Josh wrote:
(snip long story)
> What happens when I boot up my PC?
>
> First it starts up like any regular vista pc, shows the black screen with
> white words, then it goes to the vista is loading screen, and after
> that... it goes black, it goes black and stays like that for as long a
> sthe computer's on, I've left it there for a whole entire day without
> touching it, tried multiple times to repair it in startup and repair, it
> fails every single time, system restore, failed every single time, tried
> multiple restore points, failed every single time.
>
> Safe mode, it doesn't work, neither does safe mode with networking etc.
> Windows memory diagnostics etc, no help at all either.
> I cannot access my vista pc at all, I'm out of ideas, usually, I'm the
> person everybody comes to when they need help with their computers, but
> this is just baffling, I don't know what's wrong with it at all.
>
> Getting rid of my data is not an option, I have important things that my
> life actually depends on in that hard drive.
While the issue certainly could have been caused by software (Vista or
something you installed), it sounds far more like hardware failure. Your
hard drive may have died.
You should have had backups. There's no way to say that nicely. When this is
over, create and implement a backup strategy.
See if you can get data off the drive. Some data retrieval suggestions are
at the end of this post. If the drive is unresponsive and you can't
retrieve the data, the only way to get the data will be to send the drive
to a professional data recovery company. My preference is Drive Savers
(
www.drivesavers.com). This is quite expensive but effective. If your life
does indeed depend on the data and the drive is bad, you should not take
any chances and I'm sure the high expense will be worth it to you.
If you can get data off the drive, then test the drive with a diagnostic
utility from the drive mftr. If the drive tests good, test other hardware
components. In all the long story you wrote, you forgot to tell us anything
about your computer's specs so all I can do is offer you general hardware
troubleshooting steps:
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/...ardware_Tshoot
If you have a laptop and there are bad components other than the hard drive
or RAM, you'll need to contact the laptop mftr. for repair/replacement.
Certainly if the computer is OEM and under warranty, contact the OEM first.
If all components test good, you'll need to do a clean install of Vista. As
for your Vista DVD, you will need it if this is not an OEM machine so
either find it, buy a new one (yes, because you lost the first one!), or
try this:
How to Replace Lost, Broken, or Missing Microsoft Software or Hardware -
http://support.microsoft.com/default...B;en-us;326246
If this is an OEM machine, contact the OEM for a replacement Vista DVD or
recovery disk, whichever they gave you.
So, here are some things to try to recover your data:
1. Pull the drive and slave it in a computer running a working install of
XP/Vista. Depending on the target drive's characteristics, you may need a
drive adapter; i.e., laptop-to-IDE or a SATA controller card, etc. A
usb/firewire external drive enclosure works very well, too. Use the working
Windows Explorer to copy the data to the rescue system's hard drive and
then burn the data to cd or dvd.
2. Often XP/Vista will not boot with a slaved drive that has a damaged file
system. In that case, boot the target computer with either a Bart's PE or a
Linux live cd such as Knoppix and retrieve the data that way. Since you
apparently have an Ubuntu install disk, you can use that as a Live CD.
Malke
--
MS-MVP
Elephant Boy Computers - Don't Panic!
FAQ -
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/#FAQ