My sister "kicked" the power strip...

S

SuperFrump

Weaksauce
Joined
Feb 20, 2003
Messages
75
and now the computer doesn't work. Great.

When one starts the computer up, it gets up to and cycles through the windows loading screen a couple of times before the screen just goes black.
Then when you restart it tells you you restarted it without shutting down properly (duh) and gives you some options: 3 safe mode options, start normally, and start with the last working settings. The only option that does not give you the blank screen is any 3 safe modes.

Honestly I have no idea what to do. The last thing I want to do is have to re-install windows. So, help me out Hard forums. What should I do?

Motherboard is an Epox EP-8RGA+ if that is any help.
 
Step 1: Unplug power strip.
Step 2: Beat sister with power strip.
Step 3: Dump her body in the river.

...

On a more serious note, have you tried running system restore from safe mode to set it back to an earlier date?
 
some times when the power is interupted it can damage a HD. try putting another HD in your computer with your "broken" HD as a slave drive. then boot up and use something like Norton Disk Doctor to try to repair the "broken" HD if you don't have another HD you might be able to put in your XP disk and repair it through there.

to do that: put disk in drive, set BIOS to boot from CDROM, i think* hit r when it finishes going through it's stuff, then type "CHKDSK /R" (minus quotation marks) in the MS-DOS looking screen. it's not really DOS but it looks just like it. let it do it's thing and try to restart.

Good luck;)
 
sounds more like a resolution issue.

In safe mode. reset the screen resolution to 800x600 and try again to boot into windows.
 
run the windows reinstall, then tell it to repair the installation. You won't lose anything except your windows updates and maybe some drivers, but that's not a big deal.
 
Safe boot it first. Then roll it back if you can. If you can't do that, then make it a slave and try and repair or clone the drive. If you can't even axx the drive as a slave, don't bother trying to repair install it, because it's just gone.

On a sidenote: How old is your sister? Like, a little kid that just ran into it? Or did ya piss her off so she ran over and yanked the thing out? :eek: :rolleyes:
 
My sister is 16. She was using the computer when she hit the powerstrip with her foot (powerstrip is under the desk against the wall). Apparently she didn't unplug anything; perhaps it was a faulty (and old) powerstrip that decided to freak out when she touched it.

Anyway, here's what I tried:

Ran system restore in Safe mode: No luck. Still give blank screen right before logon screen.

Did CHKDSK in safe-mode: Everything went by pretty fast after it was done checking and then the window closed....so...don't know.

Ran CHKDSK in ms-dos outside widows with windows cd twice: First time it said it found one or more errors. Second time it got up to 76%, dropped to 50% and then locked up. (bad sign I suppose)

Tried to use Windows CD to repair windows installation (not CHKDSK). It copied all the setup files correctly (I assume), restarted and gave me the black screen.

Well, it looks like the HD is toast. I'm going to try to format the disk tomorrow and see if I can reinstall windows.

One more thing: I interrogated my sister some more and found out that she probably bumped the power switch on the powerstrip (she said she has done that before). She better watch her back. :mad:


P.S. This isn't my computer we're talking about. It is my mom's/family's computer, so even if the hard drive is fried I don't have to pay for a new one, although I'll have to install it.
 
Power strips are the devil. Well actually, they're better than nothing. If you don't want to invest in a UPS, at least invest in some velcro or wire ties to get the power strip off of the floor. :)
 
I don't know. This might sounds really stupid, but try axx it via slave. It's obvious you can read/write from it, there just seems to be a massive amount of bad sectors where the windows files are. Perhaps by using it as slave, yu can get all the files you need, assuming you didn't put your pr0n in the Windows dir :D . Give it a whirl.

Best of luck.
 
..........and get that powerstrip away from any possible feet. I have mine against the wall on the side of the computer outside the area of "under the desk" or "behind the desk". Dang valley girls, what can you do.;)
 
need the new hard drive next time make sure the power strip is out of the way next upgrade get a nice pcu that does not serge and knock the harddrive.
 
Time to talk the folks into a DVD burner... Awesome for backing up stuff. 4.7GB can handle a drive image of a fresh OS install with all drivers already set up. (30 minutes to reload rather than hours swapping individual driver CDs)

Sounds like the drive is halfway working, try slaving it off the new one and pulling the data off.
 
Originally posted by cdrgns
need the new hard drive next time make sure the power strip is out of the way next upgrade get a nice pcu that does not serge and knock the harddrive.
Click to expand...

pcu?

try formatting your post dude....

and what does "knock the harddrive mean"

ugh
 
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