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General discussion (archive)[Off Topic] PC Problems(24 posts)(24 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted May 23, 2014
So I managed to get a hold of a Win 8 Disc, I worked pretty well with my external DVD drive, I probably could wipe the entire system but as soon as I want to repair or refresh something there is an error message:
"The drive is locked, unlock and try again" or something like that.

And no it's not locked, it's not a read only Hard Disk and I hope the tool doesn't want to refresh the Windows DVD.
If I try to run the tool "Repair Windows Startup" it tries to find the problem but fails to repair it.

But at least I see all the files and tonight I'm going to pop the cherry of my new external 3 TB HD (conviently arrived yesterday) to move all the data on it...
Posted May 23, 2014
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Khadgar42: It's an Lenovo Ideapad Y510,
and I've tried to switch the booting order in the BIOS without success.

[edit]
Wait a minute...
there is this button next to the power plug.
Oohkay, so now I can restore factory settings but I will lose my data. Mphh... No repair mode, sadly
[/edit]
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Magnitus: Contact support and ask for a recovery disk(s).

Got a 530W Thinkpad last year, created the recovery backup on a bad medium and it wouldn't let me create another recovery medium.

I contacted support and they shipped me a bunch of recovery disks without charges (mind you, it was for a premium laptop and the warranty wasn't expired).

My gf's old laptop was an aging HP, the warranty was expired and she had no recovery disk. I contacted support and they sent me the recovery disks for like 30$.

Usually, companies are pretty cool about sending you recovery disks for their laptops and won't charge you an arm and a leg for it. It's just good support and an essential strategy for repeat business.

PS: If you need to recover files before formating, they're a way to start Windows on the command prompt if you finickle a bit at boot time.

From there, you can copy/paste your files on a recovery medium (ex: USB stick) and if you really suck at the command prompt (and can't be bothered to google it), you can open up notepad (just type "notepad") and use notepad's open/save menu to copy your files (yeah, Windows is way too permissive with what it lets you do with its open/save menu).
That reminds me, I need to do that as well, the recovery disc creation utility failed to mention that you have to take at least one back up in order to restore the original files to the disk. Seems to me that creating the original disk should include all the files necessary to do a factory reinstall. Which was especially annoying because my laptop didn't have a disc drive of any sort other than the SD card slot.
Posted May 24, 2014
So today I brought the laptop to a computer store/repair shop and let them test it.
No Virus, Hard Disk is physically okay but they couldn't fix the problem too. Either they are incompetent (or haven't tried hard enough) or the "Repair" thingy is not working well. According to the technican and shop-owner he said that he has seen a lot of cases with Win 8 where this happens.

Thankfully I can access the folders so my savegames (yay) and my workfiles (duh) are save. The rest is just flavor and probably some lost weekend hours...

Would just someone REMIND ME, to do a BACKUP/RECOVERY once the System is configured the way I like... :-D
Posted May 24, 2014
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Khadgar42:
Early reminder to do a BACKUP/RECOVERY once the System is configured the way you like!
*BEATS WITH STICK OF REMINDING!

good news on the files etc though!
Posted May 25, 2014
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Khadgar42: So today I brought the laptop to a computer store/repair shop and let them test it.
No Virus, Hard Disk is physically okay but they couldn't fix the problem too. Either they are incompetent (or haven't tried hard enough) or the "Repair" thingy is not working well. According to the technican and shop-owner he said that he has seen a lot of cases with Win 8 where this happens.

Thankfully I can access the folders so my savegames (yay) and my workfiles (duh) are save. The rest is just flavor and probably some lost weekend hours...

Would just someone REMIND ME, to do a BACKUP/RECOVERY once the System is configured the way I like... :-D
I'm not sure about Germany, but around here the way they fix every problem is to reformat the computer and replace any broken parts. If they find broken parts they often won't format, but for most software problems they'll reformat. And usually the entire disk without any warning. I once lost all my photos because they repartioned the disk without asking. I had come in to the shop because I couldn't use my cd burner at all, which meant that I couldn't back any of my files up at all.

Long story short, it's best not to take computers into a shop to have them fixed, either do it yourself or hire a consultant to do it for you. The rates for consultants doing this sort of work isn't necessarily that much more than having a shop do it. Consultants don't have the overhead of having to maintain a shop.
Posted May 26, 2014
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hedwards: Long story short, it's best not to take computers into a shop to have them fixed, either do it yourself or hire a consultant to do it for you. [...]
True, but in most cases, especially when they erase the whole disk, they should ask you beforehand.

Anyway, I had some "fun" today trying to get Clonezilla to do 1:1 copy to my external HDD but it didn't want to, because my C:\ disk of my laptop had some ruined Boot Configuration...Now, who would have guessed that...
At least Clonezilla is telling the truth and at least it's a programm that doesn't only state the obvious, it does so free of charge.

So now, after all those years as a fallen MacUser resorting to Windows I have to go back to comand prompts to copy all my files from C:\ to E:\

xcopy /s C:\*.* E:\ for the win!
Post edited May 26, 2014 by Khadgar42
Posted June 04, 2014
Blood and Damnation!

xcopy /s C:\*.* E:\ didn't copy the invisible folders %appdata% and its friends.
That's where all the data I wanted was... Grrrr...

That's why I hate these operating systems... Invisible folders my ass...
Post edited June 04, 2014 by Khadgar42
Posted June 04, 2014
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Khadgar42: Blood and Damnation!

xcopy /s C:\*.* E:\ didn't copy the invisible folders %appdata% and its friends.
That's where all the data I wanted was... Grrrr...

That's why I hate these operating systems... Invisible folders my ass...
you need the parameter /h
/h : Copies files with hidden and system file attributes. By default, xcopy does not copy hidden or system files.
Posted June 04, 2014
too late for that...

Already erased the original...

Aaaaas always:

"next time I'm smarter"
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This is my favourite topic
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General discussion (archive)[Off Topic] PC Problems(24 posts)(24 posts)
(24 posts)