Computer experts: HELP!! Yesterday, my computer crashed.

[1monster]

I had all my essential files backed up on a flash drive, but, horror of horrors, it did not work. (It worked fine the last time I put info on it, but looked like maybe it was stepped on in the case since I last used it.)

Question: Is there any way to retrieve the info from the flash drive? If so, how?

Thanks for any advice.

[Arkana]

1. Yes. If you know someone who's good with data recovery and forensics,

they can take an image of the flash drive and see what's contained on it.

Your essential files--are we talking Word documents? Excel spreadsheets?

E: Also, there's the obvious--try the flash drive on another computer first.

[1monster]

9. Word documents, pdf, paint, and several others. Tried it in my son's X-Box.

The case was apart but went back together.

[Make7]

2. Did your hard drive crash, or was it some other issue with your computer?

I have successfully taken the hard drive out of a couple of non-working computers and been able to retrieve most of the data off of them. You might want to enlist the help of someone that you may know that has some knowledge of computer hardware for that if you aren't comfortable trying it.

As far as the flash drive is concerned, does it look like it is just the case that is broken? Perhaps it just isn't seating properly when you insert it. If it is just the case causing issues, you may be able to remove part of the case where it plugs in to to the port in order to get it to make effective contact. Of course if the damage is to the electronics, it may not be salvageable - although if it is, it would definitely take some real expertise.

Good luck, at least you made the effort to back up files which is more than can be said for a lot of people.
 

[1monster]

6. I have an older cat who chose to perch above the outlet where my

surge protector was located. She fell on the cord, knocking it from the wall. My son plugged it back in and the cat, Gatita, fell on it again. Apparently, this happened serval times, with my son plugging the surge protector in each time. He did not remove the perch or tell me about it in a timely manner.

When I turn on the computer, the Windows XP opening screen comes on, it starts loading, then goes to blue screen for an instant and turns off in a restart cycle. When I've had a hard drive crash in the past, the computer displayed nothing. I'm not sure if it is a Windows XP crash or something else.

[Make7]

10. That does sound like it might be a corrupted OS file causing issues.

Which means that the file data you previously backed up is probably still safe and sound on the hard drive. Have you tried the simple stuff, like booting in SAFE mode, etc.? If you can get it to boot in safe mode, you may be able to save your files to another drive before trying to get the computer issue fixed.

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/boot_failsafe.mspx?mfr=true
 

[1monster]

20. I tried safe mode first, reboot to last known good start, and every other option

offered when the failure screen came up.

[Make7]

24. Yikes!

I still think that your data files are probably intact on the hard drive - so even if your flash drive is toast, you should be able to recover the files from your hard drive simply by installing it as a second drive on another computer (I have those USB external hard drive devices for 2.5" and 3.5" disks - which makes it easy).

Sounds like it's time to take the computer to a professional (or a friend who is really good with computers) to get it fixed.
 

[LAGC]

11. It doesn't sound like its a hard drive problem.

Possibly your Windows install got corrupted, that can happen when you repeatedly cut power without shutting down properly. But I'm betting all your files are still there.

Call a computer expert to help you out, he should be able to recover your files.

You may just need to re-install the operating system.

[DearAbby]

13. I dont know if this will work

But what do you have to lose at this point? when it is booting up...press F11, keep pressing it, it is recovery. Follow the instructions if it works. You dont want to fully recover it, you want to go back to the date where it was working fine for you. Try that

[CreekDog]

3. Well, whatever you're doing today seems to be working!

:hide:

[1monster]

7. No, this is a five year old computer I bought second hand for my son to play with...

[tridim]

4. No idea how to fix a flash drive, but I'm going to send you good karma anyway..

Because I need some for my own computer. It has been scaring me for about 6 months now. It always eventually boots and stays on all day, but I think my boot drive is nearing the end of its life. I don't have a cent to spend on a new motherboard and HD right now, so a dead PC is simply not an option.

Good luck with your data recovery. I keep all my data on separate hard drives, so an OS reinstall never results in data loss.

[Arkana]

5. It's shutting off by itself?

Could be a heat issue. Try blowing out the case and seeing if that makes any difference.

[1monster]

8. Yes. By "blowing out" do you mean vacuuming out the dust?

[Arkana]

31. I wouldn't suggest using a vacuum, mostly because static does bad things

to computer innards.

A can of compressed air should do the trick.

[tridim]

26. No, just occasionally upon boot it doesn't find the boot drive.

My PC's innards are immaculate, a result of my DIY nature. I vaccum at least monthly.

[1monster]

15. Thanks for the good thoughts, They might help. (As things are going,

my neighbor told me that his wife told him not to get too close to us because our spate of bad luck (going on a year and a half now) might be catching. :crazy:

[zane25]

Try Linux

If you can download a Linux live CD and see if you can recover your files with that. Here is a link to a rescue disk http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page

Or you can just use Ubuntu.

[1monster]

16. Thanks for the advice. I'm checking that out. What is Ubuntu?

[zane25]

21. Ubuntu is one of the more popular versions of Linux. Mint is another good one.

Most are based off of Debian. Get your self a live CD and install the NTFS conig tool and you should be able to copy your files.

[DainBramaged]

38. Why is that a solution when a person is trying to fix a problem?

You folks are like Fundies, prosthelytize as if everyone is an expert......

[Cronus Protagonist]

12. Do the following

If it's windows...

Insert OS disc in optical drive.
Boot from optical drive
Choose "Repair"
Wait for it to be done.

If it's mac.....
Buy another one, that's the only solution.... lol

[1monster]

17. My computer did not come with a disc. The recovery mode is internal.

[Cronus Protagonist]

19. When it boots up, press ESC or F10 or whatever it tells you to do

for a system recovery. There is a part of your hard drive with the installation files. Be careful, though, as one option will reset the computer back to the way it was when you bought it, and you may not have access to your data.

[DearAbby]

29. I thought it was F11.....nt

[Cronus Protagonist]

30. Depends on the brand of computer

It could be any key or combo of keys.

[Ezlivin]

36. Macs never crash

:)

No, not really. But I can tell you as a Mac user since 1985 they are a lot easier to restore/recover.

If a Mac hard drive crashed, you'd simply reboot with your system CD by holding down the "C" button while the computer boots. Once booted, go to the file utilities and start your work.

If the Mac has a Firewire port you can boot the Mac as if it's an external hard drive. Connect the crashed Mac to another Mac via Firewire. Boot the crashed Mac while holding down the "T" key. This places the crashed Mac into "Target Disk Mode" and can enable you to troubleshoot/repair the hard drive from the other Mac.

[Name removed]

39. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Dappleganger]

40. Quite true.

My mac gets backed up daily via several venues, I never need to worry about a crash (have been a Mac-user since 1999). And it's not hard to repair a disc if it's repairable, there are plenty of tools out there.

People just like to take swipes at things they don't understand to make themselves feel big.

*shrugs*

[Name removed]

42. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Dappleganger]

44. Ah, and you so enjoy attacking us too.

[Name removed]

45. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Dappleganger]

46. Wow, personal attacks too.

Not surprising to say the least.

Have a GREAT day!! :hi:

[DainBramaged]

47. Goodbye

can't take the heat, as I expected. When you folks are confronted, it's always 'oooh he was mean to me' alert the mods, waaahhhhh.

Bullshit.

I clicked the red x, life is simpler now.


Merry Christmas

[Dappleganger]

48. Ha!

Talk about not being able to "take the heat."

I look forward to the silence. :)

[DainBramaged]

49. This has NOTHING to do with the OP, nothing

amazing.

[toddwv]

14. If you're getting a blue screen, that's actually a "good" sign.

By "good" that means your hard drive is at least functioning which increases the likelihood that you can find someone to plug it in and at least retrieve the data for you.

What this usually means is that due to the sudden shutoffs, your Windows XP got toasted. Probably corrupted software hives. This problem is probably fixable if the system made a backup of the system files, most importantly in this case the registries.

Temporarily, you could try booting up with a live cd. This is an OS that is loaded from a cdrom (or dvdrom in some cases) into RAM. It doesn't write anything to the harddrive unless you want it to so once you get moving around in it, you can use it to move your files to some other medium such as a shared drive on another computer, a flashdrive that doesn't look like it's been crushed, a CDr or DVDr or even, depending on the size, email them to yourself. Try Puppy Linux: http://puppylinux.org/main/Overview%20and%20Getting%20Started.htm It is super easy to use, runs well even on older systems, reads ntfs partitions (type of file system that Windows uses) and is only a 127mb download. This will allow you to 1) see if it's a hardware issue, 2) make sure your data is still there. There are other distros that do more but they also require a fair amount of knowledge.

If you don't know how to burn a disc from an iso file, though, you'll have to get someone to help you out.

[1monster]

18. Thank you. That is good news. I'm awaiting a call back from someone I know

who repairs computers. I'll pring out your instructions and give them to him...

[Dappleganger]

41. Great info.

A long time ago I had to use BartPE to rescue our son's PC data and was successful.

[ChoppinBroccoli]

22. If You're Worried About Your Files...........

.............they're likely still there on your hard drive (assuming the hard drive isn't damaged or wiped). I had a computer crash a few years ago and thought I'd lost all the files on my hard drive. When I bought my new computer, I pulled the hard drive out of the old one, bought a $20 cable from MicroCenter that allows you to run a hard drive independently, and found that all the files were still there, ready to be transferred over to my new computer.

[1monster]

25. great! Crossing my fingers.

[saras]

23. Flash drives are *in theory* repairable

But good luck finding someone who can do it - people with fine soldering skills are few and far between these days. If the actual chip hasn't been crushed (unlikely unless they stepped on it with a steamroller or jackhammer), the little copper traces and stuff can be repaired. The most common thing is the connector breaking its connections to the board, probably the easiest repair. You can just cut a USB cable and attach the four wires to the places on the flash drive where the old connector fastens on. Anyone who knows how to solder (and can see) tiny things can do this - your local stained glass worker probably isn't the person to ask.


As others have suggested, though, your data is almost certainly recoverable by putting the hard drive into a different machine as a slave drive. Doesn't matter whether the OS works or not. The only problem there is if you have encrypted the entire hard drive, which is extremely unlikely, and something that you would know if you had done it.

[RegieRocker]

27. Call up Wikileaks and tell them you have top secret information

someone will come and retrieve the data for you.

[1monster]

28. Great idea!!!

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[IDemo]

32. What kind of flash drive - USB thumb drive, SSD?

[darkstar3]

33. DO NOT ALLOW ANYONE ELSE TO TOUCH YOUR COMPUTER.

Sorry for the shouting, but I wanted to get your attention. Since I work in the field, I can tell you that some repair people have little respect for your personal files and you could end up worse off than you are.

Here's the good news: Your files are still on the drive in your computer. You just need to get to them. Go to this website and follow the directions there to back up your personal files to an external or network drive. When you're done with that, it'll be safe for someone to repair your operating system.

Please don't attempt to repair Windows without a backup. You're not screwed yet, but improper repair could make it exponentially harder and more expensive to get your files.

[1monster]

34. Thanks for the warning, but I've known this repair guy since he was in

middle school and he did reparirs for me a few years back on another computer. His son is a friend of my son. I will check out the website above. Thanks.

[HopeHoops]

35. Don't give up on the flash drive until you try it in another computer.

I've found the SD cards used in cameras can be temperamental that way.

[kentuck]

37. If you have Windows..?

Just before the Windows screen comes up at startup, hit F8 and it should give you some options that might help?

[Dappleganger]

43. Just an FYI, flash drives tend to have a high error rate...

of course this is hindsight, but I wouldn't depend only on that for my backup (I use multiple hard drives, Dropbox and a flash drive for small things).