Re: My PC just broke down.... :(

John wrote: 
Sandman wrote:

No, not the new Dell laptop, but my older gaming desktop PC. I ran a
3D benchmark test and the PC crashed. The PC crashing isn't very odd,
it does that a lot, but now it won't boot!

So, after the BIOS post, in which I see that the HD's S.M.A.R.T
status is ok, it just dies. One out of five times, it makes it to the
"proogress bar" you see *before* the "loading windows XP" progress
bar, i.e. the ugly bar that spans the entire bottom part of the
screen (don't know if this is driven by the BIOS or Windows), but
only manages to load some five or six "ticks" before dying.

So, now what? If it were a Mac, I would have popped in the
installation CD and run Disk Utility on the drive. Running the
installation disk (WXP Pro Corporate SP1 - SP2 is installed) let's me
launch "Windows automatic recovery", which asks for a *FLOPPY* named
Windows Automatic Recovery. I don't have a floppy drive on my PC.
That's absurd.

Once the installation program is loaded, it has an option to recover
a windows installation, and when I choose that, all that happens is
that I am being logged on to the current windows installation in
shell mode. WTF? What am I supposed to do after that?

However, Using this, I -am- able to log in to Windows (albeit only
through a command shell), so I am assuming that the hard drive is
quite fine since I can browse and see files on it. Could it be
something like the master boot record that got screwed up? I don't
know. How do I fix it if it is?

Do I have to go out and actually buy a piece of software to fix my
Windows hard drive - or to even SEE if it's the HD that is at fault?

Sigh.



More than likely some kind of operator error.



.... using a 'corporate' version no less. Basically, he's getting what he 'paid' for.


-Rick
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: My PC just broke down.... :(
    ... The PC crashing isn't very odd, it does that a lot, but now it won't boot! ... launch "Windows automatic recovery", which asks for a *FLOPPY* named ... a windows installation, and when I choose that, all that happens is ... How do I fix it if it is? ...
    (comp.sys.mac.advocacy)
  • Re: My PC just broke down.... :(
    ... >>>Windows Automatic Recovery. ... >>>a windows installation, and when I choose that, all that happens is ... >>>shell mode. ... How do I fix it if it is? ...
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