Well thats just dandy now isnt it...

danieldare wrote in post #6929039
MY DESKTOP COMPUTER IS DEAD

After about 3-4 years of owning this horrible machine, I am giving up on it...
I bought it refurbished by Frys Electronics a few years ago (i think it was 1-2 years old already back then)...

After about 6 months of owning it it it started showing issues, but i was 13 (i think), and didnt mind the occasional random reboot...
As the years have gone by it has slowly deteriorated...
A few months ago I had to go have all of the memory replaced, which meant wiping everything and starting from scratch.....

Last night I shut it off, and went to bed...
This morning I wake up, turn it on to check my email, and go to shower...
Coming out of the shower, I notice that it is still on a boot screen, instead of on the desktop...
I tell it to run Windows normally, but it blue-screens after trying to boot windows...
Safe mode dosent work either...
Nothing works.
And I dont have a boot disk for it.

So...
I have basically lost all of my plug-ins for CS3
Ive lost DreamWeaver, Photomatix Pro, ImageReady...
...all of my HTML files for my website.

...of and not to mention...
ALL OF MY PHOTOS AND PHOTO PROJECTS

great.
so I am going to spend the rest of the day attempting to install Linux onto the computer and trying to save my harddrive onto an external...
so that I can keep my files



not a fun situation...
im totally broke, so i have no clue when i can get the new computer, because this one has been in and out of the shop at least 2-3 times each year and its just not worth it.


well, theres my sad pathetic rant.
hope you enjoyed it.
lol.

Things may well not be as bad as they seem.

I doubt if all the data on the drive has disappeared, unless the drive is physically dead. I'm also assuming you're running some recent version of Windows. I would first strongly suggest trying to locate a copy of the same version of the operating system that is on your computer and try booting it from the CD-Rom. There is a repair function on the Windows CD that can, in many cases, get you back up and running.
Also, re-installing Windows will not automatically wipe out everything on the hard drive, just don't tell it to do a clean install.
Worst-case you want to be able to at least be able to access the drive and copy the important information off of it, and if the drive is still functional you could then reformat it and do a clean install of Windows.
If the drive is physically dead, then none of the above is going to work, and you're going to end up buying a new drive, or computer. Either way at that point in time the only way to recover stuff on the failed drive is to send it to one of the companies that specialize in data recovery. Problem is their services are usually quite expensive, but for corporate clients with very valuable data and very stupid managers, it's sometimes worth whatever the cost may be.

Good Luck, and Merry Christmas.!

edit:

i have the data recovered.

the OS is going to be re-installed tonight.
should be up and running tomorrow.

and i DIDNT lose all of my adobe or my photomatix

had to access the harddrive from another computer.
the drive is fine...the OS is whats whack.



thank god.

Glad to hear you go the data back. For future reference and to maybe help others with a similar problem, the simplest way to recover a situation like this (OS trashed, HDD still working) is to create a CD using a program called BartPE. You will need a Windows XP disk to do this.

By booting from this disk, you get a cut down version of Windows which will allow you to see the hard drive, has network support so you can copy to another machine or copy the daya to an external drive. If the hard disk is working but there are bad sectors on the disk (probably the case here), you can even run a chkdsk on the drive which may get the original OS up and running.

You can download the program here - http://www.nu2.nu/pebu​ilder/

If you don't understand techno babble, scroll down to the "Getting Started" bit on that page and start from there.

For those who know what they are doing (or read the instructions on the site) you can even load the disk you create with other tools from data recovery, AV etc. Pretty cool stuff which has saved my ass on a number of occassions.

I got the stuff that was really important to me...
my music and my photos...

but everything else was gone, lol.

im going to just buy a cheapo 150gb external HDD, and make a ghost copy of my harddrive once a month...
that way i dont lose TOO much...
plus im keeping copies of everything on my current external...
music and photos, so its all duped, plus the ghost image...

As stated before, you really need to back everything up, and do it regularly. Without wanting to start an OS war, and since you mentioned an interest in the iMac, I might plug what I reckon is the best feature of OS X; Time Machine.

To make it work, you plug in an external hard drive, and it asks you if you wish to use it as a backup volume. If you click yes, it will use that volume, and never ask again (unless you choose to use a new disk for backups). Its first backup takes a while, because it copies everything from your computer to the external drive, but subsequent ones are smaller, as they back up anything which has changed. As long as the external volume is connected, it will automatically back up every hour; you don't need to tell it to do anything.

If you delete a folder or file by accident, and it was included in your last backup, you can go into Time Machine and recover it. If your computer's hard drive fails, you can install a new one, and in the installation of OS X, you can elect to restore from a Time Machine backup.

It's saved me a couple of times, and it would have saved you in this situation.

Burn DVDs of your photos too. Just in case your hard drives take a hit.