Computer Help

I realize this is not a poker software question, but I thought I would get the best responses here.

So I tried to turn my laptop on last night and nothing happened, the battery was almost dead the last time I used it so I assumed that was the problem. It was the problem as once I plugged it in, it turned on immediately. Anyways, during startup the blue screen came up and had the "dumping physical memory" whatever and then sends me to some safe mode recovery startup. Anyways, I tried to system restore (gave me an error). So now I am stuck with a useless peice of plastic. I am writing this at work. Left the laptop at home.

Anyone out there savy with computers that has ANY advice for me? Not a happy camper at this point. Sorry about putting it here, just didn't know where else to put it. Mods, I understand if you delete/move. Thanks to anyone who helps me in advance.

Do a thread search on 'blue screen' and am pretty sure you'll find a thread. (there was one on it just a few mos. ago with lots of good advice in it!)

Thanks PO! I did use the search for "computer won't stsart" but found nothing. Really, thanks again!

I assume you have windows XP and just did an update. Because I had the same problem after I did an auto update yesterday. I had to boot to safe mode like three times before it let me in. The I did a system restore to like three days ago and rebooted. Problem solved for me.

I actually have Vista. I tried the system restore through some recovery prompt, but gave me an error each time. I will try tapping f8 or whatever when I get home and try the restore from there. Hopefully that works.

Yeah, I tried the system restore on that first screen and got an error as well. I had to actually boot up into safe mode, then do the restore there.

Thanks TPC. I will be sure to give that a try first thing when I get home today. Hopefully all is well after that. :/

There are a couple things that it sounds like it could be. One could be that your OS was updated(like TPC was talking about) and at some point during the installation files were mixed up, this seems to happen fairly often, I mainly see it on people's computers that they do any sort of customizing on.

The second could be that your hard drive could have some failures on it, in which you would have to get your hard drive replaced.

Now this may be too technical for you, but if you want to try, download the Ubuntu LiveCD, it is a linux OS that you can boot into at startup from your CD/DVD player or even from a Flash drive if you have a spare. So follow the instructions on that page to get your LiveCD/USB. Once you have that, go into your BIOS settings(usually you press Delete during startup of the computer, but can be another key) and get to your boot priority, and select your CD/DVD drive as first priority and then save your settings(many times it's F10) and reboot with the LiveCD in. Don't install when given the option, just boot into Ubuntu. Once you are in, let it load for a little bit, it might not be the fastest since it is loading off the CD. Once you have that up your hard drive should load onto the Desktop, open it and try to copy any important files onto an external hard drive or flash drive. Also, this is going to tell us if there are any real major malfunctions of the drive(it won't load properly if there are problems). Once you have all of the files off, I would suggest just using your recovery CD that came with your computer and reformatting and reinstalling Windows. It is a good thing to do anyway every once in a while because as you use Windows, it gets bogged down due to extra files that are no longer in need and a fresh copy without all of that is going to work so much better.

Hope that helps, let me know if you have any questons.

Thanks hamm! Ya, I was afraid it was going to be something like that. I am going to try to do the restore one more time before I look into your suggestion.

Your approach frightens me, not because it is too technical, but because of the time aspect. If it must be done, then that is what I am going to do. Although I have never used Linux, but this could be a good opportunity to at least give it a look see. I was hoping for a "quick fix" at a price tag of $0 lol. Thanks again though. All advice is very much appreciated.

Yea, one good thing about my way is that it doesn't cost anything to check out, really, if what I said was the problem, the only thing that you might need to buy is a hard drive, which, as long as you do some research, you can get really cheap now, I think I just saw a 2TB one on Newegg the other day for like $50 after a mail in rebate. Granted, that was a regular sized one and one for a laptop is going to be a little different, but they still have come way down in price.

Well I am just crossing my fingers at this point that the system restore will work if I start up in safe mode.

I can't help but think it has something to do with my battery dying, but what do I know...

One thing you could try is to boot from your
Windows Vista disc and when you get to the
options choose repair and it might sort your
problem

I have had the blue screen of death twice and
this worked once and the other time I had to
reinstall everything which was a pain

I always have a copy of my "C" drive which
I use Norton Ghost to create, and anytime I
have a problem I can go back to this, it is a
more reliable form of system restore which
is a pain in the neck

good luck with your problem

What is the blue screen error code, before you do anything, tell me the code and it might be a simple fix or it could be a bad one depends on the blue screen code that you give me.

Plus have you done anything out of normal that you do on your computer, like go do a website that you never been on , or downloaded something from a website that you never use.

No. nothing out of the ordinary. I will be home in about an hour and will post the blue screen error code as well as the error I am getting when attempting to system restore

I really appreciate all the help guys!!

I also don't know where my disks are that came with the laptop...I have moved 3 or 4 times since I got it :/

After hitting f12 at the beginning of startup I decided to do a "pre-boot system assessment build 4108" For device it says memory and test it says WCMch Test.

I have no idea what this is, but would it give me any information that would help fix the problem? To this point everything has a test result of pass.

Memory test passed.

Harddrive test had one error pop up during "confidence test"

As follows: "Error Code: 0f00:137B
Msg: IDE device failed: Blank media or no media is present in optical drive. Test requires media with data (Resource CD, Installation CD)"

I don't know if any of this helps.

Well I got nothing...I don't even know how to put it into "safe mode" on this dell. It just keeps telling me that it recommends "startup repair" and when I do that it tells me it is "attempting repairs... repairing disk errors. this might take over an hour to complete."

I let that run through the night last night and didn't change the screen when I woke up. It won't let me cancel. Anyways, that is where I am at.

If it were me I'd boot to an XP CD.
Choose the "R" option to repair.
At the command prompt type: CHKDSK /R
If it finds & fixes errors, try booting the computer.

Next...

1) Make an Ultimate Boot CD.
2) Boot to the CD.
3) Run a hard drive manufacturer's diagnostic.
4) Check the memory (You will have to reboot to the CD. Use any of the tests that works).
5) Check the processor.

If none of that finds problems, then I'd try a non destructive reinstall from the Operating System CD.

Where would I go about finding an XP CD?

Really you should have gotten one with your laptop, but if you didn't then you would want to contact your laptop manufacturer. In the last couple years, the laptop companies have been getting extremely cheap on people and aren't sending recovery disks anymore and are instead charging customers for something that should have been included with their computer in the first place.

absoluthamm said:

Really you should have gotten one with your laptop, but if you didn't then you would want to contact your laptop manufacturer. In the last couple years, the laptop companies have been getting extremely cheap on people and aren't sending recovery disks anymore and are instead charging customers for something that should have been included with their computer in the first place.

Click to expand...

Now instead of sending you a CD, they put the recovery disc in a hidden partition on the harddrive. Many of the manufacturers also give you a program to create your own Recovery disc, which depending on the customizable options can be 100x better than a factory disc. I hated using the factory recovery disc on my laptop then having to go through and remove the 100s of programs I would never use.

Since OP has vista he wouldn't have received a copy of XP anyway. OP you can use any copy of XP, a friends, family member whatever, you don't need the license your just going to use the recovery console to check the disk for errors and repair them. Not sure if the vista discs have the ability.

That is true, I'm glad I haven't had to deal with recovery disks in years since I've built my own PCs and just had to deal with the licensing of my OS on my own. Fresh install really is a fresh install

Thanks everyone. This will be interesting tracking down a person who still has XP.

suit2please said:

Now instead of sending you a CD, they put the recovery disc in a hidden partition on the harddrive. Many of the manufacturers also give you a program to create your own Recovery disc, which depending on the customizable options can be 100x better than a factory disc. I hated using the factory recovery disc on my laptop then having to go through and remove the 100s of programs I would never use.

Since OP has vista he wouldn't have received a copy of XP anyway. OP you can use any copy of XP, a friends, family member whatever, you don't need the license your just going to use the recovery console to check the disk for errors and repair them. Not sure if the vista discs have the ability.

Click to expand...

some do this, but others you have to buy it, i know with my sony labtop i had to buy the recovery disk, it was only 40 dollars for me , but well that how they got to make the money now..lol

HomeBrewer said:

Thanks everyone. This will be interesting tracking down a person who still has XP.

Click to expand...

Trying going through your computer maker, like dell or sony , they should have the disk there on there support pages to buy.

Also i read that if you do a system restore to a early point with in the week solves the code error that you gave me ( that if you have restore point active with in the system)

hear is some links to help you
http://forums.techguy.org/windows-vista/919219-dell-inspirion-error-code-0f00.html
http://www.fixya.com/support/t2304424-dell_xps_m1330_laptop_boot_windows_when

Dreams of Tragedy said:

some do this, but others you have to buy it, i know with my sony labtop i had to buy the recovery disk, it was only 40 dollars for me , but well that how they got to make the money now..lol

Click to expand...

Funny that one of the most expensive laptop manufacturers doesn't give you any sort of recovery options, or any way at all to restore the Windows software you paid for. But they are nice laptops.

absoluthamm said:

That is true, I'm glad I haven't had to deal with recovery disks in years since I've built my own PCs and just had to deal with the licensing of my OS on my own. Fresh install really is a fresh install

Click to expand...

Linux ftw

Dreams of Tragedy said:

Trying going through your computer maker, like dell or sony , they should have the disk there on there support pages to buy.

Also i read that if you do a system restore to a early point with in the week solves the code error that you gave me ( that if you have restore point active with in the system)

hear is some links to help you
http://forums.techguy.org/windows-vista/919219-dell-inspirion-error-code-0f00.html
http://www.fixya.com/support/t2304424-dell_xps_m1330_laptop_boot_windows_when

Click to expand...

So the only answers to his error code are to use a recovery disc and go back to factory? What was the error code? If that ends up being the case OP, you'll want to use a linux LiveCD and save all your important documents, etc onto a external drive (usb drive, mp3 player, anything you have) before proceeding with the reinstall.

I would try checking the disc for errors first and repairing them with chkdsk. Had a HP laptop with a similar issue. The laptop would literally die when unplugged which caused a bunch of harddrive errors and corrupt files, after repairing the HDD with chkdsk from the XP recovery console Vista was then able to repair itself and boot up.