PC after electric failure (1 Viewer)

[dylan]

Can any wizz help me to get pc started after 3 breaks in electric supply as in off on off on off on very quickly. It starts then has a screen saying may have been electric failure starts and gives options none which seem to work, then a blue screen flashes quickly, too quick to read and shuts itself down. running windows xp on a bt broadband home hub.
Using my laptop but doesn't have all my work/cv transfered to it.
Is there a way to get in please?

 

[Ralph-Dot]

I would say it is broke

 

[Road Runner]

Cant help Eileen but hope a whiz comes on a sorts it for you.

I know its important for you having the desktop.

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[Ralph-Dot]

You can remove the hard drive and get the info off it if you have the right leads or know someone who has.

 

[Kon tiki]

Don't know how computer literate you are but I have used this solution on a neighbours computer Link Removed
I had tried everything else I could & all I can say is that it did work & I got it up & running. What I did find is that it was a bit unstable but this was probably why it crashed in the first place. What it allowed me to do was to recover all the personal data & I did a fresh install, in your case it might be that some of the system files have been corrupted & hopefully this will get you out of trouble. Although it might look a bit complicated it should work if you follow it through.

 

[dylan]

I think its more than likely hardware gone somewhere possibly fried but it is pluged into one of the surge plugs.

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[Linda and Steph]

I think its more than likely hardware gone somewhere possibly fried but it is pluged into one of the surge plugs.

Unfortunately an anti-surge socket won't protect your hard drive from physical damage :Sad:

Do you have the XP disk? You could try booting from CD/DVD and see if you get to a Windows install page (don't actually install though). This would indicate that processor, power supply etc are probably ok.

Depending on your skills with a screwdriver and if you're happy to get your hands inside the PC, installing a new hard drive and using the existing drive as a slave isn't a big job. You could then install XP on the new drive and recover as much data as possible from the existing one.

 

[Grockel]

Have you tried safe mode? Usually hold down F5 or F8 on turn on. Then if you have a desktop you could try system file checker (SFC) by going to start, run, sfc/scannow
It takes a while to check and repair any missing or corrupt files.
Other than that perhaps remove the battery then press and hold the turn on button for 30 seconds'ish. Re-install battery and try turning on- it sometimes works!
Cheers G

 

[johng]

hi Eileen

I ad similar to this a while back.. the only part left surviving was the chip itself

all boards and the main HD were gone.. I sincerly hope yours is better

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[sinbad1]

Sudden power cuts can damage your hardware ;but can also corrupt your OS registry to a point where it will give a blue screen on startup.

I would try an xp repair by installing over the top of your existing system

1. Boot the computer with the xp cd. You may need to change the boot order in the bios so that the cd boots before the harddrive (normally set to cd)

2. When you see the "Welcome to setup" screen, you will see this portion of the setup program prepares Microsoft Windows Xp to run on your computer

to setup windows xp now,press ENTER

to repair a windows XP installation using Recovery Console, press R

to quit setup without installing windows XP , press F3

3. Press enter to start windows setup.

To setup windows xp now and repair install, press Enter.

DO NOT choose "To repair windows XP installation using the recovery console,press R (you do not want to load the recovery console)

4. Accept the license agreement and windows will search for existing windows installation.

5. Select XP installation you want to repair from the list and press R to start the repair.

6. setup will copy the necessary files to the hard drive and then reboot.

Do not press any key to boot from cd when the message appears.

Setup will continue as if it were a clean install; but all your application and settings will remain intact.

Make sure you follow the instructions ,print them out if your not sure , a repair will leave your data intact , a clean install will remove all apps/date

Regards

ps. if all else fails its straight forward to recover your data from the hard drive

 

[dylan]

Have you tried safe mode? Usually hold down F5 or F8 on turn on. Then if you have a desktop you could try system file checker (SFC) by going to start, run, sfc/scannow
It takes a while to check and repair any missing or corrupt files.
Other than that perhaps remove the battery then press and hold the turn on button for 30 seconds'ish. Re-install battery and try turning on- it sometimes works!
Cheers G

Safe mode gives me a whole long list the last bit of each line ends with " drivers" all look similar. Nothing else happens I have to turn it off as it is then frozen

 

[Al1]

Safe mode gives me a whole long list the last bit of each line ends with " drivers" all look similar. Nothing else happens I have to turn it off as it is then frozen

Have you tried "last known good configuration" ?

Else download a BartPE image and create a CD and boot from that and save data to a USB pen or ext. HDD

Al

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[dylan]

Thanks did try that but still nothing happens. Will try other tomorrow as my head is going round and round
Marks dad died recently and there is the last few photos and bits from him on there plus CV and email addresses all other stuff backed up. I have been told to try to recover costs to repair from electricity supplier but don't think I stand any chance of that.:Sad:

 

[Linda and Steph]

Don't worry about the data, it's very likely that it can be recovered. If all else fails take the drive out, put it in a jiffy bag and post it to me :hug: :thumb:

 

[Boo]

I got a real bad virus on mine to the point that the only option I had left was to reformat the computer..........................after that I just used a program called "Recovery" and pulled the files I needed back from the formated hard drive.

It can be abit hit and miss with some files but fine with jpeg, wav. mp3 and text..................hope this helps if it comes to that

Boo

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[sinbad1]

I got a real bad virus on mine to the point that the only option I had left was to reformat the computer..........................after that I just used a program called "Recovery" and pulled the files I needed back from the formated hard drive.

It can be abit hit and miss with some files but fine with jpeg, wav. mp3 and text..................hope this helps if it comes to that

Boo

I have used a program called Recuva which is good ;but is hit and miss wether files are recovered. In this case the data is still on the harddrive ; but for some reason the OS will not boot up. there could be several reasons why this has happened, sudden power cuts tent to corrupt the file system and make a pc unbootable.

My previous suggestion was to repair any corruption that prevented booting., the repair would leave all data programs and settings, so no files would be lost.

If all fails then it would be a simple matter of removing the drive and putting into a caddy and connecting to the lappy via a usb connection, all files and data on the drive would be available to copy.


Be carefull of letting anyone do this as the door would be open to all data passwords bank details and sensitive date

regards

 

[American Dream]

Can any wizz help me to get pc started after 3 breaks in electric supply as in off on off on off on very quickly. It starts then has a screen saying may have been electric failure starts and gives options none which seem to work, then a blue screen flashes quickly, too quick to read and shuts itself down. running windows xp on a bt broadband home hub.
Using my laptop but doesn't have all my work/cv transfered to it.
Is there a way to get in please?

Hi Eileen,

Is this the same Hard disk I saw and recovered data on?(IDE)

I assume you've tried to repair the Operating System and it failed.

Have you tried running fixboot and fixmbr from the repair prompt?

Seen this many times on Customer's PCs where power has been a problem at the site.

Try setting the drive up (If it's an IDE (PATA) drive, as slave, putting it in another PC and do a chkdsk /f on it.

It's sorted a fair few in the past.The drive File Allocation Table loses some files reqd for a successful boot.

Hope you are successful.

The only surefire way to overcome Power Grey-outs is to invest in a UPS (Battery backup) power supply.

Steve.:thumb:

 

[dylan]

Brought a new hard drive Steve and put all my data on you recovered, can not seem to get anything to work or repair bootup. Mark is going to open case to see if it shows signs of being fried. If so will try to get lastest data off hard drive to keep.
Eileen

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[American Dream]

Sounds like the main PC is trying to boot up ok but the Operating System is just corrupted.

If I didn't have another PC I think I'd buy another Hard disk.Set up another Clean operating system on it and plug the old Hard disk in to it and recover the Data.

Does your PC Mainboard support SATA 2 Drives?

This'll cost you much less than a PC Repair bill and give you a second Hard disk to mirror image your data to in case of Hard disk failure in the future.

You have got the XP installation cd's/activation keys etc I presume.

Just don't try installing any programs on the original HDD otherwise they might overwrite the data if there is a File Allocation Table problem.

Steve.

 

[dylan]

Sounds like the main PC is trying to boot up ok but the Operating System is just corrupted.

If I didn't have another PC I think I'd buy another Hard disk.Set up another Clean operating system on it and plug the old Hard disk in to it and recover the Data.

Does your PC Mainboard support SATA 2 Drives?

This'll cost you much less than a PC Repair bill and give you a second Hard disk to mirror image your data to in case of Hard disk failure in the future.

You have got the XP installation cd's/activation keys etc I presume.

Just don't try installing any programs on the original HDD otherwise they might overwrite the data if there is a File Allocation Table problem.

Steve.

Think you are right, on opening screen I can not see anything that says repair or get to a screen that says repair. Yes have windows cd and key but don't know if motherboard supports SATA 2.
Deciding what to do

 

[American Dream]

Think you are right, on opening screen I can not see anything that says repair or get to a screen that says repair. Yes have windows cd and key but don't know if motherboard supports SATA 2.
Deciding what to do

If You put the CD in the drive and boot from cd does it see the partition and windows installation?

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[dylan]

cd in drive nothing happens how do I "boot from cd" other than put it in drive? sorry to be thick:Blush: