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Need to restore system!

Discussion in 'Windows XP' started by leea934, 2008/12/18.

  1. 2008/12/18
    leea934

    leea934 Inactive Thread Starter

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    Hello,

    The problem with my computer is that at a certain point while doing various tasks - my computer became extremely messed up (on various fronts.)

    Listed is are a few major problems:
    1. I cannot drag and drop / copy & paste (which is very bad considering I cannot backup my data)

    2. Not critical but my audio device no longer registers (audio device not found)

    3. Windows explorer does not open (nor can I connect to internet)

    4. Various windows applications do not run; (disk defragmenter and search {which prohibits me from doing the search for sr.sys})

    5. System restore does not run: the message says (system restore is not able to protect your computer, please restart and run sys restore again)

    * System restore also give same message in safe mode

    6. When I go into admin serv/services/system restore - after i right click and hit properties, nothing happens.

    *When I try to manual start the restore through services, error message says: could not start sys restore service on local computer. Error 1068: the dependency service or group failed to start.

    7. chkdsk /r in the cmd does not work (thinking it was a registry corruption) - says that the drive is ntfs.

    8. My windows recovery CD does not allow me to do a repair installation.

    Please advise: reformatting and losing my data is worst case scenario for me as the last 4 years of my college career and work was in the computer.

    Thank you for your help and time.
     
    Last edited: 2008/12/18
  2. 2008/12/18
    Christer

    Christer Geek Member Staff

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    Hello leea934,
    welcome to WindowsBBS ... :) ... !

    It seems like your computer has been messed up and very effectively. Trying to sort the mess is a lengthy business, if at all possible, which makes a reinstallation the quickest remedy.

    To save your current user files, documents and such, you either need to move the hard disk to another computer and copy them over. That would make the reverse operation necessary after reinstallation.

    If I was in your situation, I would buy a new hard disk. I would take the old one out and put the new one in. I would do a clean installation of Windows XP on the new hard disk. When the installation has completed successfully, I would connect the old harddisk as slave and copy over my user files. When done, I would format the old hard disk and use it for backups.

    If you want to follow my advice, I have a few more tips and hints but I need to know the make and model of your computer.

    Christer
     

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  4. 2008/12/18
    leea934

    leea934 Inactive Thread Starter

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    Response

    First off, I'd like to thank you for the quick reply! I have been a mess as my final presentation is Tuesday.

    Your method seems like a sure thing but I am hesitant only because I have 2 terabytes of data and a friend of mine had expressed that doing total reformat and moving the data from the old hard drive to the new would take too much time.

    I was wondering if there was any alternative to some sort of system restore that I could do to try to save this operating system. (It is not that I am lazy, as a design student I used approximately 8 different applications for this project and it seems like a nightmare to acquire all the programs and install them again.)

    Thank you,

    Aaron
     
  5. 2008/12/18
    CUISTech

    CUISTech Inactive

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    If I may suggest... To recover your data, you may want to consider using a Linux distro designed for recovery (in this case, Knoppix). You put it on a CD and run the actual operating system off the CD, which will let you then find your data and back it up. Afterwards, you can wipe your drive.

    I do not work for Windows BBS. I am not an admin for Windows BBS. I am not certified for Windows BBS.

    That being said, from personal experience and another Windows BBS user was able to resurrect an HDD using Linux. He used Ubuntu.

    Remember, I'm not staff here... But my two cents would be to boot with one of these linux ditros and try to identify your data and back it up. Then work on the problems and see if you can recover your HDD from there.

    Knoppix recovery instructions

    If you're more comfortable doing this piece by piece with the staff, go to town. I just thought I'd offer a relatively risk-free alternative before anyone sent you out digging. My two cents, proceed at your own risk, caveat emptor. I'm no expert, I've just had success with this tool and I know nothing about Linux.
     
  6. 2008/12/18
    Christer

    Christer Geek Member Staff

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    Aaron,
    that's a lot of data and it sure would take a lot of time to transfer.

    Restoring your system would be more than I can pull through and anyone attempting would need your system specs. The number of harddisks would be interesting to know. There must be several to house 2 TB of data.

    Let's wait and see if someone else chimes in.

    Christer
     
  7. 2008/12/18
    Arie

    Arie Administrator Administrator Staff

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    That's about the best one can advise in this situation. I suspect that your original installation is poisoned with Malware.

    If you do this, I suggest installing a virus scanner on your new Windows install before connecting your old hard drive.


    Well, what is time? I'm sure you can get your data to copy & leave it running overnight.

    Another option is that you may not even need to copy your data. You can just access it off your old hard drive.

    Could be, although 1TB hard drives can be had starting at around $100 & I noted a 1.5TB drive @ $129.99
     
    Arie,
    #6
  8. 2008/12/18
    wildfire

    wildfire Getting Old

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    2 Terabytes of data?

    Was your project backing up the internet ;)

    Seriously, I'm sure you can cut that figure down a little (lot). For four years college work a couple of hundred Mb, perhaps 1 or 2 Gb but 2Tb (That's quite a few thousand hours of video).

    Ignoring the current size of your system, your best bet is to remove the Hard Drives, buy a new one, reinstall the OS and any required programs then salvage your Data (as long as you have 500-600 blank DVD's available.
     
  9. 2008/12/18
    leea934

    leea934 Inactive Thread Starter

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    Thank you all for such informative feedback!

    Rendering 3d animations and models created the huge mass of data - I am sure I could cut down, but not by much at all.

    I have called a IT friend of mine to come over tonight to try to salvage the current setup (only because I still have work to do and re-installing all the corresponding programs seems time-consuming)

    If my last pathetic attempts to save the old sytstem, my next steps will be puchasing a HDD case that can house my current hardrive and I guess I will be hooking that up to the laptop I am on, along with several external hard drives.

    I would love to do the linux backup process, but I do not have that app and I am afraid I am not familiar with that system.

    I hope this works.

    Again, thank you all for the feedback! I will try to pay it forward!
     
  10. 2008/12/18
    wildfire

    wildfire Getting Old

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    More time-consuming than recreating those 2 terabytes if you or your friend make an error?

    If the data's that important, and it appears to be, spend a few hours recreating your system on a new drive and use that to recover your data.

    It's your decision but a few hours or possibly 4 more years:rolleyes:
     
  11. 2008/12/18
    Arie

    Arie Administrator Administrator Staff

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    Yea, imagine having only one copy of that data & just tonight the hard drive that holds it will decide to crash....
     
  12. 2008/12/18
    leea934

    leea934 Inactive Thread Starter

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    Haha, you are probably right - hopefully he will use his own judgement and not destroy my work or you will all probably see me on the news for murder.

    Thanks again for everything!
     
  13. 2008/12/18
    CUISTech

    CUISTech Inactive

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    Someone needs a server. Tell your IT friend to bring you one and set you up for doing your work on. Ask him what his favorite RAID is and tell him to build you one of those for your 3D rendering. :p
     
  14. 2008/12/18
    Christer

    Christer Geek Member Staff

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    Well, the system specs seem to be a secret. Are those 2 TB housed on separate hard disks (data drives)? If so, there's no problem copying user data because it doesn't need to be copied. Possibly a lengthy virus scan ... :rolleyes: ... and the system drive could be reformated and reinstalled!

    Christer
     
  15. 2008/12/18
    leea934

    leea934 Inactive Thread Starter

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    The systems specs are not in any way classified, I'm just a student, haha.
    I just don't know exactly what this piece of metal is comprised of - I had that same IT friend build me a high end rendering machine.

    All I know is that there are several Hitachi drives and that they are all hotwired together (pardon the incorrect jargon.)
     
  16. 2008/12/18
    Christer

    Christer Geek Member Staff

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    That sounds like RAID to me, of which I know very little (read: next to nothing).

    Christer
     
  17. 2008/12/18
    noahdfear

    noahdfear Inactive

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    Hi leea934,

    Will Task Manager open? If so, please look at the processes tab and tell us if you have a process named svchost.exe (actually, there should be between 4 and 6 instances of it).
     

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