Crashed Computer

[garager]

Finished up another job, yesterday and I got today off. Then at 4:00am today, I go to turn on my computer and it crashed on me.

I tried to do a repair with no luck at all. Now I'm reformatting my system, which sucks. I lost everything in it.

Once I'm done, then its drivers to be downloaded, hardwares,protections, various softwares, pictures and documents and whatever else. Then off to find all my favorites that were lost.

Like an idiot, I didn't make a copy of my system on a cd or 2. I can reformat a computer, but I don't know how to make a copy of my system, after I have it all organized correctly.

Maybe I should go by a software for $50.00 that'll do it for me...

I'm pretty sure that my problem lies in the Registry area and/or dll files, which in turn will be a b!tch to find the corrupted files. This is my 3rd crash in less than a year.

Hows this for drama, Joey.........:D:D:D

The computer life of Garager. You know what, maybe I should go take classes w/the dollars I'm saving from not smoking. This would be a more constructive move on my part, instead of going to Vegas. :rolleyes:

Just maybe, I will.........

[stxrus]

garager

go get an external hard drive. i use a 269G seagate. make a point of every night, every week, or whatever you are willing to do, do a backup of your data. it WILL save your arse, my friend, when the inevitable NEXT computer crash occurs.

i partitioned mine so the f: drive holds data and the g: side holds applications, drivers, DLL files, etc thati WILL need someday.

my Seagate has a prog that is one touch backup, but i don't use it i just create a new folder in the f: side and copy the current files to that folder. every quarter i make a disc iof that quarter and at years end i make 2 discs of the year. 1 for archival purposes (as well as a hard copy that also goes into the safe) and 1 for the CPA.

losing your data is a royal pain. remember, "backing up is not so hard to do". to paraphrase an old R&R tune :)

steve

[BadgerDave]

garager

go get an external hard drive. i use a 269G seagate. make a point of every night, every week, or whatever you are willing to do, do a backup of your data. it WILL save your arse, my friend, when the inevitable NEXT computer crash occurs.

i partitioned mine so the f: drive holds data and the g: side holds applications, drivers, DLL files, etc thati WILL need someday.

my Seagate has a prog that is one touch backup, but i don't use it i just create a new folder in the f: side and copy the current files to that folder. every quarter i make a disc iof that quarter and at years end i make 2 discs of the year. 1 for archival purposes (as well as a hard copy that also goes into the safe) and 1 for the CPA.

losing your data is a royal pain. remember, "backing up is not so hard to do". to paraphrase an old R&R tune :)

steve
God how I wish I knew what it was that you just said.:D:D:D

[VASandy]

I've been waiting for this to happen. I figured it'd be my puter that gave up first... ;)

Lately, I've been using Norton Ghost to make a complete image of my system. I use an external USB drive to store the image, and Ghost allows me to make a bootable CD so in the case of emergencies, I can boot from the CD and access/recover the image. It is setup to update a backup at 3am so I can recover not just the OS but all my files! It's a great system.

I've recently been playing with another similar product from Acronis called TrueImage Home (Version 11). This is very similar to Norton Ghost, and actually, it seems easier to use. I would recommend Acronis over Symantec's Norton Ghost actually. I have never found Symantec support to be helpful, useful, or in any way worth their oxygen! Acronis support, on the other hand, seems much more capable. You can find Acronis TrueImage Home here
http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/

Get something...anything...that will image your system and keep backups of files/documents/pictures, etc. You have to be able to boot from CD to recover, as well as have a way to recover individual files.

Sorry to hear about your disaster, Garager. I just had to spend 2 days trying to recover my husband's computer (and he had no Ghost or TrueImage) from a complete crash. Using MS's built-in recovery console, I was eventually able to recover the boot drive. It was tricky, and I had to disconnect ALL the other drives to do it. Using recovery console and commands like FIXMBR and FIXBOOT require a little bit of knowledge about your computer, and the ability to recognize which drive is which from a really esoteric computer-based hardware description. Now that his drive is back working, I'm going to install Acronis. His new drive is ordered and should be here soon.

Just as an aside, My husband's drive failed due to some really nasty viri. He has and uses and updates a good, reliable anti-virus system. Still, this set of buggies got in and made a mess of things. The only way I knew there was something there was Explorer (the file explorer) window was coming up on boot-up no matter what I did. Eventually, I tracked down the little bugger that was responsible for that. Once that was removed, there were a few other little no-gooders in there that had to be removed. Most of them manually (regedit, file deletion through DOS window or F8 boot to DOS). It's difficult to find and remove these little buggers. Don't just rely on your A/V software to keep you safe. Keep an eye on how your system is running, and check your running processes from time to time. If you need help with these things, PM me. I doubt Josh wants to start a "PC Help" section here, but there's other places to get help for these things.

[garager]

My system recovery didn't work for me Sandy, which bummed me out, oh well. It is a lot of work, bringing these computers back to life, and I'm getting better at it, practice makes perfect :D.....

stxrus, I had a buddy who did what you have done to your computer, well he died last year, brilliant man. No matter how many times he explained to me about what your doing, it went right over my head, he was somebody the government would have loved to hire. Computer geek and a half, but did not trust no one, especially our govt.

I do need an external hard drive, or a copy of my system on CD, that'll be just fine with me then.

By the way, I'm typing this from my computer (Yaaaaaa), its up and running and protected, but I still have a long way to go, downloads and softwares, yep. I did save almost all of my pictures to CD's and photobucket, so I'm alright there. All my documents were also saved, but my biggest problem now is, all my favorites are gone. As time goes bye, I'll start remembering each one........

[MrsSeatDown]

Oh Garager, I am sooo sorry to hear. That is a bummer! Rick backs everything up on my computer and saves each week on an external zip drive.

BUT, i guess you have learned your lesson and will be doing things differently.

This is not drama. This is a tragedy:(

[markts30]

A little too late now...
What I would have done is put a new drive in as master and re-installed to that drive...
I would then have installed my old drive with the data as a secondary/slave drive and recovered the data that way - no loss of data and less anguish...

[jbergstrom]

I'll just second what Sandy said about Acronis True Image...
Great program, runs from within Windows. Can do incremental backups etc. can be scheduled to do them automatically etc. :cool:

[Newman]

I also used to use Ghost until I discovered Acronis TrueImage - great hard disc imaging software. I run Windows XP on my laptop, and Linux on my Desktop/main PC.

[stxrus]

God how I wish I knew what it was that you just said.:D:D:D

for $1,000,000 plus parts (parts are ALWAYS extra) i'll gladly explain it to you :D.

basically get another storage device, seperate from your PC/laptop, and save ALL of your data on it on a regular basis. computers will crash, hard drives will fail, and printouts and/or copies on discs can save your sanity.

you can just e-mail me the money. and i'm not going to charge you for the parts, this time.

steve

[garager]

I've recently been playing with another similar product from Acronis called TrueImage Home (Version 11). This is very similar to Norton Ghost, and actually, it seems easier to use. I would recommend Acronis over Symantec's Norton Ghost actually.

I'll just second what Sandy said about Acronis True Image...
Great program, runs from within Windows. Can do incremental backups etc. can be scheduled to do them automatically etc. :cool:

Thank you both for the great suggestion, I googled it and did some reading, so now I will decide whether it will be this product or the external hard drive...

[jbergstrom]

Garager, I would make that "the software and the external hard drive" that way you can save images of your "c" partition to the external hard drive... :)

[garager]

Garager, I would make that "the software and the external hard drive" that way you can save images of your "c" partition to the external hard drive... :)

Thanks J., really appreciate every bodies suggestions and help. :cool::)

[sarathy]

Oh ****... the same thing happened to me two months back... shucks... i know what it is.

[lonestardrain]

you can take the computer to BestBuy and let the Geek Squad fix it for you for a fee....they will even come to your house....same thing happend to my sons computer and i took it to the GeekSquad and they fixed it for round $250.00....anyway..hope this helps.

Tony.