HT's home computer

[laserblazer]

Our HT asked me to look at his Evesham Micro PC. There's a problem with the on/off switch and it powered down accidently. When it re-boots it goes straight to the BIOS and says it needs to do a safe boot. It then BSOD's.

 

I tried a number of things and eventually fired up another computer with his drive. The new machine starts to boot and then restarts. So I figure something has corrupted on the drive, which needless to say is stacked full of vital stuff. It's running XP Home which I don't have, so I plan to install XP Pro onto a new drive and then see if I can read off from the old one.

 

I'm going to do this at home as I don't want to stay here all night. If anyone has any other ideas I can try that might be quicker, then I'm eager to hear.

[Joanne]

buy a hdd caddy for the future?

 

I'd probably do what you are doing. stick it in a computer as a second drive and see if you can get stuff off of it.

[mrforgetful]

Same here, but I would not be doing it at home unless he was paying me or giving me things to do so.

 

If he wanted me to do it I gladly would - in school time.

 

Oh and you can't just put an XP drive from one computer to another and expect it to boot. You'll have all sorts of problems with HALs from the different hardware - that's why you're getting a reboot I imagine.

Obviously as a second drive that won't happen. Just remember the master and slave! I always forget these days lol.

[SYNACK]

No need to remove the drive. So long as it has USB2 I usually just boot it up with UBCD4WIN http://www.ubcd4win.com/ which is a cd bootable copy of windows (legal too if used correctly) hook up an external USB drive and copy the necessaries. Fantastic way to get rid of viruses and spyware too.

 

Usually an hours worth of work, depending on the amount of data

[plexer]

BartPE with cd burning support, network support or using a usb key.

 

Ben

[Michael]

If it blue screens, when the computer POSTs press F8 and choose:

 

Disable automatic restart on system failure

 

You can then make a note of the error code, type it in google and try to isolate the problem. Hope this helps.

[mrforgetful]

Hehe I hate those errors.

 

Once, infact twice, I've seen an error code, done a search for an hour and found there is only one cause and one solution.

 

So why then, do they put a blooming number and loads of nonsensicle writing instead of one line reading 'run chkdsk /r' lol

[Michael]

@mrforgetful - I know what you mean, but that's Microsoft's way of doing things.

 

At the one school I work at, they have a Canon photocopier. It gave me a horrible looking error, when all that was needed was the drum to be changed, so why doesn't it just say that? Too easy I suppose!

[plexer]

Just because it's the heads home pc why do you feel inclined to fix it?

 

It shouldn't be stacked full of vital stuff surely?

 

Ben

[mrforgetful]

I'd help any member of staff and do every now and again. But them I'm a helpful guy.

 

Obviously it's at the bottom of the pile of stuff to do, but they get done and the staff are grateful.

[Joanne]

ahhh but you know what head teachers are like. I would only do it in school time though. Home time is MY time damnit!

[PEO]

lucky for us the ht is sound, in fact i was described him as a rare breed of boss. he pays really good overtime when ever work is done for him/school out of contracted hours

[Netman]

Try to repair the installation first...

Boot up with the XP Pro CD, go into recovery console, run fixmbr and then fixboot, then chkdsk /p /r.

After that - check if it boots - if it still bsd's then boot from the CD again, and instead of going into the recovery console, hit enter to setup, f8 to agree and then r to repair the existing installation, you'll have to provide a licence key for XP Pro during the install.

I usually image the disk first if it's someone's home machine...

That fixes most problems (unless it's a hardware issue) without losing any of their files and settings...

 

Then tell him to buy an external drive and some decent backup sw!

[laserblazer]

Just because it's the heads home pc why do you feel inclined to fix it?

 

He's good to me and it's all brownie points

 

It shouldn't be stacked full of vital stuff surely?

 

You know that, I know that' he knows that It's not school stuff, photos he doesn't want to lose etc.

 

Ben

[laserblazer]

I don't begin to understand what has happened but after trying all else, I wound the clock speed down to its minimum setting and it's working. I've no idea what the optimum clock speed should be. I suppose I could increase it until it falls over but I'm more inclined to leave it as is.

 

Wonder if I get a bottle of wine?

[FN-GM]

@laserblazer I have a Windows XP Home disc you can have a copy to use with the head teachers licence if you like.

 

Z