NationStates Jolt Archive

edit: overreacting nonsense. ignore.

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well my PC is seriously fucked. really fucked. as in it won't start up and hangs on a particular dll in safe mode. without being able to get into any kind of system (apart from BIOS) i have no real hope of fixing it...

...so i'm gonna be off NS for a few days:(


gonna buy a barebones machine with a 400gb HD, put in my current drives one by one as secondary non-booting discs and transfer all my junk to the new (cheap, shitty) machine... if possible. the HDs might be fucked too for all i know...


if it weren't for Windows' hardware protection on activation i could put the new 400gb HD into my old machine as the primary bootable drive and be back to normal, but Windows wouldn't like that and wouldn't let me reactivate it on the old machine.
of course i could buy ANOTHER new hard drive and put it in the old machine and transfer all the files accross again, but that would require buying yet ANOTHER copy of Windows... and i ain't made of money.

so basically, wave bye-bye to my 3.2 Ghz Athlon 64, 900-something Mb DDR2 ram, GeForce FX 5950 machine :(
it wasn't the best out there but it was pretty damn good - even though it always underperformed like hell for its supposed power...

this is gonna be very costly too :(
maybe my parents will help out. i hope so or this transfer is gonna take many many weeks... and i could loose my NS account:(:(
but i'm not gonna let that happen!!


so its been a great week all in all - started off with 4 days of constant pain day and night - leading to lots of lost sleep - caused by an abscess, which i then spent 3 days in hospital being operated on to remove; an exam which went pretty damn badly and i'm sure i failed; my cool techno-birthday present (a shiny new Microsoft uber-wireless keyboard) arrives... but its the wrong one (damn Amazon :mad: ), and, to top it all off, a day after i get back from hospital my PC kills itself.
and it gets better! next week i have five exams that i've missed valuable revision time for, from being in hospital and all that, so i have almost no hope of passing them now! yay! :rolleyes:

well my PC is seriously fucked. really fucked. as in it won't start up and hangs on a particular dll in safe mode. without being able to get into any kind of system (apart from BIOS) i have no real hope of fixing it...

Eh?

Are you able to get the 'boot to command line' option or into the recovery console?

Times like this a bootable CD of Knoppix comes in very handy indeed.

Huh? Why? Sounds like you just need to reformat and reinstall windows. Or maybe I'm not reading something right.

Doesn't sound like a hardware problem.

well my PC is seriously fucked. really fucked. as in it won't start up and hangs on a particular dll in safe mode. without being able to get into any kind of system (apart from BIOS) i have no real hope of fixing it...

...so i'm gonna be off NS for a few days:(


gonna buy a barebones machine with a 400gb HD, put in my current drives one by one as secondary non-booting discs and transfer all my junk to the new (cheap, shitty) machine... if possible. the HDs might be fucked too for all i know...

Why don't you reload Windows? or at least try a repair?


if it weren't for Windows' hardware protection on activation i could put the new 400gb HD into my old machine as the primary bootable drive and be back to normal, but Windows wouldn't like that and wouldn't let me reactivate it on the old machine.
of course i could buy ANOTHER new hard drive and put it in the old machine and transfer all the files accross again, but that would require buying yet ANOTHER copy of Windows... and i ain't made of money.

Shift all of the chipset specific drivers to "Standard" drivers (like the IDE, PCI, AGP, etc.) and move the drive. It will want to be reactivated, but it will work.
(You have 5 valid "reactivations").


so basically, wave bye-bye to my 3.2 Ghz Athlon 64, 900-something Mb DDR2 ram, GeForce FX 5950 machine :(
it wasn't the best out there but it was pretty damn good - even though it always underperformed like hell for its supposed power...

this is gonna be very costly too :(
maybe my parents will help out. i hope so or this transfer is gonna take many many weeks... and i could loose my NS account:(:(
but i'm not gonna let that happen!!


so its been a great week all in all - started off with 4 days of constant pain day and night - leading to lots of lost sleep - caused by an abscess, which i then spent 3 days in hospital being operated on to remove; an exam which went pretty damn badly and i'm sure i failed; my cool techno-birthday present (a shiny new Microsoft uber-wireless keyboard) arrives... but its the wrong one (damn Amazon :mad: ), and, to top it all off, a day after i get back from hospital my PC kills itself.
and it gets better! next week i have five exams that i've missed valuable revision time for, from being in hospital and all that, so i have almost no hope of passing them now! yay! :rolleyes:

Going way to far on this...

Yeh..Definately a software problem... :)

Hit it with a stick or bat

It's not a hardware problem. Boot up with the Windows CD and tell it you want to repair your installation.

If that doesn't fix it, back up and resintall.

The reactivation won't kick in if you just change a hard drive. And if it's been more than three months since the last activation you can just reinstall and reactivate, no questions asked.

Eh?

Are you able to get the 'boot to command line' option or into the recovery console?

Times like this a bootable CD of Knoppix comes in very handy indeed.
nope.

and i have no form of boot disc either. i don't think it would do any good though cos it hangs indefinatley while booting, whichever options i choose - i think a boot disc would probably be the same... then again if its a corrupted dll on my boot drive really is causing the problem (it might not be of course) a booting from another, uncorrupted, source would help. tell me, can you boot to Windows with Networking enabled from a boot disc (or does XP even support boot discs? i haven't had a problem of this scale yet using Win XP)

i need the network capability to get my files off, if possible
otherwise its the horrible new barebones system option

hmm methinks i was overreacting... it just happended and i came down here to vent my frustrations.

Hit it with a stick or bat
i SO want to do that right now

Hit it with a stick or bat
Im with him....

Try 'booting' it too... :sniper:
:D

Try 'booting' it too... :sniper:
:D
And if that doesn't work, just 'reboot' it :D


over and over and over again

i need the network capability to get my files off, if possible otherwise its the horrible new barebones system option

Use your windows cd. I don't think networking works.

What I recommend is you take out your hard drive, and use it as a slave for another computer for you to transfer all your files over. Get a friend or someone you know who can store the space for a while.

Then reformat and reinstall.

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Your overreacting. Your going to spend more buying a bare pc. And it would be a waste of money.

a reinstall of windows is what i'm gonna try... why didn't i think of that before?


...

oh yeah, i was blinded with fury and rage!! :mad: :mad: ;)


now i hope i can find the windows cd :confused:

What I recommend is you take out your hard drive, and use it as a slave for another computer for you to transfer all your files over. Get a friend or someone you know who can store the space for a while.

that was the plan just with a barebones pc


a straight reinstall of Windows should do the trick though. pain in the arse of course - i have just so many programs installed:(
and many of them require internet activation (like Studio MX... damn Macromedia) which is gonna be a pain but i guess i have no choice


*cries*

a reinstall of windows is what i'm gonna try... why didn't i think of that before?


...

oh yeah, i was blinded with fury and rage!! :mad: :mad: ;)


now i hope i can find the windows cd :confused:Me too.


In the meantime, you can use public computers to keep your NS account alive... I used to do that when my computer had no reliable internet access.

~Czardas, Supreme Ruler of the Universe

that was the plan just with a barebones pc


a straight reinstall of Windows should do the trick though. pain in the arse of course - i have just so many programs installed:(
and many of them require internet activation (like Studio MX... damn Macromedia) which is gonna be a pain but i guess i have no choice


*cries*
At least you will see a performance boost

And if you need some space for file backup I can provide about 100 GB in the form of an ftp folder if needed

Just IM me

At least you will see a performance boost

And if you need some space for file backup I can provide about 100 GB in the form of an ftp folder if needed

Just IM me
thanks:)

if only broadband was as fast as sATA :p



edit: an update... managed to get to command prompt with the Windows CD, now doing a scandisc. though its odd that it won't let me do a <dir> of C - it says it doesn't exist, which is worrying as hell. but its doing a scandisc of the drive now :confused:

thanks:)

if only broadband was as fast as sATA :p



edit: an update... managed to get to command prompt with the Windows CD, now doing a scandisc. though its odd that it won't let me do a <dir> of C - it says it doesn't exist, which is worrying as hell. but its doing a scandisc of the drive now :confused:

Sounds like the MFT's became corrupt.... Scandisk should resolve the issue.

nope.

and i have no form of boot disc either. i don't think it would do any good though cos it hangs indefinatley while booting, whichever options i choose - i think a boot disc would probably be the same... then again if its a corrupted dll on my boot drive really is causing the problem (it might not be of course) a booting from another, uncorrupted, source would help. tell me, can you boot to Windows with Networking enabled from a boot disc (or does XP even support boot discs? i haven't had a problem of this scale yet using Win XP)

i need the network capability to get my files off, if possible
otherwise its the horrible new barebones system option
I believe the backup wizard for XP makes bootdisks. But when you get your computer squared away, definately install the option for booting to the recovery consol by loading the Windows cd, can typing \i386\winnt32.exe /cmdcons from the cd drive. This gives you much better options if windows goes down. That said, everyone should have 2 rewritable cd's with the latest version of Knoppix or FreeSBIE, how-to docs and accumulated useful utilities. Particularly Knoppix makes recovering data easy. The good news is, I would think Broadband and writers are sufficently common that this isn't a significant barrier. And if it is, goto a local Linux or BSD users group, they'll probably be handing them out.

give it a good hard wack. that should fix it. (note, this works most effectively if you are the fonz)

I don't know enough about computer to give you any advice personally... but awhile ago I had lots of spyware and junk on my computer. I went online to the microsoft help forum thing and I got great help there. (easy to follow instructions... I'm only 16 (and a girl for crying out loud...) and with their help I managed to fix it without having to explain to my parents that I was downloading a song off the internet....) If any of these wonderful ideas that the other NS users have already given you don't work then you might try there.
Best of luck....

Pure Metal


Heres some ideas

Go into your BIOS, ensure that your CPU and RAM speeds havent for some reason reset to a default value (eg, 100/100). If they have, XP can hang on startup (usually on a file called mup.sys, tho thats not a Dll)

Didnt work?
put your bios on the "safe settings", and adjust CPU/RAM speeds accordingly

Didnt work?
Re-flash your BIOS

Didnt work?
try switching your ram dimms into a different slot, also try that with some other devices

Didnt work?
well maby you can get your hands on the corporate edition of XP

and im out of ideas :P

(note, if you make a mistake and put a higher CPU/RAM speed than your ram or processor requires you will need to re-flash yur bios so you can get your comp to start up again)
dont try what these ideas unless you know how to do them or else it could make things worse :)

good luck

Sounds like the MFT's became corrupt.... Scandisk should resolve the issue.
thanks for all the suggestions, people...

scandisc reported an irreperable error and now says there's a disc read error when booting from C. <dir> of C still gives some weird 'drive cannot be found' (or something) error.
BIOS looks pretty normal.

i've decided to buy a new HD, put it in the machine and set it as master, install a new Win XP (Pro... i happen to have a copy that hasn't been activated in 4 months w00t), and get as many of my files from the (seemingly) corrupted C disc as i can. hopefully my other HD will be ok and i'll just put it back in as slave when i'm done.

whether i install a new Windows on the current HD or a new one, its still gonna be a major pain in the arse. at least this way i get to safely back up my data, rather than messing around with the data still on the bootable drive...