I need some serious help with my comuter.

[MilesPrower]

I don't know why I'm posting this here, but I just feel like it. Maybe someone can help. It's just one of the many places I'm gonna drop a note off to to see what advice I can get.

Here's a message in an email I sent to Microsoft about my problem; it'll save me alot of time by just copy/pasting and adding more details at the end.

Hi. I need help with my computer. My computer is a HP Pavilion a210n Windows XP Home Edition. I got it back in August 2003.


It will not start. I can turn it on but it gives me a message that Windows did not start correctly, and gave this exact screen/message:





We apologize for the inconvienience, but Windows did not start successfully. A recent hardware or software change might have caused this.

If your computer stopped responding, restarted unexpectedly, or wasautomatically shut down to protect your files and folders, choose Last Known Good Configuration to revert to the most recent settings that worked.

If a previous startup attempt was interrupted due to a power failure or because the Power or Reset button was pressed, or if you aren't sure what caused the problem, choose Start Windows Normally.



Safe Mode
Safe Mode with Networking
Safe Mode with Command Prompt

Last Known Good Configuration

Start Windows Normally



Use the up and down arrow keys to move the highlight to your choice.
Seconds until Windows starts: XX





(The XX's are the time limit, I think it starts from 25 and goes down to 0, but that information isn't really needed)

However, I've tried using all 4 options, and the same thing happens:
It gets to the black Windows XP screen with the blue/purple load bar on the bottom, and eventually it disappears like normal, leaving a blank screen for about 5 seconds or so. But instead of going to the usual "Windows is starting up, my computer makes a weird click noise and restarts, and it makes a weird sound coming from the floppy drive area (if that helps any).


The only thing I haven't tried is the F1 Setup and F10 System Recovery on the HP screen that appears when I first turn it on.

I went to the Microsoft website to look some things up, but I thought it might be best if I ask someone about this problem beforehand. I'm terribly afraid that I am going to lose all my files. As I mentioned before, I've had this computer for a long time, and it has lots of files, and thousands upon thousands of my own photographs. I do have some of those photographs backed up on disks, but that was probably this time last year when I done that because I got a new digital camera, and I started sorting the images myself instead of using a program to do so. So there's a year of very good photos on there and lord knows what else that would really hurt if it was lost forever, but that's how things go if they do go down that road.


Now, what happened the night before this? I think I know what the problem is..

My computer has been trying to recieve updates from Microsoft. But I have dial-up, I can't get DSL where I live, and it can take a while to get them. That's not the problem. I can wait patiently for that stuff. The problem is that my antivirus cuts the download off because of it's own updates it recieves, and sometimes a "Updates from HP" will even appear and cut things off.

What I'm getting at is sometimes the updates from Microsoft will get to like 12% and stop. I can disconnect and reconnect, and it won 't get anymore percentage.
Later, I can't get my computer to Hibernate, and it will not turn off. It will just freeze and not respond at all. So I have to manually turn it off by unplugging it, which is not the best thing to do, but you have to when you can't do anything else...

Well, the night before my computer screwed up, it had gotten to 40%.
I'm thinking it created an error in Windows, but I'm not sure, and I don't know how to fix it (which is why I'm asking).

I'm just thankful I have my Dad's laptop to send this on, or I would have been in a deep hole.



Thanks for your help, it's greatly appreciated, and I hope I can save my data during all of this.

Wanna know when my computer messed up?
It was on CHRISTMAS DAY. >_>

I got a sore throat the day after, and on New Year's Eve, my Wii's GPU starts to mess up.

I'm afraid of the next holiday......


Anyway, since then, I have videotaped that whole process and posted it on YouTube. What's freaky is this is the first place I'm posting the video and it has 21 views (just from yesterday when I posted it) and already 1 comment from one guy who apparently has this problem too? Oh well.

Here's the video of what I talked about

I forgot if I stated it in the email speech but my friend said I could copy the files off by downloading Ubuntu (700 MB, it quit at 433MB overnight. ****.) and then burning it to a CD and then putting it into my dead PC and then get an external hard drive and then somehow "mounting" my hard drive and then getting the files off.

I feel overwhelmed by that now; I plan just to take it to Best Buy's Geek Squad and getting them to fix it/do the above somehow. But for now, I just want more opinion. Thanks everyone.


edit also if you're wondering I'm using my dad's laptop. Thankfully he has one or I'd be screwed.

 

[Kirby King]

Sounds like a Windows file got corrupted or something. Your files are probably still there, but for your sake I would recommend first backing up the contents of your drive like your friend suggested. You could take it to Geek Squad or something, but I've never used them myself and I don't know that I'd necessarily trust them to not just format your hard drive and call it "fixed". Even if they're competent, they'd probably charge more than they should for something that's actually pretty straightforward to do. If you have trouble downloading Ubuntu, you could try a different Linux Live CD that's not as big, or have a friend download one for you.

After you get your data off, I'd probably just recommend formatting the drive and reinstalling Windows. You could probably use your Windows CD (assuming you have it; OEMs like HP don't always give those out, I guess) and do a repair installation, which would theoretically solve a problem with a corrupt file, but if you're going to reinstall Windows, you might as well clean out any rogue unnecessary crap that (inherently) builds up over time.

 

[CT Chia]

id get a new hard drive and re-do everything from scratch, then you can salvage the files u need from ur old drive

iv had plenty of unrecoverable errors before and unfortunately had to just start fresh

 

[Eight Sage]

As KK said, you have no options but to format your Hard Drive. That's terrible, but it's the only choice.

Now, you'll lose all the data? yes; can you recover the data before formatting? yes too. So your best bet now is to download Ubuntu (asking for it would be faster), and install it. Then you can move your data to a DVD and format the Hard Drive.

that's the only thing you can do now to recover your photos/data I think.

 

[MilesPrower]

Thanks everyone, especially KK, because that seemed to help me understand more about what my friend was talking about.
I certainly have more confidence in myself now; I need to get an external hard drive anyway to back up my Dad's very important company stuff on this here laptop.
Today I looked at the hard drives at Walmart, but I'm gonna wait and see what they have at Staples tomorrow if I can slip in there to check prices and maybe get one. I could always wait to get one for "free" (bestbuy card) but Best Buy is.... a long ways from here.

I told my Mom I was confident that I could do it and told her about the hard drives.


... I don't know if she just wasn't listening or what, but... she said after that that we needed to look in the Yellow Pages for places to go to get it fixed. O_o;

Oh well....

Anyway
I'm surprised at how many people have this same problem and don't know what to do either.

Thanks again and I'll see what I can come up with.

btw Ninja Gaiden rocks.

 

[snoblo]

if 700mb is too much for you to download, Trinity rescue kit is much smaller, or if you want something with a gui you could get any small linux livecd distro.

Good luck!