOL Creator)]

Actually, what you suggested probably IS your best route, short of hooking the harddrive directly into your brother's computer.

However, a possible complication might be that your Dell restore disk will refuse to work with a foreign harddrive.  You may be forced to buy/find a copy of XP to boot your system with and there may not be much else you can do about that.

[Kathy Guinea]

O_o;;;;

I pray that never happens to me.

:: considers this to be a good time to consider backing up all her lesson plans O_O;;;;;;  -- will do next time I burn CDs ::

[dooky]

Are you able to access system restore feature in Windows? If you can, then you won't lose any documents, although you may lose some software. I've a feeling we may be talking of cross purposes here, but system restore will simply return your computer to its state on a specified date (with the exception of documents, which are maintained).

dooky

[Captain Southbird (EHOL Creator)]

Unfortunately, he's got a problem where Windows XP can't get passed its initial boot cycle due to immediate driver failure.  I've seen that before on another system where I suddenly disabled its power features (for a good reason, but I digress).  It would continually fail to load a specific driver immediately and halt.  If it freezes in that preliminary load, there's nothing short of a total OS reinstall that's going to get you out of it.  Not even having a normal XP CD and doing a "Emergency Repair" will fix that one.  Thus, there's no chance for system restore.

[Saucer]

.... short of hooking the harddrive directly into your brother's computer.

That's what I would recommend. Just slip your HD into your brother's tower and dump all essential data onto his HD (hopefully there's room ). Then put it back in yours and reformat.

As one who has lost an HD before I realize the value of backing up data sooner than later! Never put off what you can do today, because tommorow your HD could fail!

[Wayne]

Well... that's sort of the other problem. My brother's computer is a laptop. And he's pretty adamant about not cracking it open and thereby voiding warranty (which is just as well, since it wouldn't help in this case, anyway). And his hard drive doesn't have all that much space left. We've thought about taking his out and using it as the primary drive in my tower, and copying data that way-- but it wouldn't get much of it (maybe enough; we're keeping that option open) and he doesn't want to do that anyway (for the aforementioned need of not messing with his laptop).

So yeah. :/ Bob... in your opinion, do you think the "restore" option would work on a non-Dell hard drive? It has an XP OS disc in addition to the normal restore disc, so that's why I assumed it did (I tried using it as a boot disc also, but unsurprisingly it still hangs with the driver problem). Either way I need the hard drive anyway; but do you honestly think it'd work? I trust your judgment here; I'm pretty decent with computers, but then I figured "It's no big deal; I can always fix a little software driver problem."

[Captain Southbird (EHOL Creator)]

First of all, there's almost no chance you'd ever use your harddrive and a modern laptop harddrive interchangeably.  Typically laptops use 2.5" mini-IDE rigs that are by no means able to be hooked up to a full size computer system or vice versa.  Although I figure there's an adaptor for it.

So, brother's computer is out.  What I recommend at this stage, assuming you have no other junked PCs available for temporary holding stations or whatever, is really buying a new harddrive and hoping your Dell CD will allow itself to work with it.  (There's always a chance it'll see the foreign HDD as an attempt to install the software on an unauthorized computer and refuse to do it.)  I don't see much way around it in your current predicament.

[Wayne]

*nods* Thanks. I'd looked at the specs for both our computers (among quite a few others, naturally) and noticed that laptop and desktop HDs were usually different... but never really thought much of it. *chuckles* I appreciate that-- me being me I probably would've learned the hard way, heh.

And... the new HD/XP CD thing seems like my best shot (I've asked on my LiveJournal and a few other sites also, and that's the consensus, at least after I point out that XP's restore didn't work). I'll keep y'all posted. Thanks again.

[theravenisdead]

Tough luck mate. Windows can be a bitch sometimes for no apparent reason..  

What WinXP you using? XPHome or XPPro? I'm on a copy of WinXPProCorporate (pirated.. eheh )

[Saucer]

If you didn't want to spend quite so much on a new HD, you could buy an enclosure kit (still kinda expensive but I suppose you could shop around) and put your HD in that. Then hook it up to your brother's laptop and dump it onto there. Of course I suppsoe he'd have to make room on his HD. The bonus though is that you could probably use the enclosure kit for something else in the future. Liek if you run out of bays in your tower and want to add another drive or your brother wants to create a "cheap" external drive for his laptop.

[Captain Southbird (EHOL Creator)]

You do realize, Mr. Saucer, that you'd have to be an ueber-geek to have that many harddrives that they're laying on the sides and stuff.  

[Saucer]

You do realize, Mr. Saucer, that you'd have to be an ueber-geek to have that many harddrives that they're laying on the sides and stuff.  

::looks around at set-up:: Oh... umm... yeah....... ::hides face::

[Wayne]

Thanks to everyone who helped. I'm on my old computer now, just having finished rereading some of my Ah! My Goddess manga, actually, I managed to pull from the old drive. *chuckles*

It was pretty simple... I went ahead and installed a new drive (only 80GB, but that's more than enough for me, and it was $50 at Circuit City with a rebate-- as long as they don't mess up the mail-back return, anyway), ran the XP disc on it, and it installed without a hitch. From there I copied everything off the old drive and reformatted it... and done. I'll probably start reinstalling my games and software (which, annoyingly, don't work when transferred-- I thought about copying over registry information to try to get around that but I don't think it'd have been worth the hassle) as I need to. With my new job and all I don't get that much time at home. :/

Anyway! Thanks again, folks; and it's good to be back. :]

[Captain Southbird (EHOL Creator)]

Excellent.  But the registry copy would've been a bad idea since there's a possibility that's where the dead code existed in the first place.  Ah well, be thankful you're back in some sort of motion.