RIP my computer. Puter died, got a new laptop

What actually happened Valerie?
Did the hard drive explode?
Just wondered because often you can get them working temporarily to recover the goodies.
Like freezing it in the fridge then hook up to recover.
I have had great success with "Spinrite" when I 'thought' all was lost.
John

Valerie, are you sure it cannot be fixed. Could it be just a power supply problem? Also, you can use a service to recover data from your hard disk. As a rule, images are almost aways recoverable, but other documents are not.

I have been using laptops exclusively for over 10 years and I have tried many brands. I can tell you that they are nowhere as reliable as desktops. I have never had one laptop that did not need servicing. Therefore you must be even more careful.


Derek

You have my deepest sympathy. I know the feeling all to well. Puter died Jan 2008 sent it everywhere, tried everything to save stuff on it. Of course I didn't have a backup. You'd think I'd learn my lesson. Nope. Got a new one used it for three months - didn't do any back ups - new one had a defective somethingorother. Sure they replaced it but all was lost again.

Enjoy the new one.

I took it to a guy who repairs puters. He said windows was corrupted or something. It just went to a black screen with options like safe mode or resume windows normally. But whatever u press, it goes back to the same black screen. He said the only thing he could do was (something like) reinstall windows but it would erase everything I had on the puter He went ahead and did that. But it was time for an upgrade anyway. Laptops are so much lighter. Desktops are so bulky. I hope nothing happens to this.

I don't know why reformatting is the first thing most people think of. It should
be the choice of last resort. Unless your hard drive WAS the problem you might
still be able to recover your files. I recently purchased a "toaster" for my work
bench. Basically a USB hard drive docking station. I had a bunch of older IDE
hard drives that just couldn't be reformatted or were not worth fooling with. I
recovered a lady's pictures and most of her files. I went through 25 old hard
drives and could recover anything worthwhile off 23 of them without having to
reformat windows, or make any other radical moves. (One had Win 95 on it)

More "Cuteness Of Raccoons" attached

Tom

Oh wow...

Sounds like you maybe didn't tell this guy you wanted your STUFF...

Sometimes Patience is Worth It...

I am saddened for you Val, that you appear to have lost all that you
worked so hard to acquire, and create...

Be Well!
ECS Dave

So Val - did you pass whatever you were in bed with onto your computer? It sounds like it died of a virus.

I know nothing about computer repair. But I was told there was no way to recover my stuff. I def. said I had lots of stuff on there I need. The worst loss was probably all the pictures I had stored on my pc.

But my sites n blogs are fine tho, didn't lose any of that.

Have to get AVG back again.

This laptop is waaaay different. The screen is soooo much wider and everything looks different.

As a computer person it really bothers me to see that the majority of "technicians" don't have a clue.

From what Valerie said:
"I took it to a guy who repairs puters. He said windows was corrupted or something. It just went to a black screen with options like safe mode or resume windows normally. But whatever u press, it goes back to the same black screen. He said the only thing he could do was (something like) reinstall windows but it would erase everything I had on the puter He went ahead and did that. "

I would have checked power supply and/or memory first, both can cause the described situation, Also, could very easily taken the drive out and copied all the info she needed save to dvds for her, thereby saving all her info, (well most, I never promise anyone I can save everything), and then finally could have performed an "over the top" reinstall which replaces your windows without erasing all the data.

Even though to all my friend and neighbors I am "the local computer guy" the best advice I can give is find one you can get to know and trust,because most either don't know what they are doing and/or are just out to get your money.


Like Thom just pointed out, it can seem major but really be something simple.

Isn't a new laptop great?! It's better than buying a new car. (Want to get that new laptop smell? Stick your head in the box and breathe deep...)

Word to the wise, don't take anything to the Geeks at Best Buy. Talk about not knowing their asses from a hole in the ground...high school grads with a computer degree from the night course at the community college is about all they are. They gave me the same advice, Valerie, before I learned better!

Best thing you can do for yourself (anyone here) is learn about your computer! Computers are just hardware, and you can take old parts off and put new parts on and get it up and running again, but only if you know how. So learn! Google or Yahoo searches are invaluable learning tools.

Want to know how your laptop is put together? Do a search of your make and model # followed by the word disassemble. You'll find out how to take your laptop apart! Even youtube videos to show you!

Be sure, if you decide to do it, to always be grounded because static electricity will fry your components. Buy a ground strap at a computer store or take about six feet of 14 or 16 gauge automotive wiring and skin the plastic from about four inches on each end. Then securely tie one bare end to something that is grounded and wrap the other bare end around your pinky finger. That will do the trick and cost less than a buck.

Do you still have your hard drive from your PC, Valerie? If so you may still be able to recover data from it. (Again, whatever you want to know, do a Google or Yahoo search! I just typed 'Recover data from a bad hard drive' and all kinds of things came up.)

Also be careful about warranty replacement of hard drives because they always install the cheapest thing they can find, ie: a remanufactured hard drive, not a brand new one.

I just installed a brand new SATA hard drive in my laptop last week. Cost me $75 for the hard drive at Office Depot and a couple hours to install the OS from the install discs. A shop wanted to charge me $200 to do the same thing.

So learn about your PC or laptop and find out how to do things yourself. It will definitely save you money.

I just came across this site:

Freeze your hard drive to recover data: Myth or reality? - [Geeks are Sexy] technology news

They look at this on that site: Myth or reality, does freezing your hard drive actually help?

The answer: Yes! At least for a little while.

But apparently once it warms up it goes right back to 'bad'.

My question: what if there was a way to keep the hard drive 'frozen' while operating, such as spraying it with freon or something? (Completely ignoring the fact that you might stand a good chance of getting the crap zapped out you...)

I don't know what your skill level is, but there have been ways of successfully getting documents off a computer via a live linux cd when windows is corrupted. Just cause windows has gone to crap doesn't mean mean the pictures for example are gone or can't be accessed.

All the hard drives arent "dead" like some says. Some company can backup the hardrive even if it crashed. It´s not sure they can but maby.