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|---|---|
Bill  All-Star Member  5334 Posts 6/00 |  Posted - Dec 25 2007 : 1:59PMI'm running Vista. Today I screwed up an HP printer install by connecting the printer before installing HP software. After the drivers installed, I did a restart and the machine never completely booted up (all I had was a black screen). I booted up in safe mode and tried to uninstall HP software (as per HP manual), but the HP software wasn't there to uninstall. So, I restored to most recent restore point. After restore, the machine hung for about 15 minutes in "shutting down", so I powered off and restarted the machine. Now, I can't boot up in standard or safe mode. In standard mode, after seeing the starting windows screen, I just have a black screen. In safe mode, after seeing the drivers install, I have a black screen with a big mouse pointer, that's it. At this point, I think that I may have to reinstall Vista (I hope not), but my machine didn't come with a Vista disc. So, I have no idea how to reinstall. I need help, badly.  [Link] |
| PL Senior Member God hates us all, you know it's true, God hates this place. - Slayer 1726 Posts 10/03 | Posted - Dec 25 2007 : 2:02PM My guess is that the restore is on a partition. When you boot up you should see a prompt saying "Press XXX to restore" or something to hat effect.. That's my best guess. Providing more info on the make and model of the laptop would help. Good luck!  [Link] |
| Bill All-Star Member 5334 Posts 6/00 | Posted - Dec 25 2007 : 2:16PM I do have a full backup (using the windows backup software) on an external hard drive. But, without being able to get windows to boot up at all, I have no idea how to get at this data. [Link] |
| Bill All-Star Member 5334 Posts 6/00 | Posted - Dec 25 2007 : 2:21PM [Link] |
| conquistador Deactivated User Hellhamster. 2947 Posts 10/03 | Posted - Dec 25 2007 : 2:43PM Flatten and rebuild. [Link] |
| Bill All-Star Member 5334 Posts 6/00 | Posted - Dec 25 2007 : 2:45PM [Link] |
| Bill All-Star Member 5334 Posts 6/00 | Posted - Dec 25 2007 : 2:54PM [Link] |
| conquistador Deactivated User Hellhamster. 2947 Posts 10/03 | Posted - Dec 25 2007 : 3:12PM [Link] |
| BigBobxxx Senior Member 2681 Posts 5/04 | Posted - Dec 25 2007 : 6:21PM Preferably you make them before the machine gets fucked-up [o\|] Scroll down to [ invalid url ] [Link] |
| conquistador Deactivated User Hellhamster. 2947 Posts 10/03 | Posted - Dec 25 2007 : 7:23PM If I ever call microsoft I just have to pretend like it's a gateway that I upgraded. [Link] |
| Bill All-Star Member 5334 Posts 6/00 | Posted - Dec 26 2007 : 12:02AM I started to try a reinstall from the recovery disc. However, after clicking on Install Vista, I just get a "please wait" with an hour glass instead of a mouse pointer. It's been like that for about an hour now. I'll let it keep running (or hanging as the case may be) overnight and I'll check it tomorrow. However, I'm not too hopeful at this point. [Link] |
| Bill All-Star Member 5334 Posts 6/00 | Posted - Dec 27 2007 : 9:35PM After choosing the drive to install to, it ran for about an hour at 0% complete before I went to bed (the install program said that the machine would reboot a few times during the install). I woke up at about 5 am and checked on the machine. It was stuck on the Motherboard splash screen (which has also been happening when I attempt to do a restart all along). I powered the machine off & on and it booted back into the the install. It forget what step started at that point. I then went back to bed. At 8am, I checked it again. It was in the same motherboard splash screen as before. After recycling the power and starting the machine back up, it said that it was going to start Vista. A half hour later, when I left for a dentist's appt., it still hadn't gotten into Vista yet. When I returned from the dentist, an hour later, Vista was asking me to name the machine. After doing that, I let Vista continue to start up, while I went to work. At that point, I connected the network cable. When I came home, I found that Vista had installed all of the patches that were recommended and was asking to be restarted. It took about an hour for Vista to shut down. It never got to the splash screen this time. There was just a blinking cursor at the top left corner of the screen. At that point, I tried resetting the BIOS back to the default setting and restarting. When it was apparent that this didn't do anything, I flashed the BIOS and restarted. It's now been over 2 hours since I restarted the machine and Vista hasn't come up yet (although I did see the windows logo and hear the startup music about an hour ago). At this point, I have no idea what to do. So, unless someone has any brilliant suggestions, I'm bringing it to the local Micro Center to let them attempt to fix the problem. I'm also going to bring an external hard drive that contains a full system backup from 3 weeks ago. Once they get the problem fixed, I want them to restore the data that I wiped out with the Vista reinstall. [Link] |
| Harri Patel Senior Member #SDNY he's all yours. -- Michael Steele 5110 Posts 3/03 | Posted - Dec 27 2007 : 10:32PM [Link] |
| PL Senior Member God hates us all, you know it's true, God hates this place. - Slayer 1726 Posts 10/03 | Posted - Dec 27 2007 : 10:33PM Good luck Bill, computers suck, that's why I got out of fixing them for a living  World Class Adult Reviews [Link] |
| Bill All-Star Member 5334 Posts 6/00 | Posted - Dec 29 2007 : 1:11AM [Link] |
| RandomPrecision Senior Member Enjoy! 8175 Posts 3/06 | Posted - Dec 31 2007 : 4:36PM [Link] |
| Bill All-Star Member 5334 Posts 6/00 | Posted - Dec 31 2007 : 6:39PM If I remember correctly, I hadn't rebooted my PC for a couple of weeks. So, it's entirely possible that I was going to have this problem the next time that I rebooted, regardless of installing new printer drivers or not. I should find out later this week. [Link] |
| Bill All-Star Member 5334 Posts 6/00 | Posted - Jan 1 2008 : 8:43PM I have no idea how that would have still been the case after reinstalling Windows, but the problem didn't go away after the reinstall. So, it's possible that the reinstall didn't format the hard drive as the first step. I wasn't home when Micro Center called. So I just got a message. He said that after taking care of the hibernation file, it booted up properly and has been running fine for 24 hours. I'll call them tomorrow to get more information. I also want them to restore my system from a complete backup. It's possible (even likely) that the hibernation file is corrupt on the backup. So, I'd be more comfortable if they did the restore and check it again. [Link] |
| PL Senior Member God hates us all, you know it's true, God hates this place. - Slayer 1726 Posts 10/03 | Posted - Jan 1 2008 : 9:13PM However I auto disable that on ever install of Windows I do because of known issues... Hell, I would have had to look up how to fix it anyway, so it ain't like I would have been help, but none the less, happy to hear you got it worked out - for the most part World Class Adult Reviews [Link] |
| RandomPrecision Senior Member Enjoy! 8175 Posts 3/06 | Posted - Jan 1 2008 : 10:40PM [Link] |
| Bill All-Star Member 5334 Posts 6/00 | Posted - Jan 1 2008 : 10:48PM [Link] |
| willywilly Member Activated Member 662 Posts 2/05 | Posted - Jan 2 2008 : 3:28PM complete backups: Elsewhere, I've seen recommended many times - Acronis True Image. I don't own it myself. Always though, it is highly recommended. Apparently, with it you can make a series of CDs or DVDs that are a complete image of your hard drive. I remember that one person said that as a matter of procedure, whenever he gets a new machine, he sets it up the way he likes. Windows updates. Adds whatever software, etc., etc. Then he creates an image. Keeps that forever. When the day comes that he needs to reinstall - clears the hard drive, and writes the image to it. Presto! Done. Windows it back, AND his other software. No having to find all the CDs and reinstall everything. Drivers too! All done. Sounds like the way to go. http://www.acronis.com but it is available at www.newegg.com too. Looks like they are coming out with a new version, and the old version is on sale for 15 bucks. [Link] |
| Bob All-Star Member 5516 Posts 3/03 | Posted - Jan 2 2008 : 3:39PM In Windows XP you can disable hibernation by doing the following: 1. Open Power Options in Control Panel 2. Select the Hibernate tab 3. Clear the checkbox for enabling hibernation This doesn't work in Vista however because the GUI for Power Options has changed and doesn't offer the ability to disable hibernation. But you can disable hiberation in Vista from the command line if you use admin privileges. In Windows Vista you can disable hibernation by doing the following: 1. Press the WINDOWS key on your keyboard and type cmd into the Start Search box but **don't** press ENTER 2. Right-click on cmd in the Programs list and select RUN AS ADMINISTRATOR 3. Click Continue when the User Account Control prompt appears 4. Type powercfg -h off and press ENTER . . Edited by - bob on 1/2/2008 3:40:50 PM [Link] |
| Bill All-Star Member 5334 Posts 6/00 | Posted - Jan 6 2008 : 4:02PM After getting it back home, I reinstalled the software that was loaded on it and installed all of the necessary drivers. The only problem that I've had it that my nVidia 8600GT video card won't work with the DVI output once Windows starts up. However, it works fine with VGA. Apparently, others are having the same problem with recent nVidia drivers. When I was at the store, I talked to the technician, who told me that he's had nothing but problems with the generic Windows backup programs ever since Windows 95. I asked what he recommended and he echoed willywilly's suggestion of Acronis True Image, which should be delivered by Tuesday. [Link] |
| willywilly Member Activated Member 662 Posts 2/05 | Posted - Jan 7 2008 : 1:45PM Mind sharing with us where you bought it and how much? After you get it, and have had some time to get the feel of it, would you share your opinion of it with us? Thanks. [Link] |
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| Bill All-Star Member 5334 Posts 6/00 | Posted - Jan 7 2008 : 7:38PM [Link] |
| willywilly Member Activated Member 662 Posts 2/05 | Posted - Jan 7 2008 : 8:06PM Forgot to mention something. At one of the places I like to read, I saw a comment that under the Tools options, see "Verify Images", and to be sure to do that with your backups before burning them. This is just a heads-up, so you'll be on the lookout for that, and can read up on it when you get your software. I hope it works well for you. [Link] |
| kenny62 Member 21 Posts 11/02 | Posted - Jan 8 2008 : 3:03AM [Link] |
| conquistador Deactivated User Hellhamster. 2947 Posts 10/03 | Posted - Jan 8 2008 : 3:37AM [Link] |
| Bob All-Star Member 5516 Posts 3/03 | Posted - Jan 8 2008 : 3:52PM It's hard to say exactly why I prefer Vista, but it seems to make things easier and more intuitive. I haven't run into any driver problems with the hardware that I use. [Link] |
| kenny62 Member 21 Posts 11/02 | Posted - Jan 9 2008 : 4:08AM I concede that Vista is more sensitive to hardware problems than XP, but with fault-free hardware it's great. It's increasingly popular for home theater PCs, but I wouldn't recommend the 64-bit version for that (nVidia and ATI drivers aren't mature). I set up a Vista x64 machine for my uncle (it's his first computer) about eight months ago; he absolutely loves it. [Link] |
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