Big problems with my windows 7 reinstall

ride the spiral

I changed from a 32bit to 64bit windows 7 os. I lost one gig of ram (one left now) and my second partition is no longer found.

I had alot of files backed up on the second partition and would really appericiate any help.

Thanks guys.
Andy.

ride the spiral

OK! got my partition back. For anyone else that has this problem of a lost partition here is a link to a video where a dude explains sted by step of what to do. very easy to follow, all you gotta do is download a small program.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZC7rSycZ8U


I still haven't had any luck with my RAM... If anyone could help with that, it would be very much appreciated.

Thanks,
Andy.

Fysh

ride the spiral wrote: »

I still haven't had any luck with my RAM... If anyone could help with that, it would be very much appreciated.

Thanks,
Andy.

The first thing to check is your BIOS - when you boot the machine up, you should be able to get into the BIOS config screen by hitting F2 or Del. Within this environment you can see what hardware your system thinks is available.

If your BIOS shows 2048MB of system RAM, you've got a Windows 7 problem.
If your BIOS shows 1024MB of system RAM, you've got a hardware or BIOS issue.

For Windows 7 problems, we'll need more info. Check how much memory shows in System Properties (Windows key + Pause key will pop this up on screen). Run msconfig as administrator (type "msconfig" into the prompt in the Start menu, rightclick & select "Run as administrator"), then go to the Boot tab, highlight your installation (should be selected by default if you only have one installed OS) and click "advanced options". Check if the "Maximum memory" option is checked, and uncheck if so.

For hardware/BIOS problems, you've got several options. I'd suggest getting a live cd with memtest86+ on it - you can boot from this CD and let it run diagnostic tests on your RAM to try and find faulty memory. You might also want to check your motherboard's manual to find out how to reset the BIOS - this is normally done by moving jumpers around. Another thing you can try if you have vacant slots on your board is to move your existing RAM to the currently-unused channels - make sure it's seated correctly, then boot up again and go into the BIOS. If you see the correct amount of RAM showing up now, you may have a dead channel on the board. If not, try moving the individual DIMMs around to see if there's any one component that's not registering.

ride the spiral

I just checked i have 1024MB... not KB... so would that still be a bios problem?

My bios version is : V1.40

Also i'm using a toshiba satalite laptop. so playing around with the mother board may be a problem.

For the partition it just might be you have to tell the OS to initiate it online.

To see if it's there first, go to,

Start > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Disk Management.

Is it showing up?

Regarding RAM, it might be just a case of taking them out and replacing them.
Google your Computer model and inserting RAM for visual instructions.

Fysh

ride the spiral wrote: »

I just checked i have 1024MB... not KB... so would that still be a bios problem?

My bios version is : V1.40

Also i'm using a toshiba satalite laptop. so playing around with the mother board may be a problem.

D'oh! Goes to show that my eschewing a morning coffee before 11am does have an effect I meant MB, not KB. And if your BIOS is only showing 1024MB, it's a hardware/BIOS issue.

Being a laptop, it's worth taking a slightly different approach. First things first - what model Satellite is it?

With the full model name we can probably get the manual from Toshiba's website. That'll tell us if there are any known issues, but also let us find out a couple of extra things:

• What the current BIOS revision is, and whether there are any fixes for memory detection in the current version
• how to reset the BIOS if necessary
• where the memory modules are fitted

The last point in particular is worth checking, as it may just be that one of your SO-DIMMs needs to be re-seated.

ride the spiral

I have taken my RAM out and put it back in... and i switched them around, I have 2 1gig RAM cards. hasn't made any difference.
Any other suggestions?

Thanks,
Andy.

ride the spiral

haha ok cool :P

The model is:
Toshiba Satellite A21511p

How would i go about getting that BIOS info?

Fysh

ride the spiral wrote: »

I have taken my RAM out and put it back in... and i switched them around, I have 2 1gig RAM cards. hasn't made any difference.
Any other suggestions?

Thanks,
Andy.

Try them one at a time (ie one inserted, one removed) and see if you can find which one isn't working. Once you've identified it, try it in the other channel to see if it makes a difference.

It's still worth checking whether there's a more recent BIOS revision for your laptop as well, as there's an admittedly small chance that the issue may be resolved by a BIOS update.

The most likely cause of fault at this point would appear to be a faulty SO-DIMM, though. Which is at least cheap - you should be able to replace it for ~€20-30 or so if necessary. Obviously if it's still in warranty get Toshiba to replace it for you.

ride the spiral

Im guessing i'll have to shut down and try each ram card before starting up again yes?

Blazer

`First off...why are you using 64bit when you only have 2gb of ram?
Are you planning to put more ram in?

As for partitions you just simply go into Admin tools\disk management and right click on your partition and select import.

ride the spiral

Ok awesome news!
The first time I shut down to test the RAM cards, it came up with that update thing before shutting down. There were 32 updates. after that I tested the cards of ram and now I have my 2 gigs back not sure how they are back but im happy

Thanks Fysh for all the help.

So now that i'm running a 64bit OS I can set up to 4 gigs of RAM right?... would making a gig or two partition be of any use for that?

Fysh

ride the spiral wrote: »

Ok awesome news!
The first time I shut down to test the RAM cards, it came up with that update thing before shutting down. There were 32 updates. after that I tested the cards of ram and now I have my 2 gigs back not sure how they are back but im happy

Thanks Fysh for all the help.

Glad to hear it's working correctly now

ride the spiral wrote: »

So now that i'm running a 64bit OS I can set up to 4 gigs of RAM right?... would making a gig or two partition be of any use for that?

You'll get a minor performance improvement from running a 64-bit OS compared to the equivalent 32-bit OS. However, the main reason 64-bit OS are a good idea is that they let you address amounts of memory greater than 4G out of the box.

The service manual for the A210-11P (the closest thing I can find on Toshiba's site to the model you posted earlier) says that 4GB is the maximum memory for this model. It's still well worth upgrading (especially given the relatively cheap cost of 2GB SO-DIMMs these days), but you won't necessarily see a huge performance boost over a 32-bit Windows install.

You won't need to mess around with any kind of partitioning to do this, though.

ride the spiral

I see, Yeah for some reason I could never find this model on the toshiba site... quite odd...

Anyway, I use my laptop for personal use and a part of a home studio recording setup... so with recording software I'd say it would be a good idea to get some extra ram to keep up with the programs.
I'm sure you can get 2gig ram cards right? Probabily a silly question but I really don't have much experience in this stuff. :P