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5hift
03-23-2009, 11:24 AM
So my computer has been messed for a few days now.

I was using facebook last thurs and every text entry would get hung up/double typed/beep like I was typing too fast for the computer?

Thought just my keyboard was messed, came back after a few hours to see all the lights on the keyboard flashing and the computer began making the beeping sound like its frozen/overloaded.

Manually powered the comp down, unplugged the power source.

Every time I plug the comp back into power, I hear a whining sound. Trying to start it up, it gets stuck trying to load windows, goes to a blue screen and flashes a some loading error quickly before I can read it. It then fails to load win and gives me option of safe modes to choose from. No matter what mode I pick, I get flashed with a compand prompt dump of text and then it goes no where forcing me to power down.

If anyone can give me help or point me in the right direction to get this resolved I would gladly paypal you some cash as a way of saying thanks. I havent been able to use this computer for the whole weekend and I have a lot of pending school assignments on it.

Thaco
03-23-2009, 11:34 AM
hit F8 while booting,t hen select "disable automatic shut down on bluescreen" then boot it up and read the error, at the bottom there will be an error code it'll be 0x0***** post that code back here.

5hift
03-23-2009, 12:24 PM
Not sure if I did it right ... I brought up the advanced win settings,"disable auto shutdown on bluescreen" was not an option, closest thing to it was disable automatic restart, which I selected and got this on the blue screen"

Stop: c0000218 {Registry File Failure}
The registry cannot load the hive (file):
\SystemRoot\System32\Config\SOFTWARE
or its log or alternative

Beginning dump of physical memory.
Physical memory dump complete
Contact your system admin or tech support for further assistance

A790
03-23-2009, 12:37 PM
Sounds like something has fucked with your registry. Is there any chance that you had a backup done recently?

Alterac
03-23-2009, 12:37 PM
Could be a bad harddrive.

Download the tools from the manafucter website, boot off their cd, and scan your drive.

ThatGuyishere
03-23-2009, 12:38 PM
Most Likely your OS is corrupted. You might have to reinstall Windows

HHURICANE1
03-23-2009, 12:46 PM
If it is whining even before you try to start it up the power supply is likely hooped. Try a new one.

5hift
03-23-2009, 01:02 PM
Originally posted by A790
Sounds like something has fucked with your registry. Is there any chance that you had a backup done recently?

Havent done anything like that. Its weird, it was working fine, then all of a sudden typing text was choppy/slow. Stupid me doesnt turn it off and goes out, comes back few hrs later and the keyboard locked up and comp froze.



Originally posted by Alterac
Could be a bad harddrive.

Download the tools from the manafucter website, boot off their cd, and scan your drive.

I'm sorry but I'm not very computer literate with these things. I dont even know my HD manufacter, or what I would do at the site. Would you be able to explain so someone a little slower in the computer world.

I also dont know if this may help. But I have two HDs on this computer, but one is pretty much unused and just for Itunes backup (and for my important files but I never got around to it :cry: .



Originally posted by HHURICANE1
If it is whining even before you try to start it up the power supply is likely hooped. Try a new one.

Its a very high pitched quieter kind of whine. I'm not sure, but if the power supply was hooped, why would it let me navigate through windows help menus for quite some time?

5hift
03-23-2009, 01:03 PM
Originally posted by ThatGuyishere
Most Likely your OS is corrupted. You might have to reinstall Windows

As in reformat and lose everything on the computer's HD's?

eblend
03-23-2009, 01:56 PM
Sounds like a hard drive, but not really since you said it locked up with keyboard lights, which leads me to believe it could be the motherboard (which probably corrupted your registry hive as well). Check the motherboard capasitors for any leaks ect. If you have important date on there I recommend you back it up asap by removing the hard drive and copying the files. Even though the registry/windows is corrupt, if the harddrive is not physically broken then you should still be able to extract the data. Could also be your power supply, but the fact that your keyboard lights were flashing and computer still running (even though it was frozen) leads me to believe its the motherboard

Here is a pic of busted caps:

http://www.fixya.com/uploads/Images/ED479A1.jpg

5hift
03-23-2009, 03:22 PM
Thanks for the reply eblend

If it is the motherboard and not the hard drive(s), why do they have to be removed and copied right away? I'm not trying to question you, I just dont understand how it works. If the hard drives are intact and fine, will it really matter if I just leave the box unplugged until I can come back to Calgary and take it to MemExpress where I bought it?

HHURICANE1
03-23-2009, 04:27 PM
Could be bad ram as well. Run memtest and see what you get.

em2ab
03-23-2009, 04:34 PM
I got 2 ways I can help you if you want.

1. Take your hard drive out and boot it as a slave in my machine to make sure it can still be accessed. Maybe just the boot sector is messed up but either way we can at least make a backup of it at the least. If we can't access it at all then we know it's a dead drive.

2. Go to www.ubuntu.com and download their liveCD image on someone else's machine.....I even have an extra if you want it. Create a boot CD with it, pop it in the tray and reboot. If you can boot into Ubuntu from the liveCD then your motherboard and everything else is fine.

It wouldn't take me more than an hour to figure out your problem.

5hift
03-23-2009, 04:42 PM
I would be glad to take your offer of help, except I am in Lethbridge right now.

Knowing the situation I am in, and considering I am not too computer saavy, where would you suggest I go? Im assuming the big places would take forever to even get to it?

BigMass
03-23-2009, 04:49 PM
It could be your hard drive, your RAM your motherboard, it could be a software issue, it could be a combination of all those things.

1) Put in your windows CD and run the recovery console and try and repair your windows installation.

2) If that doesn’t work try re-installing windows over itself.

3) If that doesn’t work it’s a hardware issue. Which can be very difficult for your to diagnose yourself if you’re not computer literate. Best bet would be to call someone to come in or take your computer to a shop.

- I doubt it’s a power supply issue since your computer does power up and posts and actually tries to load windows but can’t.

- RAM is easy to figure out. If you have 2 sticks just take one out, if it fails, put the one you took out back in and take the other one out. If it fails again chances are it’s not the RAM because it’s a low chance that all the RAM sticks would be bad.

- If it’s a hard drive problem your best bet is to get another drive in there and dry a fresh windows install

- If it’s a motherboard issue, then take it into a shop because if you don’t know what you’re doing, swapping out a motherboard could be a big issue when it comes to matching chipsets and making sure your old hardware is compatible with the new board and that your old windows installation will work without needed to do a fresh install.

5hift
03-23-2009, 04:52 PM
If I put in the windows recovery cd wont it reformat my comp causing me to lose anything saved to the hard drive.

My main goal isnt to immediately fix my computer, it is to make sure the content of my HD can be saved.

BigMass
03-23-2009, 06:13 PM
Originally posted by 5hift
If I put in the windows recovery cd wont it reformat my comp causing me to lose anything saved to the hard drive.

My main goal isnt to immediately fix my computer, it is to make sure the content of my HD can be saved.

fixing windows with the recovery CD or re-installing windows over itself will not harm any other files on the HD. Just follow the prompts and dont hit anything that says "reformat hard drive"

also, it's very hard to actually lose any files on your hard disk. Hard disks are fairly simple to recover even if they die.

em2ab
03-23-2009, 08:12 PM
Forget that. Get someone else's machine and download/create an Ubuntu LiveCD. You can boot into the operating system on the CD and recover all your files from the hard drive, deal with Windows later. This is easier than anything else posted.

SJW
03-23-2009, 08:15 PM
Here's my sol'n.

Sledge hammer the shit out of it. Go all Office Space on it.

Go to London drugs and get a new one.


Now where's my money?

BigMass
03-23-2009, 08:36 PM
Originally posted by em2ab
Forget that. Get someone else's machine and download/create an Ubuntu LiveCD. You can boot into the operating system on the CD and recover all your files from the hard drive, deal with Windows later. This is easier than anything else posted.

why should he waste time recovering his HD if it's an OS issue? That's why i suggested he repair/reinstall windows first see if that works.

Kg810
03-23-2009, 08:54 PM
The beeping your mentioned, can you describe it? Is it in a sequence? If it is beeping several times those would be indicators from your BIOS telling you what your problem is.

rage2
03-23-2009, 09:07 PM
Originally posted by 5hift
Manually powered the comp down, unplugged the power source.

Every time I plug the comp back into power, I hear a whining sound. Trying to start it up, it gets stuck trying to load windows, goes to a blue screen and flashes a some loading error quickly before I can read it. It then fails to load win and gives me option of safe modes to choose from. No matter what mode I pick, I get flashed with a compand prompt dump of text and then it goes no where forcing me to power down.

Originally posted by 5hift
Stop: c0000218 {Registry File Failure}
The registry cannot load the hive (file):
\SystemRoot\System32\Config\SOFTWARE
or its log or alternative
We see this all the time at the office.

When you manually powered the system down, it was probably doing some sort of a write to the registry, which didn't complete. This effectively corrupted the registry, and it won't boot up properly. It's probably not hardware.

Sometimes, you can use a registry repair tool to recover from the problem. If you've used System Restore, there should be fairly recent versions of the registry stored somewhere on the drive. Find it and replace the file, and you're good to go.

If you don't have any recent backups and don't want to pay for a registry repair tool, reinstallation is your only choice.

rage2
03-23-2009, 09:14 PM
Oh ya, if you're looking for where System Restore saves copies of your registry, it's in the "C:\System Volume Information" folder.

Finally, your initial beeping problem is probably the keyboard going nuts, since you mentioned the lights were flashing too. It's the same as pushing every key on the keyboard non stop, it'll do the same thing. See that all the time too, especially after a coffee spill on the keyboard.

Kg810
03-23-2009, 09:18 PM
Forget what I asked about the beeps, try reading this and follow the steps listed.

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=307545

bawlls
03-23-2009, 10:01 PM
+1 for ubuntu,
get the files you need by booting from the live cd. You can select what drive to boot from in your bios settings, if you didnt know.

once on ubuntu, you can browse your HD, and copy your files to a usb drive, or any other removable memory.

after doing that, boot from your windows cd, reformat, and reinstall windows.


If you get stuck and ubuntu won't install after having tried multiple ways, then it could be a hardware problem or something more serious.

if you fail to make a live cd, you can fill out a form on the website and they will mail you a cd in like 2 or so weeks. (no fee atall, 0$)

em2ab
03-24-2009, 09:03 AM
Originally posted by BigMass


why should he waste time recovering his HD if it's an OS issue? That's why i suggested he repair/reinstall windows first see if that works.
I wouldn't trust Windows not to wipe my partition. He doesn't have to recover the whole drive, just important files. Then if it does boot he knows it's an operating system error and can reinstall at that point. It's another way of confirming it's Windows that is messed up.

eblend
03-24-2009, 09:12 AM
amazing how many people responded when there is cash involved. Even if I was the one who provided a solution for this guy I wouldn't take the money, this is a discussion forum for people to help out, no need to get money involved.

Anyways, reason I suggested to backup your drive is because if it is a harddrive on its way out, get the files off it while you still can as eventually you might not be able to, expecially if you keep playing around with it trying to find a solution. Spin up is very hard on disks, and if your disk is failing, the more times you power on your pc trying to resolve the problem, the sooner your disk may die. If there is data on there you really care about, that would be my first priority. After this I would start messing with Windows if you are able to. Get a loaded Bart-PE tools Cd from the interwebz and run it. If it boots then good chance that the problem may be windows related, as Bart-PE is basically a stripped down version of Windows XP on a CD that can run without any harddisks attached at all. Once booted you can run some diag tools that are in there, such at HDTune to check your harddrive, or a burnintest to check all your other components (checks CPU, MEMORY, networks ect ect)

Thats my course of action that I would take, but really it's up to you. If data is important I would back that up first thing

5hift
03-24-2009, 09:34 AM
thank you for all the replies, I know there is no need to get money involved, but when it comes to this I am just so desparate to get to get my computer back I'm willing to try anything.

I realize you guys are probably making it as simple as possible, but trying to get everything explained in this thread is kind of confusing for me.

so if saving the content of my HD is my first priority, and I am not tech saavy, what is the best way to get the data off my HD? I am not going to turn that comp back on until I've figured out how to approach the situation.


Im seriously just debating getting one of those nerds on site guys to come because I dont have days to fuck around with this.

sabad66
03-24-2009, 09:51 AM
If saving content is your first priority and you don't want any chance of fucking anything up, open up your tower and take out the hard drive that has all your important info on it.

Now you can do one of two things:
easy way) Go to futureshop, buy an enclosure (you can probably return it after), install the drive in there. You now have an external hard drive that you can plug into any computer and backup the data either onto a USB flashdrive, DVD etc.

harder way) Install the hard drive in another desktop PC. Although sometimes you have to mess with the BIOS and stuff.

After you have all your data, put the hard drive back, format and install windows and you are done. If it works you are good, if not, you have a hardware issue.

rage2
03-24-2009, 10:10 AM
Originally posted by BigMass
why should he waste time recovering his HD if it's an OS issue? That's why i suggested he repair/reinstall windows first see if that works.
BTW - with a corrupted registry, repair doesn't work, and reinstalling will lose all the program settings on the system. You won't lose anything else other than program settings, which means you will have to reinstall every app back into the OS.

The process to get everything back to the way it was is simple for any half decent Windows techy. Just have to recover your registry (software hive in this case), I've already pointed out where the backups are stored. Find a techy friend that knows what I'm talking about, and it should be no more than a 5-10 minute process.

5hift
03-26-2009, 09:15 AM
^^

thanks for the suggestions. I have found the "techy" friend you were refering to and we'll see if he can fix it this weekend for me.

Once again thanks for the help, I'll post how it goes