10 replies to this topic

[oldtrig]

I have a Dell desktop with windows vista that I need to fix. It boots and will never get to windows. I tried safe mode and same thing. I also tried to use system restore by hitting the F8 key when first booting but it said it was turned off. I tested the hard drive with a samsung utility and it said all passed. I also checked it with the dell partition utility and again shows good. I have data I need to get off so I thought I would slave the drive to my pc running xp pro. I boot my pc with the hard drive slaved and it starts running CHKDSK. It gets to stage 3 and now all it shows is Inserting an index entry with ID $ and many numbers running across screen. It did the same thing when I tried to boot with the drive installed in the Dell with Vista. So far it has been running on my PC with the drive as slave for an hour and no sign of stopping. Nothing but a light blue screen with all the data running across the screen. I have used the samsung boot disk with great success in the past. You think the HD is defective even though software shows it good? The computer does have the hidden partition and it shows when I hit the F8 key when the computer first boots that pc restore will work. I have not done that yet but I think that part will work. I am just trying to figure if maybe a virus caused this? or hardware problem. Most of all I want to get the data and pictures off the drive. Thanks for any info on this. Tom

[Broni]

Did you try to stop chkdsk and see, if the drive will show up while slaved?

[oldtrig]

I will try that now and see and report back. Tom

[oldtrig]

Good call Broni. It worked that way. Now I will see if I can get the data off. Back with a report later. Thanks again. Tom

[Broni]

Cool beans :)

[oldtrig]

THANK!!!!!! YOU. It worked and I have everything backed up. You made one young girl happy. She thought she had lost all her pictures and documents. She teaches school with my DIL so I got the task to help her get the things backed up. I wonder what caused this? I can now try Dell's pc restore and see if I can make it the way it was in 2007 when she bought the PC. I just hate all the Vista updates after I get it back going for her. Oh well a good weekend task. Thanks again Broni, I will let you know if the PC Restore works which I think it will. Tom

[Broni]

You're very welcome

[oldtrig]

Broni, it is working great now that I have a fresh operating system back. This computer has Vista Home Basic. It has only one gig of ram. You think it needs more? It seems pretty fast but I believe it is low on ram. I have been downloading updates since 5pm and so far have not even got SP1 installed. If windows 7 is this bad I will stick to XP. Again thanks for the tip. I would have never thought of that one. Tom

[Broni]

Excellent!
Yes, Vista will run much better with 2GB of RAM.

[oldtrig]

Broni, I have all service packs (SP1 & SP2) and other updates finally installed. It took many hours to do this. You think it would be better if she bought a program to make an image of this HD so they will not have to go through this again. I have read a little about Macrium, maybe that one will work.

http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.asp

Again thanks for your great tips. Tom

[Broni]

An image is the best backup, you can get...

Acronis True Image: http://www.acronis.com/ - not free, but the best

Free alternatives:
- Macrium Reflect: http://www.macrium.com/ReflectFree.asp
- DriveImage XML: http://www.runtime.o...veimage-xml.htm (tutorial: http://www.bleepingc...utorial160.html)
- SelfImage: http://www.excelcia....=article&sid=21
- Paragon Drive Backup: http://www.paragon-s...ome/db-express/