some laptop help would be awesome

[rubbersidedown]

My daughter came to me today with her laptop.Its a Dell,13 months old(warranty gone) It just wont load windows(Vista). All you get is the green bars going by for hours. Wont load in safe mode.Tried that vista feature where it is supposed to fix itself,just cycled on for hours with "no joy".
Some of you folks that know me...know that this thing is not far from getting a re-boot from my size 11's.
Dont care if I have to buy a new one,but alas,my girl never backed up her pictures,music,emails,etc.
Any help and advice would warrant a big ol' RSD thank you.

Thanks men,ladies. Da Rubb.

[BA BUSA]

Turn the power button to the "on" position

[headrash]

Sorry to hera that. If you don't have a warrenty, call geek squad. Might cost you $100 or so but better than buying a new laptop and loosing your files!

[BA BUSA]

Well ok, I guess ya got that far...hmmm

[BA BUSA]

Sorry to hera that. If you don't have a warrenty, call geek squad. Might cost you $100 or so but better than buying a new laptop and loosing your files!

He's in ye ole Canada

[rubbersidedown]

Turn the power button to the "on" position

Oh good...yer still a funny bastid.

[jdsbusa]

Try safe mode - F8 while it boots, keep pushing it. You should get a menu that asks which mode. From there see if you can access the recovery, if that doesn't work you may need to take it to someone nearby that can copy the files off the drive by slaving it to another computer or using another copying device.

[BA BUSA]

Oh good...yer still a funny bastid.

Careful what spews from your fingers...we have around here

[rubbersidedown]

He's in ye ole Canada

We have that type of service,the guy lives in an igloo,but apparantly is pretty good.

I may have to go that route,my lil girl would be crushed to lose all her krap.Dont worry,the BACK-UP EVERYTHING lecture has already taken place.

Rubb.

[Strife]

Can take the hard drive out of it and plug it into another pc and extract the pics etc... Then reformat it. put it back in the Laptop and reinstall "Windows 7" <<<< yes I said 7. dump Vista. It's been for most part nothing but problems.

[headrash]

He's in ye ole Canada

Sorry to hear that! Chuck that sucker out the window!

[rubbersidedown]

Try safe mode - F8 while it boots, keep pushing it. You should get a menu that asks which mode. From there see if you can access the recovery, if that doesn't work you may need to take it to someone nearby that can copy the files off the drive by slaving it to another computer or using another copying device.

Breaks me heart to have to take anything to anybody,cars,bikes,home reno's,computers...I fancy myself pretty good with a hammer.

The F8 takes me to the menu fine,then I select safe mode,and watch little green bars go by for ever.....


RSD.

[rubbersidedown]

Can take the hard drive out of it and plug it into another pc and extract the pics etc... Then reformat it. put it back in the Laptop and reinstall "Windows 7" <<<< yes I said 7. dump Vista. It's been for most part nothing but problems.

That good thinkin. Will I have a hard time with the drive in another PC (with 2 opperating systems?)

[Puggle]

My daughter came to me today with her laptop.Its a Dell,13 months old(warranty gone) It just wont load windows(Vista). All you get is the green bars going by for hours. Wont load in safe mode.Tried that vista feature where it is supposed to fix itself,just cycled on for hours with "no joy".
Some of you folks that know me...know that this thing is not far from getting a re-boot from my size 11's.
Dont care if I have to buy a new one,but alas,my girl never backed up her pictures,music,emails,etc.
Any help and advice would warrant a big ol' RSD thank you.

Thanks men,ladies. Da Rubb.

Far out, I'd do this for free for you. Yes I'm a computer geek.

Because you are so far away, the best thing is to take it to a local geek shop, I mean computer store. Or call geek squad or similar. What they will most likely do is hook up your laptop's 2.5: hard drive into another and extract everything. I would simply load a bootable CD with file browsing and USB support (like Norton Ghost Bootable CD) and drag and drop everything onto a USB.

Please keep this in mind before you reformat. The data is not lost! Get that data out before you give up and reformat the hard drive. It would be so sad to lose such things forever (pics etc).

RE: Windows 7. Good advice. The corporate IT departments here in Sydney I've worked in are still using XP on workstations. They will be shortly going to Windows 7 after SP1, skipping Vista all together. I run 7 on 2 desktops and a laptop. It's what Vista should have been - excellent. I mean Pretty is fine, but pretty AND stable AND fast? You got me at 'hello'.

[jdsbusa]

That good thinkin. Will I have a hard time with the drive in another PC (with 2 opperating systems?)

The problem you're likely to run into is not having the tools to do the job. You can't just pull a laptop HD out and put it into a desktop, they use different ports. I'm not sure about SATA though, never torn my laptop apart but I've had plenty of experience with rebuilding older laptops before serial connections came into the market. You could probably get a shop to do a complete backup of the files for $40-50. Check with a ma and pa style PC place, someone you can maybe watch them do the work to make sure everything that needs to be transferred gets done. It sucks having to pay money but if she has files on their that are priceless a few bucks is well worth paying to get those files.

IF you are able and understand what to do with slaving the drive, no you won't have any problems because only one hard drive runs an operating system to boot the PC. The slaved hard drive simply acts as a read/write device in that you can see the files, move them around, copy them, etc. You won't be touching the operating system of a slaved hard drive. It's likely your windows boot registery is corrupted from the sounds of things. Bill Gates strikes again!

[jdsbusa]

Far out, I'd do this for free for you. Yes I'm a computer geek.

Because you are so far away, the best thing is to take it to a local geek shop, I mean computer store. Or call geek squad or similar. What they will most likely do is hook up your laptop's 2.5: hard drive into another and extract everything. I would simply load a bootable CD with file browsing and USB support (like Norton Ghost Bootable CD) and drag and drop everything onto a USB.

Please keep this in mind before you reformat. The data is not lost! Get that data out before you give up and reformat the hard drive. It would be so sad to lose such things forever (pics etc).

RE: Windows 7. Good advice. The corporate IT departments here in Sydney I've worked in are still using XP on workstations. They will be shortly going to Windows 7 after SP1, skipping Vista all together. I run 7 on 2 desktops and a laptop. It's what Vista should have been - excellent. I mean Pretty is fine, but pretty AND stable AND fast? You got me at 'hello'.

Linux still owns all their bases. Faster, FAR more stable, pretty as you want to make it. Too bad the support for Linux still isn't where it needs to be for the general public - darn you Bill Gates and your mid-90's free copies of Windows!

I bet deep down inside if Puggle's is as much a computer geek as he claims to be he has Linux on a computer somewhere within his reach. (I know I do! RedHat - WOOT WOOT!!)

[Puggle]

That good thinkin. Will I have a hard time with the drive in another PC (with 2 opperating systems?)

No you will not, and if you do it will be minor. As long as you're in a clean, alternate system that boots well, it will just boot with your dodgy drive attached.

If you get boot problems when you get it all going, then you're definitely going to need someone like myself but in Canada, to sort it out for you.

Also you could ship your drive to someone willing to do it for you, maybe an org member who speaks computer and lives in the US? Blanca just sent cookies to me in Australia and the postage was $40 each way!!!!!!

[Puggle]

Linux still owns all their bases. Faster, FAR more stable, pretty as you want to make it. Too bad the support for Linux still isn't where it needs to be for the general public - darn you Bill Gates and your mid-90's free copies of Windows!

I bet deep down inside if Puggle's is as much a computer geek as he claims to be he has Linux on a computer somewhere within his reach. (I know I do! RedHat - WOOT WOOT!!)

I agree with jdsbusa's diagnosis of your boot.ini registry etc.

As for linux, duh! I am jds however a geek corrupted by the corporate and consumer palace of spending, so 100% (all) my work in business, friends, etc is microsft based. Keeps me firmly trapped in the microsoft world....

[Mr Brown]

This is the.oRg that I know and love. 14 replies in less than 30 minutes. We need to remember THIS is what it's all about.
Andy (RSD) and I have had several knock down drag out cyber fights on this board, yet we have always hashed out our differences, and helped each other when we could. My favorite shirt was a gift from him.
Lets get back to how it was. Not blaming anything on anyone, but things are done differently on this board than some of you are used to. It's Caps house and we play by HIS rules. Don't like it? Not fair? easily solved: don't come back. Think of it like your parents house. You don't have to like or agree with the rules, just obey them. You're always welcome at their house, all you gotta do is respect the fact that it's their house.

[Blanca BusaLess]

Hey since when do the Admins allow folks to type here in foreign languages ?
All that jibberish, gotta be sum cussin in there some where.....

I was gonna put my $.02 in but since Puggle just gave you a million I'll eat his cookies..
He knows way more than anyone I know about comps. Durn I'm still trying to figure out what he said.

I have a Dell laptop that seems to have a brain of its own.
When I have a prob with it I call the Dell on call line.
1-866-507-3355
Then some guy in the Philipines or even maybe a guy named Puggle in Australia tells me to type in the F8 key rapidly and a couple other things.
In about 30 seconds he has control of my computer literally and does his magic. You can see your cursor being controlled by him, weird ?
It costs but they have done things for me that I still cannot explain ? All data saved.