Laptop Exploded, Halp?

[Kyouhen]

Greetings fellow playgrounders!

So, I've been having some most horrible luck with laptops lately. First one burned out, so I grabbed an old one from a relative and got it running. It spontaneously died, so I grabbed another (newer) one. Now I have more problems.

The latest laptop is running Vista. I went and attempted to defragment the thing since I just got it and want to get it cleaned out and running properly. There's also a fair number of important files I have to move from it to a pc for the relative I got it from, so I wanted to make sure everything on it was clean. (Mostly because the PC is getting a full wipe anyway and the last thing I want is to infect it after cleaning it out)

For whatever reason the defrag wouldn't work. So I tried running a scandisk on it. Went to restart so scandisk could do it's thing... And it locked up. Now when I restart I'm forced into the Windows Recovery Options thing.

This is where my big problem is. The Vista operating system isn't there on the list where it asks me to select an operating system. And I don't know where the operating system would be located. And my Google-fu is failing me.

Any chance anyone can help me out? :smallfrown:

[KuReshtin]

What kind of a laptop is it?
This is very important information before any further information can be given.

Generally, you should have a recovery partition on the hard drive that contains the OS, and that should have a repair option.
This is just speculation, though, since I don't know what kind of laptop it is.

[IonDragon]

What kind of a laptop is it?
This is very important information before any further information can be given.

Generally, you should have a recovery partition on the hard drive that contains the OS, and that should have a repair option.
This is just speculation, though, since I don't know what kind of laptop it is.

Recovery partition probably won't do much good for this computer. The symptoms sound like (though you should test to be sure) the hard drive is going out. Bad sectors, or a read head that is no longer accurate causes read/write errors and data instability. This causes slowdowns, programs that have to move/read/write large amounts of data (scandisk, data transfers, defrag) to crash or move very slowly. If this is the case, you could probably take one of the other hard drives and put it into this computer, though you WILL have to do a reinstall.

If it isn't the hard drive, do what was posted above.

RE: the data you want transfered, the sooner you identify the problem the higher chances you can get to it. You options include:
taking the hard drive out of the computer and putting it into an external hard drive enclosure to plug into the destination computer. This is the best option if the drive is not far gone.
After that things start to get expensive, and you need the help of some professionals. The programs used for data recovery are expensive, and not always easy to learn to use. Beware of free demos, because they will often 'find' the data but not recover it until you purchase the program. They don't even let you open the files to see if they are corrupted or not.

[crimson77]

The latest laptop is running Vista. I went and attempted to defragment the thing since I just got it and want to get it cleaned out and running properly. There's also a fair number of important files I have to move from it to a pc for the relative I got it from, so I wanted to make sure everything on it was clean. (Mostly because the PC is getting a full wipe anyway and the last thing I want is to infect it after cleaning it out)

First of all you should get all the important documents off of the computer.

Next do a complete reinstall of everything including windows.

Windows does not want you to remove vista so you may need some additional software to wipe the drive completely so you can reinstall everything.

[Dr.Epic]

Your laptop exploded? Strong Bad is this you?

[Kyouhen]

What kind of a laptop is it?
This is very important information before any further information can be given.

Generally, you should have a recovery partition on the hard drive that contains the OS, and that should have a repair option.
This is just speculation, though, since I don't know what kind of laptop it is.

The laptop is an HP G70. There seems to be a recovery partition on there, and I have a Vista install disc, the problem is when the Recovery Console asks me to select an operating system from a list the list is empty. I try to use the Load option and have no idea where the file I'm looking for would be located. If anyone knew where I could find it that would speed this entire thing up greatly. Here's a picture of the screens I'm looking at:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v169/Balthasar_Gelt/img_vista02ctp-installSysRecOpt2.jpg

The image in the background also has a "Load Drivers" button. That's what I'm trying to get through to get the operating system to show up on the list there, but I don't know where what I need would be. Also note the "Operating System: Unknown on (Unknown) Local Disk".



Recovery partition probably won't do much good for this computer. The symptoms sound like (though you should test to be sure) the hard drive is going out. Bad sectors, or a read head that is no longer accurate causes read/write errors and data instability. This causes slowdowns, programs that have to move/read/write large amounts of data (scandisk, data transfers, defrag) to crash or move very slowly. If this is the case, you could probably take one of the other hard drives and put it into this computer, though you WILL have to do a reinstall.

If it isn't the hard drive, do what was posted above.

RE: the data you want transfered, the sooner you identify the problem the higher chances you can get to it. You options include:
taking the hard drive out of the computer and putting it into an external hard drive enclosure to plug into the destination computer. This is the best option if the drive is not far gone.
After that things start to get expensive, and you need the help of some professionals. The programs used for data recovery are expensive, and not always easy to learn to use. Beware of free demos, because they will often 'find' the data but not recover it until you purchase the program. They don't even let you open the files to see if they are corrupted or not.

I have a USB hard drive I was originally going to move everything to so I could do a nice tidy transfer. Sounds like that enclosure suggestion is my best bet, as I don't think it would be worth the cost of taking it in to get it repaired. The hard drive's definitely the problem, I turned off the automatic restart and I'm getting the "Stop: 0x00000024" BSOD.


First of all you should get all the important documents off of the computer.

Next do a complete reinstall of everything including windows.

Windows does not want you to remove vista so you may need some additional software to wipe the drive completely so you can reinstall everything.

I can't get all the important docs off the computer because I can't start it up. Even safe mode is failing. Completely reinstalling Vista won't be a problem, I just need those docs first.


Your laptop exploded? Strong Bad is this you?

>_>
<_<
*Flees*

[crimson77]

I can't get all the important docs off the computer because I can't start it up. Even safe mode is failing. Completely reinstalling Vista won't be a problem, I just need those docs first.
You can remove the hard drive and put it into an appropriate hard drive enclosure. You can then remove the files you need.

[Kyouhen]

Ok, so new question. Putting aside the issue of getting the files off the hard drive, if I reformat the thing will the problems go away? Or would I be better off just getting a brand new hard drive?

[KuReshtin]

It might help to just reformat the drive.
Best way to verify is to download and run a Hard Drive test that will tell you if there's a problem with the hard drive itself.

Hitachi har the Drive Fitness Test (http://www.hitachigst.com/support/downloads/) where you can download and create a bootable CD, which will tell you if there's a problem.

[Mando Knight]

I went and attempted to defragment the thing since I just got it and want to get it cleaned out and running properly.

Interesting fact: a total drive defragmentation generally isn't necessary anymore. Large, partially empty hard drives aren't prone to serious fragmentation, and current file-storage systems are clever enough that they rarely have fragmentation issues. On top of that, the vast improvements made to system memory size and speed since the 90s (when defragmentation was a commonly prescribed cure to speed problems) means that the relatively minimal fragmentation that does occur doesn't cause much of a problem.

[factotum]

Interesting fact: a total drive defragmentation generally isn't necessary anymore. Large, partially empty hard drives aren't prone to serious fragmentation, and current file-storage systems are clever enough that they rarely have fragmentation issues.

On Linux, maybe--NTFS is pretty much as prone to getting fragmented as FAT used to be. Microsoft even added a regular scheduled task in Windows 7 to defragment the drives every week, and I doubt they'd have done that if the underlying file system didn't require it!

[Obrysii]

One thing you could try is to run a Live CD of Ubuntu or something. If the computer is stable and comfortable on that - then you can hazard a guess that it's the laptop that is dying.

[IonDragon]

On Linux, maybe--NTFS is pretty much as prone to getting fragmented as FAT used to be. Microsoft even added a regular scheduled task in Windows 7 to defragment the drives every week, and I doubt they'd have done that if the underlying file system didn't require it!
No, on an NTFS file system too. While the files may be fragmented, with todays drive speeds and sizes, the fragmentation rarely becomes a problem. I'd actually recommend against defragmenting once a week, as the extra drive usage could shorten it's life. Once a month, or even less is more than sufficient.

[Mando Knight]

On Linux, maybe--NTFS is pretty much as prone to getting fragmented as FAT used to be. Microsoft even added a regular scheduled task in Windows 7 to defragment the drives every week, and I doubt they'd have done that if the underlying file system didn't require it!

The scheduled defragmentation tool isn't a full defrag. It's closer to sweeping up the kitchen floor and putting away the dishes rather than pulling out every dish from every cupboard to make sure you've got them organized in the right spot. If it were the latter, then I doubt I'd be able to run my computer, what with the time that even eighty gigabytes of HD would take to fully defragment.