Can anyone proved a little tech support please?

[Hektar]

So at this point I am pretty sure I am just confirming that I am fucked but I was hoping someone could give me their educated input since I'm not that smart with the workings of tech.

The other day my computer locked up hard and crashed, I have tried restarting it and it will not load windows. Attempts to do a system start up repair have been unsuccessful, when it first starts now it says

Floppy Disk(s) fail (40)
Audio Cable not connected


I tried to run some system tests cause I was basically trying everything I could, I got passes on most, this were the fails:

SATA Disk S/N=blahblah SMART long self test
Self test failed the read portion of the test

SATA disk S/N=blahblah read test
Uncorectable data error or media is write protected

SATA dsk S/N=blahblah blah Verify test
Uncorectable data error or media is write protected

So how fucked am I? I'm thinking pretty fucked. Worst part was I was planning to back up my pics and music this weekend since it had been a couple weeks since I did it :(

Thanks for any help.

[Ashenfury]

If your boot order has floppy disk as a priority above your HD in your BIOS then it will try to boot from your floppy drive even if it only has a text file on it. Are you sure this is not the case?

[Ashenfury]

As an FYI I've never seen a failure of SMART even with bad drives. In all likelihood you can still recover the data from the drive, format it, re-install windows and run on a bad hard drive until you can replace it. That's my standard procedure when people bring me crashed hard drives.

EDIT: Do you have a second computer that you can mount the drive in so that you can recover all of your user data?

[Greebo]

In line with what Ash is saying - the problem may be the motherboard/BIOS, not the drive.

[Hektar]

Thanks guys, there is some progress. You were right Ash, for some reason it was trying to boot from a floppy rather than the hard drive. Correcting that has allowed the computer to go to the stage where it asks me whether I want to satrt windows normally ro in safe mode. I have attmepted both and just get a black screen. :(

Greebo, you say it sounds like it might be a motherboard? I bet its dusty as hell in there, I am a bad bad computer owner, is it possible I cooked it? If this sounds likely I might head to Best buy and grab a new mother board. I'm going to open it up and check out the dust situation now.

[Greebo]

Well - the window normal/safe mode question makes it unlikely to be the mobo. Hrm.

[Ashenfury]

Not at all, throw in a windows repair CD and boot to it. The rest will be obvious.

[Hektar]

Hmmm. I'm gonna have to go digging through some boxes but I don't remember a CD. I think Dell puts everything on there to save money on disks >.< I'll go looking though. thanks guys.

[Hektar]

Gah! Startup repair could not detect a problem... :( And it won't let me do a system restore either, claims there are no restore points. I found this online

Another option to consider (since the cost of 100 + gig hard drives has dropped to well under $75) would be to disconnect the current hard drive and install a clean XP from retail disks or restore media to a new hard drive. You can then connect the original hard drive after configuring the jumpers to a slave drive. You can retrieve important files. One thing to remember, if a hard drive has not been formatted or written over by reinstalling, the data is accessible. The less you access a hard drive after a non-boot episode; the better your chances of retrieving your data.

Not sure if this would work for me. I'd really like to take steps to avoid losing whats on there.

[Ashenfury]

All you have to do is find a computer that will startup and put that hard drive in it. As long as you aren't running windows 3.1 with an old ACER motherboard then it should autodetect the drive in the BIOS but boot to your primary. Then Windows will autodetect it and add it to your windows explorer (hold down windows key and hit E to bring it up quickly).

Go to the hard drive in question, probably E:\ and get all of your files off of it. Once you've done that put it back in your non-working computer and hit F10 at the startup selection (where you usually hit f12 to get into the bios). You should have told me it's Dell.

That will take you to a FACTORY restore. This will format and restore to factory settings but that's fine because you already pulled the data off right? Nod your head.

EDIT: I've been working with DELLs both professionally and personally for over 6 years now. They're my favorite pre-assembled manufacturer.

[Hektar]

Finding a working computer is easier said than done for me. All I have left in the house is lap tops, and most people I know rock the lap tops as well.

[Ashenfury]

and by the way system restore is the biggest joke of recovery that I've ever seen or heard of in my life. Do a full system backup using windows backup utility instead of Windows Restore. Restore is a punk ass version that won't fix problems even when it does work. Anybody that has ever had to do a genuine restore of any type of system can tell you how sad their bundled restore is.

Their Windows Backup software is actually pretty hot shit though. It makes an ISO file of your system/hard drive. It's pretty much a snapshot that you can restore with a CD. It might be Vista/Win7 only though as I've never used it before that kernel.

[Ashenfury]

Do you have a hard drive enclosure? A USB/SATA dongle?

[Hektar]

Not yet, but I'm going to go buy one right now. Thank you for your patience I know I am a noob.

[Ashenfury]

When you purchase one MAKE SURE that it powers the hard drive as well. Most of them don't. I made that mistake and now I have to power it with a regular power supply and transfer data with the dongle. It's actually pretty funny.