I can't boot up. Using Kinko's at 20 cents a min... help?

*sigh* I'll check back again tomorrow.. unless I can get my old cp hooked up.

I had promised myself I will never post again... so this could be a mistake on my part.

I''m not sure what operating system you have, but if you have XP, we''ll leave the "restore" option for last... if all else fails.

If you can, goodmorphing, open up the case and check all the connections on the computer, just to make sure that there are no loose cables and make sure that all your wires are not touching the motherboard or video card. Transportation of your machine might jiggle some wires loose.

If there is any code error when you boot up, let me know, sometimes doing a google search will help resolve the problem.

I hope you do not have too much important information on the computer, or if you can get it to boot, try backing up your important information asap. If no further better advise is offered, the last solution I can offer is to restore the computer system through the windows restore disk, but that depends on what system you run.

Hopefully someone else can provide other possible solutions. If all else fails, you can email me (yliu2@uh.edu) your phone number and I''ll give you a call to see if I can help further.
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Diane....it's perhaps important to determine where and what these 'clicks' are....as they may suggest a hardware problem....if so you may need to specifically access your data on your drive via another computer...ie. get it to a computer shop for data offload before attempting anything potentially extreme and terminal.

Hardware and Operating Systems are a dime a dozen....the only 'real' value is the information on your drive/s.

Back that info up....then 'things' can be tried re the getting the box to boot, etc.

Too much is left to iffs and maybes to be solved simply over the net....particularly at 20c a minute....

Considering that it booted after some time, I would check your fans.  Even a video card fan gone wrong will cause a blue screen when it over heats.

Your power supply fan could also be shot, which would cause the system to over heat quite  quickly.

Take off the case and try to boot it.  See if all the fans are running.

If all fans are running, and you can get into safe mode, uninstall Bootskin so that it doesn't slow down booting (not that it should).  And then note any errors that you get and let us know.

Besides what the others have mentioned so far on the hardware end of it... ( I would start with those first : btw)
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You might be able to put the CD into your drive and boot from that as if you are going to do an install. When asked if you wish to do a recovery say "Yes"...

If your Windows XP is a version that allows you to do updates, then do an update so your system functions and keeps your programs and such still working in the new install. Then log on and you can be walked through removing the bad install without killing your apps or data.

If you are getting as far as the bootskin then it is probably boot.ini, the ntldr.dll (part of the NT kernal) or something else.
I would first try the recovery to see if it finds something....



Possibly it could be the following as I have run into this more than once with a customers system on the bench in the past...
..............

This might be what caused the initial issue and compounded it later after running the maintence apps.

Microsoft will attempt to recover margianl sectors on hard drives. This was a good thing back when drives where limited in size and price.
But in this day and age of huge past day server drives being the common drive in a desktop and most laptops, there really isn't a need to do this.

What might have happened was the OS attempting to write to the drive or to read from the drive and it could only do a partial I/O function.
Hence the BSOD...

Kind of like a driver conflict in effect.
Windows shut down to keep from damaging the hardware, software, OS or a combination of them.

You ran the Drive tools on your system and cleaned things up, yet a Marginal Sector or Track on the drive had a bad spot in it even though it was marked as recovered and functional.

It re-arranged the files on the drive and put the parts in contiguios order. One of the OS temp files created on the drive upon initial boot after the systems posts was created and seen as good. But a part of it was placed in that bad spot, the OS passes further into the Initial Boot Process, loads the Bootskin, and while it is doing that it is doing a number of other things. Then it hits that bad spot and can not load or complete the creation of loading of needed data (file).

Windows can not boot...

This would also answer why it was taking place when trying to boot into Safe Mode also, that part of the process I described is the same exact process until the OS finally loads and it sets the user mode.

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Hi Elf! Good to see you. IMO, it's never a mistake to reach out! I'm trying to get my house in order, everything ready to open that case (especially quelling my nerves... this stuff makes me queasy). I'll look around for a picture of what fans might look like, what motherboards might look like, and where everything might be.

Thanks.

Paul:

The clicks were from higher in the tower, and were not so much clicks as the sound something that should be spinning makes when it could not do that. On first impression, by location, I thought I might have had a CD still in there.

I will sure try to get somewhere to *drain* my data, but it is mostly well loved stuff and nothing vital. (except loved stuff tends to feel vital).

Thanks

KG:

Well, the sequence is that if i allow it to proceed normally it eventually gets to the boot screen and then as soon as it leaves that there is a flash and i am back at the we're sorry screen. If I try safe mode, I get a series of lines that looks like a system checklist or something, all about partitions, fonts, and stuff. Then back to the we're sorry page.

I'll do that though, look for fans and such.

That bootskin is nice looking and everything, but it never was very smooth on my computer. It would show the skin, then there would be another blank screen or two and then on to the logon screen. It made me wonder if all this time it was failing to boot, then referencing a restore point before I installed it, and the reason i couldn't boot this time is because i deleted its restore point.

Thanks:


IP:

I had all the critical uds installed, Norton virus works which i kept up to date, and a firewall.

The sequence of events leading to the problem were as follows:

Twice previously I had lost connection and had to reset my dsl cable modem connection. Each time I had immediately previously been interacting with the Internet with a game, one arcade style and one mystery puzzle type (called the vermilion room).

Once I had trouble changing a skin, and had to reboot. I changed from a skin with one of the new .dls to another for a screenie, and was attempting to change back to the newer skin.

My thinking was that perhaps it was over heating and that is why I unplugged it for some time, after which it did seem to function a lot better. That is why i did the system maintenance and felt comfortable with dumping the restore points.

Thanks.


I have been able to get my old computer set up, and that is what i am using now (on an AOL trial. They keep calling me and saying just try it, so ok... I am doing that). I have to switch the power cord from computer to computer (until i find the lost one) so I cant have both computers running at once at the moment.

I will be following all your suggestions a little later on. I wasn't ready to deal with stuff like this right now. Thanks for helping.

Un-plug your Floppy drive (power cable and ribbon)...re-boot. If it won't boot, go into bios and take the floppy out of the boot sequence...

...be brave gm...you can do this

*sigh* its all gone. When I tried the disc, it looked into my drive and found 40 free gbs out of 40 free. I tried to *overwrite* and it said the partition wasn't even formatted.

I know I had a lot of *mistakes* and bad uninstalls through the years, and I will miss lots of stuff. But data lost is space aquired. I will be wiser this time, I get wiser and wiser through the various windows adventures.

I have a fear, though, that I am on some kind of grace period. I don't know if it will happen again, or how to make sure it doesn't.

Diane - I must have missed a staff meeting...what 'Disc' are you talking about that looked at your hard drive?

What Windows are you running, goodmorphing?

I have windows XP. hehe, by disc, I meant that original one that came with the computer. Windows installation. It scanned my hard drive and informed me there wasn't anything on it.

When i was trying to go into safemode, there was always a series of lines like a checklist. It went something like dlls 0, fonts 0, win32 0, partition 1.... it all scrolled by pretty fast, but now i guess it was telling me the only thing on my computer at that point was an empty, unformatted partition.

When i installed everything there was no notification that windows found a damaged disc or anything.

I was afraid you were going to say that...so you now have a fresh install of XP?

I'm glad you've got XP, this makes things a lot easier.

I don't know much about computers, but I've learned enough to work it myself if problems arise. There are a few things I will do with my computer.
Since you're doing a fresh install, here are a few guidelines I follow for a good install.

Usually partitioning your harddrive is a good idea, simply for these reasons. If windows gets messed up somewhere along the line, you can do a re-install without loosing all your valuable data on your harddrive. Make it into two partitions (C and D or something like that), and give the Windows OS partition a little larger space than the storage. On my partition, I have 70gigs dedicated to WinOS and 50gigs dedicated to my files. If you feel like that's not enough for your storage, you can split it 50/50 as well.

I also recommand a second harddrive. If you have any hardware stores in your area that's anything like Fry's Electronics, harddrives come pretty cheap. Last promotion I saw for a 200 Gig harddrive was somewhere between 90-120 dollars (mail in rebate usually needed). 120-gig harddrive are sold for 60 dollars on some promotional weekends. This way, you can have a back up of your data if the partitions didn't work (I say this because about three years ago, Mandrake decided to partition my boyfriend's harddrive because it didn't like how it was partitioned. Needless to say, not only was he royally pissed off at Mandrake, he had lost a lot of programming projects he had been making to learn various programming languages).

Before you hook your computer up to the network, make sure you have an updated virus scanner already running. I know McAfee usually have an updated .dat file for all their customers to download and install themselves on the computer. This way, the virus scanner will be sure to catch everything that might come through. I'm not sure if Norton has this on their website, but it's worth your while to take a look.

First things first, patch the computer (No, I'm not trying to treat you as a newbie. These are just guidelines I learned from my boyfriend, and even he follows them himself whenever he decided to clear up his harddrive). As you already know, this takes a while (I usually go watch a movie while doing this: may I suggest The Italian Job?).

I usually don't format or make a second partition until Windows is up and running all the way. That way, I get that little sector cache windows occupies on the harddrive while installing the system. (I use compmgmt.msc to format the remaining harddrive space...)

Then just save all your works on the second partition and you should be good to go .

One good thing is I sent off to Microsoft and got the service pack disc, it included firewall trial, antivirus trial (though I dl Norton first thing), WMP 9... there were a few small uds that I picked up when I got online.

Email account online saved all my addresses.

Now I am dl all the OD things!

I don't have any money, this computer is on credit card and almost paid off. I think a 2nd hd comes next, and partition learning too.

Thanks a lot for everything!

Diane - you've had a trying night so I'll save the 'you should haves'....suffice it to say that you should never believe an XP disc that the disk is devoid of data. The chances of it being wiped beyond the abilities of a competent tech to extract the data is almost nil.

You still have a problem with that 'click' noise. That can only be hardware related and your description of it's location and sound is what a floppy drive does when it goes south. Hard drives can also make that noise before hitting the crapper, and it could be mounted high in your case. Even if, and I assume you don't, hear it now, it will be back. You might want to look for a new 1st drive before you think of a second. Again, a tech can do a burn test on the drive and see if that's where the problem. The best bet at this point is to get a new drive and use your present one as the back up.

Anyway, I'm glad you got out of Kinko's

HEHE... well one other consideration for me was that I am way broke, in the red actually. I know that I will have to take it to a tech, but that isn't affordable til next month. And getting the tower out of here and to a teck is hard and expensive too... a cab drive.

One thing I thought I would do after I calm down is open it up and clean in there.

I wished I could recover all the data, but I can hardly afford anything. That's oK. I'll just make new...

Thanks, Will do the burn test though. That doesn't sound as expensive as recovering of data.

The best advise I can offer there is to befriend a computer geek. You will usually learn to maintain a computer from geek friends, and if anything goes wrong, at least you'll have somsone on the phone who might be able to drop by and help you.

I went from not knowing anything about computers to being able to build my own and maintain it in 3 or so years, and that's just because my boyfriend's a computer geek and I pick things up from him as I go along.

Let's say you'll use this computer for another 3-4 years... so between now and then, perhaps you can set aside, slowly, a budget to build your own system with hardware you are familiar with. I find self-built systems to be the most efficient systems, as they're built to cater to your exact needs. Less chance of something going wrong . Just remember, you don't have to fully ditch this system. Old parts are always recyclable. This is why I love desktop systems so much. Replacing an old laptop is a lot more costly. Now, all I have to do is just upgrade when I need to.

well.. you start pulling the power plug on different drives and rebooting until you don't hear any clicking.. then you replace that drive.

Diane

1st - If you need a geek just let me know what needs fixed and then point me to the beach...seems like a fair trade

2nd - While you are special, this kind of thing happens to all of us, so in that context, you're just like the rest of us. so stop beating yourself up that you may have done something wrong. It's just one of those things.

3rd - If it took the fresh XP install and you neither hear/nor see anything out of the norm....don't worry about it. Computers love fresh installs and over time you'll get back the 'other stuff' you lost, so don't sweat the details. It will be back as it was in no time. Just put a new hard drive on your next Xmas list.

4th - ..and this is the one that should bring a smile to your lovely face.....

.....Sis ain't there to help

.....Sis ain't there to help

hehe... yeah, everything's a piece of cake after that!

I'm afraid it might be going bad again. It is hard to hear little noises here, but last night I lost net connections again. That is how it started beefore. So when I put my ear by the tower I thought there were extra noises. I'll order something from Gateway. I can afford debt!

In the meantime, I won't keep the cp on much. I think heating might seem to be part of the problem. I'll open it up and give it a good cleaning.

Thanks again

The noise could be a number of things. What you need to do is open up the case, plug the computer back in, and run it with the case open so you can physically see if anything is touching anything that might be causing the clicking.

As far as your connection failing, it could also just mean that your LAN or Modem card going bad. Those usually aren''t expensive to replace.
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I was thinking about calling RoadRunner. Its their modem, maybe they would check that out and incidentally tell me if something else seems to be going wrong.

thanks again

If I win this Saturday's £20million lottery, I'll buy you a new one But as that's not quite a certainty...

If the clicking is regular it's most likely a fan - easily fixed, especially if it's just a wire catching on it.

If the clicking is irregular and metallic sounding, could be your hard drive about to go. The next sign for this is sudden reboots without warning, missing data, BSODs...

The dropped connection and your original BSOD sounds like a borked modem card.

I would check for the fans catching on something. Also try running the pc for a while without the modem card in to see if it's stable without. Install something like SiSoft Sandra which can tell you what temp your MB and CPU are running at.

Finally, have some chocolate, you'll feel much better;)

Diane....if I lived closer to you I'd just give you a comp...I have one or two 'spares', though nothing more thrilling than a P11/333 with 256meg...

....that and all the Coopers you could handle..