Not much here today. Yesterday my computer started telling me that it had problems with some files in the registry, and after running the reccomended chkdsk utility (which took 2 hours), at the subsequent restart it kept on crashing and restarting without ever booting up (and no safe mode didn’t work, nor did anything else). After hours on the phone with Toshiba and on web searching out every possibility, I ended up doing a failed “recover”, noticed that it was wiping my data, and literally pulled the plug. This is the page that should work, but as Borat says “is no so good for meee!” I’m pretty well backed up other than one big piece and a few days email — I hope–and should be largely OK.
Now I have the hard drive in a bag and need to go buy a new computer. Something I was thinking of holding off on unitl Vista appeared. I guess I’m in the market for a Vista ready one. If you knew the project I was working on at the moment you’d find this all a little ironic.
By the way, I didnt know this but the Apple Macs automatically move your old computer data to your new one. For a PC you need a separate program. And if you only have a damaged hard drive, I guess that won’t work!
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Put yourself out of your misery and get a Mac.
Hi Matthew,
If your computer came with an XP CD, you could try to boot to the XP CD.
1) Boot with the Windows XP CD and at the Setup Screen press the Enter Key.
2) You will be taken to the Windows XP Licensing Agreement. After reading the agreement press F8 to proceed.
3) The next screen gives you the option to do a fresh (clean) install or to repair the selected Windows XP installation. To run a Repair Install Press “R” at this time.
***CAUTION*** if you do not see the option to repair the selected Windows XP installation DO NOT choose the option to continue installing a fresh copy without repairing as that will overwrite your data.
4) Windows XP will copy the necessary files to your Hard Drive to begin the installation and will then reboot. You will see the message that informs you to “Press any key to boot the CD”. Do not press any keys this time just wait a few seconds and the Windows Startup Screen will be displayed. Following this you will be greeted by the Windows XP Setup Screens.
5) When Setup has completed you should find all of your previously installed apps and settings are intact.
If you happened to write over your data or format your drive, all is not lost. Nothing is ever truly deleted from a hard drive and in most cases, the data can be put back together.
Hard Disk Drive Data Recovery Tools
This is something those in the healthcare industry should take notice of since those outdated computers still hold confidential data even when formatted. Donating them to charity could expose confidential data if the IT person did not perform a format that zeroed out all data which is a very lengthy process and is rarely done. A free program called DBAN works well for this purpose.
SBD