blue screen of death. desperate for help.

condra

Hello.

I am writing this message on a windows 98 celeron machine because my 3 week old dell laptop is currently funked.

I was downloading some updates for a game when suddenly everything froze and it became unresponsive. With nothing else to do I force rebooted it with the power button [ctrl lt del not working either] . . then i get a blue screen saying "windows did not start successfully" ..

I am given options to start in safe mode, normal mode or last good configuration..all of these giving me a blue screen which reads:

"A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer. UNBOOTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME"


This has me extremely upset as I had hundreds of hours of music and design work on it and Im worried they might be lost forever. Also websites tha I have to update and a big website Ive been freelancin for a client for months. Im also used to being able to fix most problems with computers but this seems beyond me. Im a 25 year old man and I swear to god I feel like I could cry!
I dont have any sort of boot disk with the laptop. To make matters more complicated it was a present from my brother and Im not sure about warrenty etc, and I dont want to seem like Im moaning to him.. afterall he did buy me a laptop. Im sure it has a 1 tear warrenty or whatever but Id really love to be able to fix this myself.

Apart from getting dell to replace or fix it which will no doubt take a week at least, is there anything I can do? I wouldnt mind losing my hundreds of hours of work to reinstall windows but it seems impossible ...Any help would be greatly appreciated..

TIA
womoma

Sully

womoma wrote:

Hello.

I am writing this message on a windows 98 celeron machine because my 3 week old dell laptop is currently funked.

I was downloading some updates for a game when suddenly everything froze and it became unresponsive. With nothing else to do I force rebooted it with the power button [ctrl lt del not working either] . . then i get a blue screen saying "windows did not start successfully" ..

I am given options to start in safe mode, normal mode or last good configuration..all of these giving me a blue screen which reads:

"A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer. UNBOOTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME"


This has me extremely upset as I had hundreds of hours of music and design work on it and Im worried they might be lost forever. Also websites tha I have to update and a big website Ive been freelancin for a client for months. Im also used to being able to fix most problems with computers but this seems beyond me. Im a 25 year old man and I swear to god I feel like I could cry!
I dont have any sort of boot disk with the laptop. To make matters more complicated it was a present from my brother and Im not sure about warrenty etc, and I dont want to seem like Im moaning to him.. afterall he did buy me a laptop. Im sure it has a 1 tear warrenty or whatever but Id really love to be able to fix this myself.

Apart from getting dell to replace or fix it which will no doubt take a week at least, is there anything I can do? I wouldnt mind losing my hundreds of hours of work to reinstall windows but it seems impossible ...Any help would be greatly appreciated..

TIA
womoma

Im sorry to hear that your having problems The first thing I would suggest is contacting those who you bought the computer from and ask to have it fixed. If that fails, well I (and others who can assist) will do our best to help you resolve the problem yourself. Its a great learning experience

Get back to me and tell me if you want to fix it by yourself - ill go see what I can find (I dont know how to fix the problem off hand).

- Sully

Creamy Goodness

i'm not this but isn't there a boot from cd linux version that you could use to then back up important doc's and then format?

don't take my word for it wait for someone else to reply

secret_squirrel

Think Cremo is talking about Knoppix. A Linux distro that can run entirely from a bootable cd. It will atleast let you see if your HD is intact and let you get at your date. (Im assuming it has a NTFS driver)

Alternatively - dont dell's have a hidden recovery partition or am I thinking of HP/Compaq?

kaimera

knoppix.

Sully

I really think it should be sent to dell, cause this could occur again and also there is a high risk of data loss if its done manually without Dell Support..

- Sully

condra

with my old computer [packard bell] i just had to boot up with the red floppy disk, and it would reinstall windows. This I had to do twice only but it was so easily done.
Im a bit pissed that I wasnt supplied a boot disk of some sort. I was hoping somebody would say something like "oh with dell laptops you just hold down f12 when booting up to reinstall windows" ..

Can anyone tell me why this might have happened? The updates I was downloading were seemingly installing themselves as they downloaded [updates for mu-online]
Also can anyone tell me is it possible that my harddrive has actually been damaged?.
I would have previously tought that safe mode was impossible to not work! Anyways Ill keep yall posted.

Its a great learning experience

God i wish I was as optimistic as you!

What Ive learned is the following:
1]
Just because its a Dell doesnt make it bullet proof.

2]
I am addicted to computer/internet use. After frantic attempts to sort out my laptop failed, I was so relieved that I had this old machine in the spare room and let a large breath out when I heard the old dial-up modem going " beep beep beep wannnngggg" ... my second oxygen retapped and equally as important- the knowledge, the comfort of knowing that once more, I can go online at the click of a button.

3]
17" screens are oooge.. I forgot how big they are, my mouse arm hurts.

4]
Back up often. It doesnt mean backing up everything, but those few rare songs you love and that artwork you made for the website which you know you wouldnt be able to recreate.

So as you can see Ive not learned anything but what a loser I am hehe. Seriously though, computer problems can be more than frustrating, they can be emotionally upsetting. Im stll trying not to think about all the work Ive probably lost.

I think Im getting an ulcer.

ressem

Dell will not recover data for you. They'll just format and reinstall.

Windows is trying to boot so your hard drive is not dead. Parts might be corrupt but large blocks are going to be recoverable (only advantage of FAT), even if the file table is corrupt.

So:
Easiest
you can get a knoppix CD, download and burned from the net. This will automatically detect your drive, if the partition is in a decent state, and let you copy files to a USB key/drive or over a network, send by mail to a gmail account, whatever suits. You don't need linux experience, it looks close to win98, with start button.

If a friend has a Dell laptop with an external HDD -edit Sorry meant modular drive /edit-, then they can swap the 2.5 drive contained within with your drive and make a copy of all data to cd /dvd.

You can get 2.5 to 3.5 in IDE converters to plug your drive into a desktop.

Even If the partition is toast, programs like rtools can still pick out files, from the remaining directory clusters.

Once that is done you can look to restore windows over the existing install.
Ideally you will do a full scan using tools downloaded from the drive manufacturer, that does a low level check of all clusters. This determines whether the drive needs to go back to Dell.

-edit: read OP again: new laptop almost certainly NTFS, but arguments still hold. Means that you probably can't use knoppix to repair corrupt files though ~

Since you didn't get a reinstall CD then this
http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/kb/en/document?dn=1090151

Probably applies to reinstall XP+ drivers.
Note that it restores your PC drive to factory condition, removing all saved docs etc.

Creamy Goodness

just to reitterate my brother stupidily sent away his laptop once to dell (even after me telling him to back up his data) to fix a faulty modem and what happened?...

the laptop came back like when he first bought it.

all dell do as said above is FORMAT AND REINSTALL WINDOWS

Chalk

have to agree with cremo on this one, give it to dell as a last resort.

they MUST have given you some media with it.
if you bought it in the last 6 months this generally means an xp home/pro cd
these are bootable discs and can format and install windows,
so youll be down an hour or two rather than a week.

get an ext 2.5 hdd enclosure [28 euro from komplett]
and check the disc from a bootable windows
youll get your data back and can then reformat

if dell didnt give you media, call them immediately as that has been there policy for a while now.

ressem

No as the link stated, windows install image is on the HDD in a hidden partition.
You hold Ctrl then F11 and you are given the option of wiping the HDD back to scratch.

So MS/Dell think this is good enough, and screw the linuxers / reinstallers out there. Another reason to avoid the distrusting "&*"£"s.

condra

ressem I could kiss you!!!
The irony that dells reinstall windows advice is online!

As I speak it is reinstalling windows!!!! Lets hope it works...edit..it worked...

Im not gonna go down the route of trying to get the files I lost. Ive a fair idea what songs I need and I have broadband.

It just means taking another 3 weeks to install and streamline my whole F*&2ing system. and install:

Broadband cd, printer, camera.
winzip, limewire, sonar, photoshop, illustrator, macromedia, flashget, a million fonts, yahoo messenger, file shredder, and probaly plenty i forgot to mention.. stupid computers..


But thankfully I have my laptop back in action and dont have to be crappy to my brother. I would have felt so bad asking him to take it back to dell.

thanks so much. better remember that... ctrl and f11 . . .

I think it happened because I was playing a game whilst installing the other games updates.. but the game that i was playing is what crashed.- and it had crashed before. So I think thats the last I will be having anything to do with Mu online or Conquer online..

condra

what an interesting post. within 3 hours i managed to fcuk up my new laptop, almost have a nervous breakdown, hook up a dusty old celeron to the internet to seek advice, reinstall windows on the laptop and here I am back online with my laptop and broadband and as I type downloading my preferred browser Avant, P2p limewire and download manager Flashget..

what a life.
Im gonna get myself a dongle
edit- Im gonna get myself a beer

Fionn

well done.......what a horror story that could have turned out to be!!!

it's a warning to everyone that has work or stuff etc. (that took time create or whatever) to back up regular,
then when the crash comes (and it will ) we'll be ready!!!
data recovery is nearly always a hit and miss affair! at least with regular backups things like tears and lots of crying can be minimised!!

Nukem

womoma wrote:

Im gonna get myself a beer

Ah !!!!!!
All is well so....................................some night for ya. glad you sorted it.