I don't think this will solve the problem...



(BTW - As an extension of my first yakking, it's always a good idea to have a boot disk ready too! )

Sorry to hear about it Reece.  Remember back when times were simpler?



(Love that pic!  )

I can get it to run a memory check from the repair menu.  windows repair reports no memory errors.

I know it's a bit late for you now but your experience goes to show the importance of backups. I lost data on an Amiga, many, many years ago and I've been over paranoid with backup images ever since.

They have saved me hours of stress on more than one occasion. I personally use Acronis True Image but there are plenty of others out there that do the same thing, and well worth the relatively small outlay.

I image all my drives overnight every Monday and always have two images of each available at any one time. On top of that I have a Windows 7 image taken just after initial install and another taken after all my programs had been installed. See....a paranoid Fanboi. . Well worth the time and effort though.

Sorry you couldn't get it going but at least you had data backups.

I've had hard drives fail before as well.  tha'ts why I do backups of my data.  My first drive that has several of my original projects died and I did get someone to change out the electronics on it, but that wasn't enough.  it would have taken from $300 to $1k to get the data from it.  I still have the drive, but my projects on that drive are lost.

when I get it running I will start making image backups of my OS drive.

sigh.

Poor frustrated pooch...



(And that's just from reading all of Bapu's posts!  Imagine what he looks like now... )

reece.anything in the bios about memory there that might need to be checked.because ive never heard of this happening but im sure it is possible,when was your last bios update...and did you need to hit f1 during boot or did it just fire right in to the windows logo?

 Wow sorry to hear this Reece, I don't know if it will work on windows 7 but I've reinstalled XP before right on top of an old installation and all my files were there(just don't format). I had to re-authorize some plugs but much work was saved.

 As you know I went all crash in the loud speaker a few weeks ago. The P4 is no more :( 

 New I5 2400 machine up and running. Just getting everything installed and I'll be back to work on our collab. 

 Hope it goes smooth for ya.

 good boy 

Sorry, you have to re-load Reece.  I know it's a pain.  I suspect that Bapu caused it so he can catch up to you while you're dealing with the PC problems.  

Good luck,  Jan

yep, I was just thinking about you and your crash, Grant!  glad yours is up and purring now!  I thought about trying to reinstall windows back on that drive again, but if the drive has physical problems (which I suspect may be the case), then I don't want to continue using it anyway.  I will reload on a new drive and then go look at that drive and see if there was anything I missed on backups (which, I'm pretty sure I was throrough).

Jan - he is a programmer, isn't he?  could he have sent me a virus in an email to cause this just to get ahead of me??? 

craig - good boy.

Jules - thanks.  this is the strangest crash I've ever had before.  I have had hard drives fail before, but never at the exact moment I went to install new memory!  I keep replaying it all in my head and can't think of anything I did that might have caused this.  oh well.

the good news in all of this is that I found a combo package on newegg for the new hard drive so that for $40 extra I get Sony Vegas!  not a bad deal!

Reece... depending on what is on that drive..... it may be easily recoverable when you get the new drive in place and running. 

I had a c drive fail about 5 years or so back.  I installed a brand new c drive and installed the OS on it.  Then out of curiosity more than anything else, I installed the "dead non-booting drive" in the system as a slave d drive.  I was able to see all the files and folders on it and copy them off. 

I don't know if that will be the case with your drive but if there are important files on it, it might just work.

No way would I trust it from this point forward.... get the data off it that you need, if you can and then .... it's hammer time. 

In fact my harddisk drive (I use it as a second or slave drive now) was getting old and I bought a new bigger harddisk drive and making the image of the C: drive takes about 40 minutes at the most and copying it back to the new harddrive takes about 20-30 minutes at the most. Copying from harddrive to harddrive when the old harddrive is put in as the slave takes anywhere from about 25 minutes to whatever depending on the size of the logical drive but probably never more than an hour and usually much less time. Making an image and copying each logical drive would probably take longer making the image and restoring it, or about the same amount of time but making the image is what adds to the time spent while just copying from harddisk to harddisk goes faster in the end, and half a day spent on that and all is working just like before. Then I can go back to the usual wasting time on the computer instead of being ran by the computer and beating it with a musical baton because it can't be my timing with the tempo set in Sonar it must be the computer and although Yoda I am not, well, at least just for fun I have thought about it (beating the monitor and computer with a musical baton just for the heck of it - weird I know), but then Microsoft thinks it owns your computer anyway with their OS so it is getting tireding of the way these programmers think. Can't buy anything that don't need a patch for a program nowadays because of piracy it seems or whatever the others do that they should not. Thus the conductor in me with the musical baton!

guitarhackerI had a c drive fail about 5 years or so back. I installed a brand new c drive and installed the OS on it. Then out of curiosity more than anything else, I installed the "dead non-booting drive" in the system as a slave d drive. I was able to see all the files and folders on it and copy them off.

 
Agreed and these are also my backups ... and you can clean them once they are "slaves" and you see them. I tend to take things out immediately and then reformat the thing. I have 4 of these now for backups, 2 of them connected to the machines with enclosures for them.

Sorry to hear about the HD issue Reece.....at least it's not affecting your post count.....roight?

Hope you can recover the data from the old(er) drive.

spacealf - your posts are very difficult to read and I tend to skim over them instead of reading them because you don't break up your thoughts into coherent paragraphs.  are you using Firefox maybe?  or are you doing that on purpose?  if you're using FF, I would suggest that you switch to Chrome or IE for this forum.  if you're doing that on purpose, I will likely continue to skim your posts and not read all of what you've written.

from what I've skimmed, I don't understand what the windows activation has to do with anything?  I'm certain I will have to reactivate it when I install it on a new hard drive, but the process has been painless in the past.  I'm certain this problem has nothing to do with windows activation, tho.

as far as partitioning the hard drive - no thank you.  if you feel it benefits you, that's fine, but I will not be partitioning any hard drives now or in the future.  there are problems created by partitioning the hard drive which you have not discussed and honestly, I'd rather not get into that in this thread since that's not what this thread's about.  suffice it to say, no partitions for me, I'd rather buy another drive.

I do need to start making drive images at least - I'm not sure I want to go the clone route in the future, but I'll consider it.  I already own Acronis and that's what I use for backups, but I've not been making OS drive images (bad doggie!).  I will start doing that when I'm up and running again.

Pedro - I don't understand what you're talking about with regards to FBB's reference to rewriting the MBR and your response regarding "preventing this kind of garbarge."  FBB didn't refer to any garbage prevention that I'm aware of, so I don't follow that part of your post.

as far as saying that "named computers" are garbage - I don't understand that either.  I don't have a "named computer."  I custom build all of my systems (excpet I do buy used Dells/Compaqs when necessary for my family members who don't need anything more).  my system is custom built Asus P8P67 i5 machine.  I hand picked all of the components myself.  I'm confused where you got the idea I had a Dell or something?

I do understand that the drive itself may not be corrupt, that maybe only windows got corrupt.  I will be checking that when I can get windows loaded on the new drive.

JB - always the helpful one!  always looking out for numero uno! 

Mesh - well, it does affect my post count because I've been busy working on that system instead of posting!!!!