Comp Problem - Will Paypall cash for Sol'n

[Kg810]

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]

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]

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]

Forget what I asked about the beeps, try reading this and follow the steps listed.

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

[bawlls]

+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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

^^

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