Calling all you IT gurus.....

[Ghost_2008]

Ok, we have been using my daughters laptop since we moved last year.... Last week we got the dreaded blue screen of death... It's an older dell, running xp. I have tried to repair the system by booting from the cd, but that's not working... My main concern is the stored data on the hard drive... Can this be recovered? Can this be done easily or is it worth giving the laptop to a repair shop?

I'm not bad with computers but once windows has loaded, also I can't run safe mode either...

[Nutter_John]

get yourself a USB to 2.5" thingy and then you can view whats on the disk from your main computer

[Ghost_2008]

Hi John, so if I connect the laptop to the desktop, power up the laptop. Even if windows doesn't start I should be able to view the files on the hard drive?

[Nutter_John]

http://www.scan.co.uk/Shop/Computer-Hardware/All/Hard-Drives-Ext/Enclosure-%2818-25%29-IDE

you need to put the disk in one of these type units

[Turbo_Steve]

Alternatively, if you don't want to weild a screwdriver and have a CD burner in your desktop, download an Ubuntu Live CD and boot the laptop from it.

If it works, you should be able to copy what you want off the disk onto a share on your desktop PC.
This is a much more technical fix, though: Johns suggestion of removing the hard drive from the laptop and mounting it on the desktop is probably simpler.

Be aware, however, that if it's a virus that has caused the damage, you need to be cautious of what is coming from that disk.

[bradc]

I'd suggest the best option is to take it to a pc repair shop that knows what they are doing.

[NevGroom]

I'd suggest the best option is to take it to a pc repair shop that knows what they are doing.

Not half as much fun though/catfight

[Turbo_Steve]

Yeah - but in the UK that's a very expensive proposition, brad.

As in, most people who do that seem to end up buying a new computer!

[bradc]

Surely better than losing data.

[Beastlee]

It's probably just the Windows update that was released last week. There's a fix for it if you have the XP install CD you can repair it, if you don't I'm sure someone you know will have one.


When it goes to the BSOD take a look and se eif you get a set of numbers near the top. If one reads 0x0000007B then follow these steps to repair the issue:

With that in mind, here's the updated solution steps:
1. Boot from your Windows XP CD or DVD and start the recovery console (see this Microsoft article for help with this step)
Once you are in the Repair Screen..
2. Type this command: CHDIR $NtUninstallKB977165$\spuninst
3. Type this command: BATCH spuninst.txt
4. When complete, type this command: exit


IMPORTANT: If you are able to uninstall the patch and get back into Windows, in order to stay protected you can use the following automated solution which secures your PC against the vulnerabilities that are resolved with KB977165 until you can successfully get the update installed without the blue screens.

Please see the link below for the article describing the vulnerability that is fixed with KB977165 and how you can get protected without installing the actual KB update:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/979682

[Nutter_John]

Lee thats all well and good if you know the Admin password , if you don't then you can't use the repair feature

[Beastlee]

John, I agree completely but this is a home laptop and most likely has a blank password. There's always the option to use one of the Linux based password reset CDs if it's unknown.

For info the above relates to a patch that MS released the week before last. In certain configurations is will cause a BSOD with error 0x0000007B. They have since pulled the patch from the Windows Update sources.

[Nutter_John]

Yeah my son;'s system had the issue so i had to rebuild it , sod his data he should have saved it on the server and not his own system :)

[miller]

Lee thats all well and good if you know the Admin password , if you don't then you can't use the repair feature


cough cough

[Ghost_2008]

Superb info guys.... I have tried to remove the patch which screwed a lot of people up last week.... I am in a possition to buy a new laptop now but I still want to have this one repaired as it's my daughters.... I will have a look at the above cd's and see if it happens. I am hoping I can remove the data and restore the system...

Thank you as always

[Duo]

If you can boot into something like linux from a live cd (they're free to dowload etc) you should be able to cd burn or plug in a usb storage drive of some kind. If your daughter only surfs and uses office applications etc (ie not playing windoze based games like half life) then everything can be put back nice and easy with PCLinuxOS, running pidgin on it for messenger clients and thunderbird for email, got open office and k office for office stuff, gimp for images and a couple of other apps. All 100% free and it's running on my old 3.02ghz p4 laptop, much faster than the 'doze and your daughter couldn't break the install if she tried unless you gave her the root password :-)

Don't be affraid or put off by Linux, it's so easy and simple to use if you spend a while learning a few bits and soooooooooooooooo much more secure than windoze. The only thing I can't yet do is run my games, vmware should fix that, virtual win in linux, nice. Personally I'd say after getting the data off have a look around pclinux it's quite nice and if it suits it'll be a far better os to install.

If you must keep it in microsofts hands try the ultimate boot cd for windows, bootable cd with lots of apps and data recovery software etc, think it's still on bootdisc.com

Good luck chap :-)

[Turbo_Steve]

Whooa! Steady there: whilst I agree with everything you've said there, I'm not sure any kind of vm is going to help with PC gaming: vmware on windows, or ESX native, won't run a lot of games very well / at all, though admittedly this is partially due to a lack of support for the graphics platform.

[bradc]

You could dual boot like me, Win XP for a 1997 Flight Sim that I'm addicted to, and Vista for everything else :) I will be changing to Vista for 7 shortly though, this load is over 3 years old now and has been moved through 3 motherboards (it is on a big SAS Raid card, so boots fine but sometimes does silly things)

[Ghost_2008]

Hi everyone! Thank you all for your wise words... I had one last ditch attempt at removing the update. And Roberts your mothers brother it all up and running.... Thanks again...

[Duo]

Very true Steve, got a pc uber guru friend who used something like that for half life a while back and it ran nicely so I'll be quizzing him when I catch him online next, if it's good enough I'll probably swap my main pc to linux, if not then dual boot. Just need to re partition without wiping the hdd lol :-)

[AlanDITD]

Lee thats all well and good if you know the Admin password , if you don't then you can't use the repair feature

ERD?

[Beastlee]

Alan, that would do it but I was thinking more of Hiren's Boot CD which is even more useful and quicker to get to what you want.

[AlanDITD]

yeah true matey, i use both at work :) also bartpe

[NU51]

i can highly recommend Acronis True Image Home for backup/restore of partitions (inc. Master Boot Record) onto an external hard drive. It also detects and backs up those hidden restore partitions on PC's & Laptops these days. It's an ideal tool for that 'peace of mind' factor prior to partitioning your hard drive.

and Acronis Disk Director Suite is an ideal companion to Acronis True Image Home for those who are thining of giving Linux a try for the 1st time and are concerned about letting a Linux install CD partition their hard drive.

Both packages can also be installed onto a USB pen drive for boot up or even better, onto an external bootable hard drive.

and is also very useful for backing up separate GRUB partition(s) in case anything should ever meddle with GRUB.

i used them to great effect when configuring my current laptop for a 5 OS multiboot with 4 separate GRUB partitions and use Acronis True Image Home to backup again as peace of mind before doing any major meddling.