Computer crashed, Need help!

[End of the Line]

Anyone know of someone who can help me get this fixed as soon as possible at a reasonable price around Duluth. Must of got a virus.

[jessie1]

Aspirin and bedrest according to the doctor should help or just forget about it and go ice fishing!

[Papa Woodie]

Can you post a bit of what happened? What it was doing before the crash, and what it is/is not doing now?

Do you have any antivirus/spyware blockers on it?

What operating system you have?

Might be able to diagnose on the fly...any info on the computer you need?

A complete reformat and re-install factory fresh is rather simple as long as you have your CD's that came with it...or even if you don't, its rather easy also.

(I have a computer networking/engineer background).

[upnorth]

I work on those dang things for a living too. I am a ways aways but I can answer questions on symptoms for you too. Just ask away and I am sure someone will help.

[Surface Tension]

Hopefully your hard drive is partitioned with updated drivers and important stuff saved on a separate drive.

I can help you out with a format and clean install of Windows.

[End of the Line]

Toshiba Laptop with Windows XP. I use AVG anti-virus protection and was up-to-date when I last shut it down. Everything was fine and working as usual. Then Sun. morning I go to start it up. Get the Toshiba screen, then another screen with:

Intel ® Boot Agent FEv4.1.09

"PXE-E61 Media test faliure, check cable

PXE-MOF Exiting Intel boot agent."

Then moves to a blank black screen. Then wait about 5 mins. and get:

"Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: <Windows root>\system32\ntoskrnl.exe.

please re-intall a copy of the above file."

I have lots of data on there that I really need to save. I also do not have a recovery/boot disk. Bought it at BestBuy and never got one. The computer is apprx. 2.5 years old. I have not try to mess with it to much, I am afraid I might make it worse and I am not a computer wizz by any stretch of the imagination. Prefer that someone else work with it, I have no idea. Working off my wife's Macintosh now. That's one good thing about a Mac, seems to always work. I was suppose to get off dial-up yesterday too and finally get DSL here. Now I have to wait for my computer to get fixed to try it out. Any help appreciated guys, thanks.

[Papa Woodie]

Check out this site for all info needed.

http://www.jsifaq.com/subF/TIP2700/rh2745.htm

Sounds like an easy fix.

I also read that if you have your Windows XP cd still, you can boot to that, instead of choosing install fresh copy, there is an option to "repair" your operating system which will repair it, and not lose any files.

If you wish, we can meet up tonight and do this. I have a CD if you need one.

I'm in Duluth. 349-0800 if you want to take care of it today.

[sawtooth2]

The symptoms you describe sound like a possible hard drive failure. When Windows tries to boot and comes up with "missing" files it's almost always because the operating system cannot read from the drive. There are different possibilities why that could happen. The worst, of course, is hard drive failure. But, it could be as simple as a bad cable or power connector. There's a chance that the information can be retrieved off the disk if the disk isn't too physically damaged. Trying to do a "repair" as discussed above is worth a shot as it can't hurt. If the repair process fails then you will know there is something up with the drive. Feel free to email me and I can give you a call if you need more help.

[sawtooth2]

Here's the first thing you should try. This will determine if your hard drive is working at all. Determining that will help plan the next course of action.

1. With your computer off, remove the cover

2. Before you touch anything inside make sure you touch the metal frame of the PC first to discharge any static elec.

3. Turn the computer on and listen for the "whir" of the hard drive starting up. After the "whir" it should start "crunching" as data is read from it.

4. If you don't hear any sound coming from the hard drive, then it's just plain not working and we move to the next step.

5. If it's not working then you should make sure the cables connected to it are seated tightly. Don't be afraid to wiggle things around a little, but do be carefull of static electricity.

6. If the hard drive is functioning then we can look at possible data corruption. That's a better scenario than a hard drive that's kaput.

[End of the Line]

Its a laptop and cannot open the "cover", and has no cables except the power cord. Papa Woodie, My wife got a hold of a new disk, and i'll show her this info. But I'll probably have her call you instead of me tonight if we cant get it going. She is the computer brain of the family not me. I dont hear the hard drive "start-up" its all quiet.

[upnorth]

I hate to say this, but I have seen that error more than a couple times and we could never get it repaired. We wound formatting the hard drive. The times we have seen it the NTFS was hosed or the whole \Windows\system32 folder was un-readable. I hope your is not as fatal!!!

If it is Papa Woodie is giving you the correct info. Many factory laptops have complete re-install feature that allows you to restore Windows to it's original state without formatting the drive some don't. Good luck and keep posting what you find and I am sure someone can help.

[opsirc]

Papa woodie

I have a e machine with XP, and an older machine that I got from my father in law win 98. The older machine has excell on it that i would like to put on the e machine. is there a way to hook the two machine together and download excel from one to the other?

thanks

[Surface Tension]

Sam you would need the exe file so no can't just move it over.

About the crashed puter. You should be able to install windows on top itself and save all your data. Wouldn't be a clean install and thats not what you want if you have stuff you want saved, unless you did save it onto a partition.

If you don't have a partition and it comes down to a format and install then thats the time to partition your drive.

[upnorth]

Excel is an application that needs to be actually installed, copying from one PC to another won't work. If you have access to the install CDs you can install it, but to be legal you would need to un install it from the old PC.

[Papa Woodie]

Joel, i just got Crystal's message, and returned the call, but didn't get an answer. Feel free to try again anytime tonight.

I have a slight idea its not a full hard drive failure from what i have google'd and found. If worse comes to worse, i have a USB adaptor i can put your hard drive onto, and place it onto my laptop and retreive any files, or possibly even browse to the windows32 folder and replace it with the files i have on my computer.

Excel. I have a "backup" copy of Office 2003 (outlook, access, excel, word etc) that i can "loan" you if you would like to use it.

[End of the Line]

Thanks for all the help. My wife was able to get it going today so she tells me! We were able to save everything and she already made an entire back-up.

We apparently have been missing alot of calls lately, something wrong with the phone company. It doesnt even ring here. Sometimes we get them, sometimes we dont. Thanks for the Help PW, got us on the right track!

[opsirc]

papa woodie

can you kick me an email at [email protected]

thanks

[Papa Woodie]

Excellent news! Glad she got 'er up and working!

Backups are critical...specially if you keep your business records on there. Strongly recomment a partition on your drive to store your extra files on!

[End of the Line]

Okay back online and great now that we finally have DSL available here. I will never go back to dial-up! Cant believe its taken this long to get to me. Now if I can just get this darn wireless LAN to work I'll be all set. I hate these computers when they dont work as advertised. Thanks again, let me know if you what to stop by my house and help with my new problem!

[upnorth]

EOL if you are using wireless be sure to do at least the WEP in the strongest version that your wireless router will allow. If you don't people will be able gain easy access to your wireless LAN or even capture data that you transmit. AES is even better.

[Papa Woodie]

What equipment do you have for your LAN?

Are you using a workgroup or domain?

I'm good with Lan's also. Wired and wireless.

Let me know whats not working...