URGENT startup problem

[WuTang2k2]

I wonder if anyone could help me with this very urgent windows problem.....

I have a problem with Windows ME, i recently had a bad sector on the hard disk so it wouldnt start up, it automaticly did the ScanDisk feature to fix this, but when it finished; the windows desktop did not seem to load! It gets right up to the point where the desktop colour appears, then it just stops!

Does anyone know what to do??

Is it possible to run windows restore without windows loaded?

Any feedback on this would be greatly appreciated, if you know where i could get help with this i would also be pleased.

http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/frown.gif

Also does anyone know how to boot to a command post at start up?

Because somone told me to do this to fix my problem....

boot to a command prompt, go to C:/windows/system/command and in then type in scanreg /restore and choose a date from when it worked. This will restore your registry.

[randyrhoads1981]

Bad sectors is a failing hardrive..Need to take the hardrive out and grab the serial #'s and namebrand and take a look at there website for a replacement..most drives have 3 year warrenttes. Need to save any data now if you get into Windows at all.

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**How TO End Task A FREZZE**
ALT-CTRL-POWER BUTTON

[old_kid]

Hi Wut:

Don't go out to buy a new Hard drive just yet

This problem could be because WINme sucks and it likes to do this kind of thing or....

...All Harddrives come with some bad sectors and are mapped at manufacture. Then When You format your hardrive setting up FAT32 etc - Harddrive is once again mapped and bad clusters marked so your OS knows not to put any data in there. Well sometimes you end up with a bad sector/cluster marked good - go figure - so here you come along doing a simple task and Windows takes some criticle data and places it in what it thinks is a good cluster but turns out to be a bad cluster - There are 3rd party softwares like "spinright" that can fix this But a new harddrive is cheaper - so unless what's on there is really valuable....

pertaining to getting a command prompt F5 or F8 - keep pressing(don't hold down) until you get menu - look for a choice that gives you command prompt - select that mode.

Or try getting into safe mode - when there, click on start-run-then type in "command" to get a DOS window

A couple of other suggestions - if you have the original installation floppy - sometimes there are diagnostics and repair programs to help repair Hard drive without disturbing contents.

Another might be to try a refresh of Windows which may replace whatever is causing the problem - again without disturbing drive contents and system settings

Good luck

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Good Judgement comes from Experience - Experience comes from Bad Judgement - but bad judgement is more fun!!

[randyrhoads1981]

Well i dont have any degrees, but when i start seeing bad sectors im not wasting any time with software "get bys" ..and it will get sent back. Would also like to add that if that computer is under warrentte yet ..call them and demand a hardrive replacement. Sure when you get maybe one bad sector it may be marked bad or good and may get you by, but its eventually going to go and by then your stuck paying 80 bucks for a new one so its your call.

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**How TO End Task A FREZZE**
ALT-CTRL-POWER BUTTON

[WuTang2k2]

Ok then, nothing there to really answer my question...

I dont really care about the hard drive at the moment! How do i get my data back? Let me just make it clear that the problem is windows not the hard drive!

Can i just put it in my other computer and transfer the data that i need over to it.... then put it back in the first computer and then reformat and load the sofware onto it again? Will this work?

[Alejandro]

First i'd try repairing Windows before transfering the HD to another machine. It's not hard to do, but if you can repair Windows you would save a lot of your time.
You have no DOS option in Windows ME (although it IS there) so you should try starting the machine in Safe Mode. If you can start, first run Scandisk with surface scan enabled to make sure the HD is error free (or use Norton Disk Doctor if you have it, it's much better).
Then you can try using system restore.
Another thing you could do is install Win ME over itself, or well, get the HD out and put it on another PC as slave, the copy all to it, reformat, and reinstall.

[mjc]

First, 99.9999999999999% of the time a bad sector is not a software problem. In all likelyhood, the bad sector damaged a system file or two, in that case installing over top might work, but don't count on it. Installing over top sometimes works without a hitch in a situation where no errors are present, but when problems exist, the chances for actually improving things drop dramatically.

Second, depending on where the bad sector is located will determine how much success you will have in retreiving you data. If there is only one and it is not near the beginning of the drive you should have a pretty good chance. If scandisk marked it as bad then there is a chance you can recover.

If the slave option does not work, you may be able to try something like DriveRescue (http://home.arcor.de/christian_grau/rescue/index.html) or some other utility.



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mjc
Computer Links (http://www.dreamwater.org/tech/mjc/index.htm)

Celts are the men that heaven made mad, For all their battles are merry and their songs are all sad.


Please Post Questions in the forums, not my email. Thanks

[MATRIX]

hi my freind had this prob two days ago anyway i went round and tried everything eventually after reformating several times i put the hard drive as slave on my pc and reformated from there put the drive back into his pc and installed win xp pro hey presto it worked hope this helps