HELP!HELP!HELP!

[didjo]

Hi All,

I really need your help with this.

A couple of days ago I started my PC with Windows XP PRO and I got prompted to reactivate my key. Considering I haven't changed any hardware parts I thought it was a virus. Anyway I got the new activation key thru microsoft, I rebooted the system and I found out that my profile was gone. The problem is that WinXP starts with System Preparation Tool and my 5 years old PC looks like it's just out of the box. Basically I have lost my proflie and settings, plus the 2nd HD and few hardware parts are missing. I can still access all my Docs on the system HD.

Do you think there is any way I will be able to rescue my profile settings?

Any help would be very appreciated.

Cheers

 

[DPlank]

For the hardware and 2nd hard disk, go into Control Panels and run the Add Hardware wizard, which should detect and install drivers for your "missing" hardware.

If you've created a new profile with the original username, I'm afraid I can't think of any way to retrieve the older one as it will likely have been overwritten.

Finally - in order to make the best use of time on this site, please don't title your request as Help!Help!Help! - it gives no information whatsoever to people who can help, and in a lot of cases will be ignored as a direct consequence. Try to make the thread title relevant to your problem.

Cheers,
Dave

"Yes, I'll stop finding bugs in the software - as soon as you stop writing bugs into the software." <-- Me

For all your testing needs: Forum1393

 

[didjo]

Hi Dave,

thank you for your help. I'm not sure what to do with System Preparation Tool popping up at the start.

Yep I've only realized after my post that the title looks quite silly. Sorry I'm in panic mode right now.

 

[goombawaho]

Are you worried about your "profile settings" or your data. It's unclear what's important to you.

Is your old user (data) folder listed under C:\documents and settings still??

Don't worry about windows running or starting properly at this point, do a data recovery on the hard drive as a slave drive attached to another computer using a data recovery tool. GetDataBack, etc., etc.

 

[didjo]

More worried about my profile settings and all the software that right now don't seem to be installed anymore. Apart from the 2nd HD I can still access my data on the main HD under the "allusers" folder; the old user folder is no longer listed.
Any chance I'll be able to use GetDataBack or similar for settings/profile recovery?
Thank you.

 

[Sympology]

Do you have a system restore point prior to the crash? If so do a system restore and should be ok.

Robert Wilensky:
We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true.

http://alvechurchlounge.org.uk

 

[didjo]

I thought I had a restore point but it doesn't show in system restore unfortunately.

 

[didjo]

Quick update.

It looks like the main HD (Raptor) is dead. When I start the PC the Windows XP I see it's actually on the second HD, the one I used only for data. Probably the PC shop I bought it from originally put the XP on both HD then set the Raptor as master. That's why now I see XP with no profiles. It is not clear to me how I am still able to access the data stored on the Raptor. It looks like the system did an automatic backup, copying all the files on the 2nd HD. Any ideas?

 

[goombawaho]

It is not clear to me how I am still able to access the data stored on the Raptor. It looks like the system did an automatic backup, copying all the files on the 2nd HD. Any ideas?

No - none of that makes sense from a logical or technical perspective. If the drive is dead, you are not accessing anything on it. Not being mean to you, but it just doesn't compute. Unless it was a RAID1, I don't know how you would have an OS on both.

Here's what you need to do.
Either use a bootable operating system (WinPE, BartPE, Puppy Linux) to boot the system with ONE hard drive connected at a time to take a look at it and the contents OR set up each hard drive as a slave in another computer to do the same thing. Then you will be able to see exactly what's going on. Plus you can run diagnostics on the "dead" drive and search for your profiles on one or both. You have to break the situation down by each hard drive.

 

[didjo]

Final update.

I took the Raptor to a PC repair shop and the guy has confirmed that the logic board is damaged. As you said the hard drives were setup as RAID1 originally, therefore I still have all my data on the 2nd HD. It looks like it's time to upgrade the PC

 

[goombawaho]

Score one for me (because I fingered it out) and score one for you because RAID saved your bacon. Cheers to you and to me.

You don't necessarily have to dump the PC. You can get another drive and re-establish the RAID and live happily ever after.

 

[didjo]

Yep, I am now thinking of upgrading the PC to WIN7 and keep the current HD with the RAID configuration. I am still not sure about WIN8, I don't care about the touch screen but the $40 upgrade is very tempting.

 

[Sympology]

Win8 isn't as bad as people make out, just takes a bit of getting used to.

If you think of the Metro (yes I know) interface as a REALLY HUGE start menu that take the entire screen, it's not quite so bad. No only that, there are some open source / Free skins for it is you really want the old look.

As a side note, I've seen some demo's of Outlook 2013 / Lync 2013 / Office 2013 and Win 8 on the same machine and you see it really makes sense and what then end plan is (but touch is where it's at)

Robert Wilensky:
We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true.

http://alvechurchlounge.org.uk