Ok... I'm fixing my friend's laptop. He has a TON of personal stuff on there that he cannot lose, including a book he is writing as well as his clients mortgage information, so some pretty serious stuff.

The problem is, it won't boot to windows... at all. I tried to do go to the repair windows console, and do a fixboot, but with no luck. It won't even boot in safe mode. It gets through half the list, when loading the drivers, then you get a quick flash of the blue screen of death, then restarts.

So my question is (which I think this might be the only way to fix this), if I install windows, without reformatting the hard drive, will his personal files still be on the computer? I'm guessing that if they're in "my documents" they will be erased... is this true?? I don't want to lose any of his info...

If someone could help me out, that would be awesome!! Thanks in advance fellas!!

Quote: Originally Posted by kornmart Ok... I'm fixing my friend's laptop. He has a TON of personal stuff on there that he cannot lose, including a book he is writing as well as his clients mortgage information, so some pretty serious stuff. The problem is, it won't boot to windows... at all. I tried to do go to the repair windows console, and do a fixboot, but with no luck. It won't even boot in safe mode. It gets through half the list, when loading the drivers, then you get a quick flash of the blue screen of death, then restarts. So my question is (which I think this might be the only way to fix this), if I install windows, without reformatting the hard drive, will his personal files still be on the computer? I'm guessing that if they're in "my documents" they will be erased... is this true?? I don't want to lose any of his info... If someone could help me out, that would be awesome!! Thanks in advance fellas!!

If the data is that sensative, you can pick up a laptop HDD to standard IDE converter for like 10 bucks, plug it up to a desktop computer that works, transfer the files off and just reload the freakin' thing without the fear.

is that something that a Best Buy or Radio Shack or CompUSA would carry? Or is that a little too "specialty item" for them?

Very few retail outlets will carry something like that.

Best bet, make sure you know exactly which one you need, not all Laptop IDE interfaces are the same.

Then go to www.tigerdirect.com and order it.

Although there are other ways to save his data, this is the best way. Get the data off, then find and fix the problem.

BTW, his problem may have nothing at all to do with the software loaded on the system. But getting it safe stored will not hurt and is a smart thing to do anyway. The fact that he doesn't already have it backed up tells us that he needs to learn this important lesson.

looks like this is the only one they have...

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...4974&CatId=412

There COULD be another way, but the trick is, it requires you to have some gear on hand already. If you have to buy anything, just buy that adaptor. Get one anyway if you got the cash, I think I will, they look handy.

The other trick would be to use a cd-rom boot if he has that ability, but to boot a cdrom with an OS that has USB support and will let you run the OS from the cd. You can pull this off with linux and some versions of windows. Then attach a USB hard drive or dvd/cd writer and save his data that way.

EDIT: Duh moment there... you could also check if his BIOS supports bootable USB devices, some do. If it does, you can turn that option on and put it first in boot sequence and just use a bootable usb hdd or even memory key and use the same to copy the important files back off.

There is also a small bootable OS called Tom's Root Boot. It's a bare minimum OS on a floppy.

It allows you to boot from the floppy so you can access the HD seperately.

Everything about the OS, applications, etc is in a file somewhere on that drive. If the problem is software based, then it's possible to fix it up that way, but you gota know what your doing and we can't easily teach you over the net.

Truth is, my gut tells me that if it won't boot to safe mode, you have a real issue and it may be hardware and not software at all. Windows is actually a lot more robust then people often claim. But it still pisses everyone off.

Puppy Linux could also work, it can be set up to boot from a 64 MB USB key, and could be set to handle NTFS and other formats. So if the fiels he needed were less than 64 MB, you could pull it off with a 128 MB memory key.

Kornmart, If you have experience in DOS you could:

A) Try to get your hands on an external ZIP drive and use the DOS Software.
B) Connect the laptop to another computer via COM or Parallel port and use LapLink Pro. LapLink doesnÂ’tÂ’ sell it anymore, but I have a copy that I used back in the 1990Â’s for transferring data (I donÂ’t think it will be a piracy/sharing issue). It fits on a floppy.
C) Purchase a downloadable copy of LapLink V for DOS for $49.95 here : http://www.laplink.com/products/LLV/overview.asp

If youÂ’re interested in option B, PM me. Either way, I hope some of this helps.

EDIT - It does depend on the file system.

Ok, you can easily do a repair install on Windows XP without losing anything. But first off, if you are worried and you know how to use Linux at all, you can pop a hard drive into the computer, boot into a CD bootable linux distro called Knoppix and backup the information. But trust me, as I do this all the time where I work:

1.) Boot into a Windows XP cd.

2.) Choose the option to install Windows XP (Not the recovery console)

3.) Press F8 at the agreement screen and wait for it to find a copy of Windows on the hard drive. It should and if it does, it will give you the option to repair the installation by pressing 'R'. Do so and it'll look like the normal installation is running.

This simply copies over the original system files, so not only will your My Documents info still be there, so will all of your other files. AND your settings will remain the same (For the most part).

Another option to try before this is 'fixmbr' from the recovery console, but saying as it at least tries to boot into Safe Mode, it's probably not the master boot record giving you any problems. Good luck!

Quote: Originally Posted by lcpiper Very few retail outlets will carry something like that..

it's a standard carry item at COMPUSA with their pc parts (in the fans, cables, heatsinks, thermal grease area)..

Download this. Boot to that, its a GUI, has a burning program or networking, whichever route you wanna go, everything, copy the files off, format, reinstall.

Quote: Originally Posted by Hgoale 1.) Boot into a Windows XP cd. 2.) Choose the option to install Windows XP (Not the recovery console) 3.) Press F8 at the agreement screen and wait for it to find a copy of Windows on the hard drive. It should and if it does, it will give you the option to repair the installation by pressing 'R'. Do so and it'll look like the normal installation is running. This simply copies over the original system files, so not only will your My Documents info still be there, so will all of your other files. AND your settings will remain the same (For the most part). Another option to try before this is 'fixmbr' from the recovery console, but saying as it at least tries to boot into Safe Mode, it's probably not the master boot record giving you any problems. Good luck!

I've tried doing the recovery console, but it just leads me to a DOS prompt... am I supped to type something in to get it to start installing the OS?? I've tried FIXBOOT and all the other things that people have suggested, but with no luck. Thanks for all the suggestions, and keep 'em comin pimps!!

well.... after examining the laptop a little further, it DOES NOT have a stinkin burner... so that software idea is a no go...

You will not lose anything in the My Documents folder if you reinstall over an existing install.
You may, however, lose most functionality of installed programs (requiring reinstalling them as well, and your IE favorites folder and stuff like that. My Documents folder will be safe though.

Quote: Originally Posted by godfoot You will not lose anything in the My Documents folder if you reinstall over an existing install. You may, however, lose most functionality of installed programs (requiring reinstalling them as well, and your IE favorites folder and stuff like that. My Documents folder will be safe though.

That's ok if the programs are messed up, I just need to be 100% positive that I WILL NOT lose anything in my documents or possibly on the desktop. Only because, once windows is installed, I can then backup everything, then reformat and do a clean install.

Not sure about the desktop, but the My Documents folder will be safe, I have done a re-install this way in the past myself.

well, I ordered the hard drive converter... I'm going to do this the best way that you guys suggested and this seems to be the safest to make the sure data is protected. I just want to be 100% sure I don't lose anything... thanks pimps!!

ok, so I got the cable converter in, and it works like a charm... only problem is, my computer doesn't recognize the drive. my concern is... the computer that the hard drive was in, was running Win XP home, and I have WinXP Pro... so maybe drive partitioning might be different so I wouldn't be able to read it?

Attached is the error I get when I try to open the drive.

Any suggestions??

Attached Thumbnails

 

Nope, shouldn't be a formatting issue. I've got XP Pro, and I've read laptop drives from XP Home down to Win95, somthing else is the issue. Can you do a scandisk on the drive w/your current setup? Alternately, what file system does your system show the hd as having? If it says anything other than Fat32 or NTFS, he might be out of luck.

Another thought that is slightly more expensive, but incredibly useful is to pick up one of those external 2.5 inch laptop drives that connect via usb or firewire. Pull out the questionable drive, put it in the container, and it works just like a massively oversized flash drive. No partitioning issue, no formatting issue, and if push comes to shove, you can (or at least I've been able to) ghost the defective drive so if something does happen, you can have several shots at it. I picked up mine at my local computer shop for around $35, and then I put in a 60 gb laptop drive, and keep all my software tools on it. It's fairly easy to pull the drive out and put another one in for testing purposes.