XP crashed, but can boot into BIOS

  • Thread starter Thread starter Dave Jennings
  • Start date Start date
D

Dave Jennings

Hi everyone,

Firstly, forgive what will be a vague posting!

I just had a call from a friend, who says his 3 month old Acer notebook
has crashed out of XP Pro, and won't restart. He can however get into
the BIOS, but that's it.

I'm going over to see him tomorrow, so could anyone suggest, with the
vastly limited info I've laid out above, what options I *might* have to
try to either repair or reinstall XP, or use some 3rd party software
such as Laplink or whatever to hopefully read his HD and hive off the
data. He does have backups but he's not sure he has everything, so I'd
hate to wipe the HD clean and do a full, clean reinstall unless it's
absolutely necessary.

It's still under warranty obviously but I know the Manufacturer would
only either wipe the HD or install a new one, so I'd rather spend a few
hours at least trying to get the data off the machine before returning
it.

Thanks in advance, and again - sorry for the non-info I've listed!

Regards,

Dave.
 
Assuming the very worst, a corrupted hard drive, you will need 2 things.

1. A file recovery program (I use EasyRecovery Professional - available from
www.ontrack.com) on a bootable floppy.

2. An external hard drive that is detectable when booting from the
afore-mentioned floppy (depends upon if his computer bios supports this).
This drive must be equal/greater in size than the original hard drive.

Then you can recover the files to the external drive, reinstall the
operating system (if possible) and copy back what is needed. If the computer
must be sent out you have safely kept the necessary files.
 
Crusty said:
Assuming the very worst, a corrupted hard drive, you will need 2
things.

1. A file recovery program (I use EasyRecovery Professional -
available from www.ontrack.com) on a bootable floppy.

2. An external hard drive that is detectable when booting from the
afore-mentioned floppy (depends upon if his computer bios supports
this). This drive must be equal/greater in size than the original
hard drive.

Then you can recover the files to the external drive, reinstall the
operating system (if possible) and copy back what is needed. If the
computer must be sent out you have safely kept the necessary files.
Click to expand...


Hi,

Thanks for the info - I appreciate it.

I think my major prolem is that he uses a notebook, so adding a 2nd HDD
isn't the easiest option! That's why I wondered if I could perhaps use
a crossover cable and my notebook or PC as the 2nd drive to copy to.

I'm dl'ing the software anyway, as I might be able to sort something
out ( hopefully ! ).

Thanks again.

Regards,

Dave.
 
That's why I said an "EXTERNAL" hard drive

To my knowledge, a crossover cable will not be functional if the laptop can
not boot into Windows!
 
Dave Jennings said:
Hi everyone,

Firstly, forgive what will be a vague posting!

I just had a call from a friend, who says his 3 month old Acer notebook
has crashed out of XP Pro, and won't restart. He can however get into
the BIOS, but that's it.

I'm going over to see him tomorrow, so could anyone suggest, with the
vastly limited info I've laid out above, what options I *might* have to
try to either repair or reinstall XP, or use some 3rd party software
such as Laplink or whatever to hopefully read his HD and hive off the
data. He does have backups but he's not sure he has everything, so I'd
hate to wipe the HD clean and do a full, clean reinstall unless it's
absolutely necessary.

It's still under warranty obviously but I know the Manufacturer would
only either wipe the HD or install a new one, so I'd rather spend a few
hours at least trying to get the data off the machine before returning
it.

Thanks in advance, and again - sorry for the non-info I've listed!
Click to expand...

As a last resort there is a method that will get relatively small
amounts of data (up to 15 mb or so at a time) from an NTFS hard drive
using a bootable diskette and a DOS based NTFS file reading/copying
program. The files would be copied to 3.5 inch diskettes.

Post a response back here if you need detailed instructions for doing
this.

Good luck


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."
 
Ron said:
As a last resort there is a method that will get relatively small
amounts of data (up to 15 mb or so at a time) from an NTFS hard drive
using a bootable diskette and a DOS based NTFS file reading/copying
program. The files would be copied to 3.5 inch diskettes.

Post a response back here if you need detailed instructions for doing
this.

Good luck


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
Click to expand...

Hi Ron,

Thanks for the info - I was actually able to raise it using the XP CD,
some decent swearing and half a dozen various sneak peeks at various
MVP sites for tips!

No idea what caused it, but it seems to work fine now. All data stored
onto CD, and backed up daily now, just to make sure. Might send it back
just to be checked out whilst it's still in warranty, don't want it to
appear again in the 13th month of ownership!

Regards,

Dave.
 
Crusty said:
That's why I said an "EXTERNAL" hard drive

To my knowledge, a crossover cable will not be functional if the
laptop can not boot into Windows!
Click to expand...

Hi,

Thanks - managed to boot into XP and save all data, as well as get XP
ruinning again, apparently fine!

Dave.
 
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