Help
 

Hello to the forum. A friend mentioned I may get some help. My computer appears to be totally done for. Two years old and windows xp. It all started when the mouse would not work properly. I changed the batteries and it was usually be ok after a reboot or two. In the end it became constant, and I even tried a different mouse. The upshot of it all was that I tried to use the restore disks and pressed the 'reinstall windows' option which worked for all the first disk but about half of the second one where it encounterd a 'cannot read file' error. Now I am stuck with a situation where I get the machine to bootup to the part where you get the option to choose 1 or 2 to reinstall windows or boot from a floopy etc. I choose the reinstall windows option and am given the warning for either Y or N to proceed. When I press the Y nothing happens but if I press the N it goes onto a "a:>" prompt. I just don't know what to do now.

Re: Help
 

Welcome to the forum :)
Sounds like a corruption or a damaged CD. Make sure the recovery CDs are clean for starters. Next we'll need some info about the PC, make, model, specs etc.

Re: Help
 

:welcome: to Cable Forum :D

I'd be suspicious as to whether your hard disk itself has failed.

Once you have got to the a:> can your type c: and [return] If so do you get a c:> prompt?

When you are trying to restart the PC, do you have anything in the floppy drive? If you leave it empty and have the Windows XP master disk (or the restore disk supplied bny the manufacturer) in the CD drive, what happens?

Re: Help
 

Your restore disc sounds screwed (technical term!)

Try reinstalling with a proper MS disc. borrow one, buy one, steal one... whatever.

Re: Help
 

Had you installed anything new on your computer just before the mouse started acting up?

Re: Help
 

no - nothing happens - its as if the keyboard isn't working, but if you press other keys you get a beeping sound. I may get a friend round tommorow who is a bit more techy and get him to bring a windows cd. I thought the two in my restore kit were xp cds but apparently this is not the case? :confused:

Re: Help
 

Nope probably restore CDs which contain an image of what was on your PC when it shipped from the factory. Use a copy of XP that will work with your license key but you may need your restore CDs to get drivers from. If you can't get your drivers from the CD you can run post the PC make and model on here and we can look for you.

Re: Help
 

ok - will do that. So you don't neccesarily get given a windows xp disk when you buy a machine that has windows xp? Is this right?

Re: Help
 

Nope, some people don't even get restore CDs. A restore CD will only return a PC to a fresh from factory state so any documents or changes you make are lost. With a proper XP cd you can do a repair install which which leave files intact on the system apart from the main Windows folder which is removed and replaced with new files. This gives you a "clean" windows install without the loss of documents and files that you may have on the computer.

Re: Help
 

hmm - seems a bit unfair that. Especially when I thought that about £100 or more of the price I paid for the machine went to Bill Gates and so on. I seem to recall I had the same issue with a windows 98 machine - all I had was a cr*ppy packard bell cd pair to sort me out. Even so I will try to obtain such a disk

Re: Help
 

Please don't mention P****** B***, my first PC lasted 6 months before it met my wheelie bin, guess what it was (this was back in 95 :erm: )?
Anyway, unfortunately you have to be careful when you buy computers these days as you aren't guaranteed a full copy of the OS unless it is stated in the specs etc.

Re: Help
 

If I get a Foghorn Leghorn machine, or whatever the new version is called, I will insist on being issued with a disk that actually contains it. I should have thought this through when I bought this bugger

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As long as you have a valid and legal license key you have ways around their penny pinching. Personally I wouldn't buy another PB if someone offered me a brand new top range model for a fiver.

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1st PC I got 13 years ago was a PB, never got another one.

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the one I am having probs with now is an Emachine. But I waived the insurance cover on it so am on my own now, I guess, now that the machine is nearly two years old

Re: Help
 

Yep 2 years without an extended warranty will leave you out in the cold, should be fixable though with an XP CD and drivers. It should pick up a lot of the drivers from the XP CD but there may be a few that need finding. Apart from that the only loss will be any software that gets installed through the restore CD.

Re: Help
 

well thanks for all the advice anyway. Will see what happens tommorow, i will report back if anyone cares for me to do so

Re: Help
 

We don't mind lol, if you need help sourcing drivers then post back tomorrow.

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Emachines... the feared across the galaxy PCworld special, people have been known to go crazy in fear of the sheer crapness which beholds a Emachines computer.

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Oh come on its worth £5 as a doorstop :LOL:

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Your point about the lack of source OS disks is true. I just bought a HP Pavillion, not only did it come with no OS disk, there was also no recovery disk. It does have a recovery partition, but that wipes it to a factory default. There is a utility installed that will let you create a recovery disk but..... wait for it..... you can *only* run this once to create a single recovery set. I'm not sure what you're meant to do if one of your 7 CDRs is flaky, or as in my case, you make recovery disks with CDRs as you have no blank DVDs at the time.

Cheap and frustrating penny pinching IMHO, I did however get a free AOL and Yahoo CD.

Re: Help
 

Which to me is rediculous as it means your customers have no choice in how they can recover their system if a serious problem occurs. It's format or nothing :(
Ah well there you go, a free drinks coaster :)

Re: Help
 

kinda off topic but still about Pb's why are they so crap, i'll admit i had one aswell and hated it about 2 days after getting it, but why is there rep for pc's so bad ?


EDIT> Spelling

Re: Help
 

Just copy the cds you make with clone cd or nero,can you not make the recovery set burn with nero or something? this then could allow you to write image to file?

TBH and purely IMO dump the install anyway and start afresh all the bloat that tries to take over your system anyway.Also you end up with large hard drives with no second partition ,Norton ghost once the reinstall and set up is what I always use

Re: Help
 

put a new power supply unit on and reinstalled windows using the cr*ppy restore disks. Lost a bit of data but, hey, I needed a spring clean anyway. So the machine is running again now for anyone interested :tu:

Re: Help
 

Now make copies of the discs using nero so you have back up of the back ups