Re: Living Nightmare... please help!

lambiebambiebam wrote:
I don't even know where to start... the problems started from about a
month ago, and last 24 hours just got a lot worse. I am just a basic PC
user, so my technical vocab is limited. I've been using mac because I am
a graphic designer for the past 3 years, and I got this PC for my
family.

The followings are the computer's components, my friend picked for me,
purchased in March:
- Intel Pentium Dual Core E2200 Dual Core Processor LGA775 2.2GHZ
800FSB 1MB
- Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L ATX LGA775 P35 1333FSB 1PCI-E16 3PCI-E1 3PCI
SATA2 Sound GBLAN Motherboard - EVGA E-GEFORCE 7600 GT 560MHZ PCI-E 256MB 128BIT 1.4GHZ GDDR3 Dual
DVI-I HDTV Out Video Card
- Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 3.5IN 500GB SATA2 8.5MS 7200RPM 32MB Cache
NCQ Hard Drive
- Corsair XMS2 TWIN2X2048-5400C4 2GB 2X1GB PC2-5400 DDR2-667 CL
4-4-4-12 240PIN Dual Channel Memory

oh, and it came with Windows Vista Home Premium 32bit OEM

I can't completely sure of what happened anymore or are any of these
events are related... It all started when I downloaded this movie with
weird characters title, so I decided to rename the folder for easier
understanding... after I renamed the folder, the folder's content
disappeared. At that moment, I didn't really care, so I just deleted the
folder. Later I read that I can just 'undo rename', but I guess it was
too late then.

So, around this week, the computer starts to act very very slow... so
slow to a point everything is not responding... and sometimes when I
reboot the computer, it will say insert disc to repair... at that time,
I just keep rebooting it because I don't know where my disc was... after
rebooting it few times, it will go back to windows, but it is still very
slow.

Then last 2 days, this message pops up: "The instruction at 0x769b6d95
referenced memory at 0x769b6d95. The required data was not placed into
memory because of an I/O error status of 0xc0000185..." and it closes
explorer.exe... leaving the computer with just the background, so I
restart the computer not knowing what to do. I also started looking into
the problem, and I found a lot of different comments, like hdd is
failing, bad ram... etc. I did virus scan & defrag and found no
problem... And at one forum, I found people were talking about doing a
DISK CHECK... so I did a DISK CHECK... and here's where I turned these
problems into living nightmare.

Since Disk Check can't be done when windows is running so my computer
suggested to reboot... I never thought that single tiny 'yes' button can
do so much harm... without thinking that I haven't backup any of the
files in the computer (my eurotrip photos & some of my new portfolio &
the office season 1 to 5 & final fantasy 7 gamesave... etc) I clicked
the dam button. It rebooted, and start running the check and STUCK!... I
left it running until it makes this noise that sounds abnormal, didn't
know what to do, I retarted the computer again... which leads Open
windows in Safe Mode... etc, but my keyboard don't seem to be
responding, and it just opens windows normally, which leads to another
Disk Check, somehow my keyboard is not responding, supposingly if I hit
a key or something, it will skip the check, anyway it got stuck the same
place as last time... the same thing happens again and again, now I AM
SCARED...

I am in the state of panic, and started reading all these things on
internet... and I found my Vista disk, and I was like YAY. It took me
awhile to figure out clicking F12 in very beginning to boot from the
drive I want which is CD/DVD... it was slow... Got in, clicked Repair
your computer... there's NO operation system! I clicked Load Drivers,
and in there I searched every single folder, but my C: is gone... then I
discovered I can click Next even without selecting an operating system.
Quickly clicked Startup Repair, 3, 2, 1, GOOO~ and it just say it can't
be fixed... I never did System Restore, Windows Complete PC Restore
since I just never did it in the first place... so both of those don't
work. Never try the Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool because anything with
Disk Check scares me now... when I click Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool,
it states "Memory problems can cause your computer to lose information
or stop working." and 2 choices of "Restart now and check for problems
(recommended) Save your work and close any open programs before
restarting" and "Check for problems the next time I start my computer" I
just clicked cancel because I don't know... and the last option Command
Prompt... and I found this "'How to use the Bootrec.exe tool in the
Windows Recovery Environment to troubleshoot and repair startup issues
in Windows Vista' (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392)" but I don't
dare to try.

I don't know what to do, so I went back to the page where you choose
Repair your computer... I was thinking maybe I can select the drive and
reinstall windows as an Upgrade and keep my files safe... but I wasn't
allowed to use Upgrade, only Custom... I tried that and yep, my
harddrive is gone... so I cannot install Vista anywhere... and my
computer is running on a X drive... whatever that is...

I restarted, and I went into my computer BIOS, and in Standard CMOS
Features, I can still find my hd as IDE Channel 0 Master... very
strange. I also checked Advanced BIOS Features, and checked the Hard
Disk Boot Priority is still my harddrive, what's going on? Then I went
into Integrated Peripherals and I see my USB Keyboard Support was
disabled, so I enabled it because my keyboard was not responding before,
was not even sure if I should've done that. Don't know what else I can
do, I saved the setting and logout. This time, at the screen where I can
choose ways to open Windows, I was able to move! So I tried safe mode
which stuck at the line "\Windows\system32\driver\crcdisk.sys". So I
restarted the machine, and tried every option, and Last Good Setting or
something worked!! It loaded my windows and I was able to go to my
desktop, and I started pucking usb into my computer to take my files
away to safety... after transferring some of the photos, something went
wrong and it crashed!!!

I was hoping it can load from Last Good Setting again... but it didn't
work and somehow every single option I tries goes to this cursed black
screen with the white mouse. ARGH!! I searched on net and tried ctrl +
alt + del, no response. I restarted, put the disc, loaded from disc and
try Repair your computer, and to my surprise, it found my operating
system! So I tried Startup Repair, and the message appears: "If you have
recently attached a device to this computer, such as a camera or
portable music player, remove it and restart your computer. If you
continue to see this message, contact your system administrator or
computer manufacturer for assistance." But I don't think I attached any
camera or music player recently.

So now, I think I can install windows as customs in my C drive, but I
don't want to erase my files... I was reading I can try buying a hard
drive enclosure and try taking the data out, but I am not sure... I
still haven't try the Command Prompt. What's the cause of all these
problem? Was it really my harddrive is failing?

I will appreciate any help from you guys. It took me 2 hours to type
this out. I have lost 2 nights of sleep over this, and I really don't
know what to do now... please help, thank you.



You can take the drive out, change the jumpers to slave and put it in another computer as a slave drive and copy your files that way.

Or, you could download a Linux distro such as Ubuntu (www.ubuntu.com), burn the .ISO to a CD and use the live CD to back your stuff up to an external hard drive.

After the above, just reinstall Vista, although you will lose all your data and have to reinstall the updates, programs and devices.

Alias
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