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My Computer is fucked
BillieTheBot
Posts: 8,721 Bot
in General Chat
Ive got a desktop, i came to find it totally locked up earlier, mouse and keyboard wouldnt work.
After a lot of humming and the sorts, i turned it off, its all i could do. Now it turns on, but wont output anything to the monitor, and while the orange light seems to show disc activity on the front, it doesnt seem to make its usual bleed a couple of seconds after ive turned the machine on.
Ive tried doing a disc check on both hdd that are in it, using an external usb enclosure for the drives, on another computer. No errors. Tried it with only one of the two sticks of ram, and then neither, tried everything, its fucked.
My basic question is, while the data on the hard disc is intact, would i be able to find and import my emails from outlook onto a new computer/laptop?
Any any suggestions on where to get a new machine?
After a lot of humming and the sorts, i turned it off, its all i could do. Now it turns on, but wont output anything to the monitor, and while the orange light seems to show disc activity on the front, it doesnt seem to make its usual bleed a couple of seconds after ive turned the machine on.
Ive tried doing a disc check on both hdd that are in it, using an external usb enclosure for the drives, on another computer. No errors. Tried it with only one of the two sticks of ram, and then neither, tried everything, its fucked.
My basic question is, while the data on the hard disc is intact, would i be able to find and import my emails from outlook onto a new computer/laptop?
Any any suggestions on where to get a new machine?
Beep boop. I'm a bot.
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Comments
If you still have no video output, then I'd suggest there is a component failure somewhere. Best place to start is to remove all expansion cards, and try powering on again. If still nothing, then disconnect the hard drives(data AND power cables), and try again. If still nothing, then remove the memory - if still nothing(not even any beeps), then you're likely looking at motherboard, PSU, or CPU failure.
Yep that would be ok but depends also what protocol you use for your email i.e. if you use imap all messages are stored on the mail server anyway rather than downloading so you just set up outlook again and everything will come. If it's pop though it downloads and removes them from the server (by default).
You can manually run the chkdsk command to check for most problems.
To do this, follow these simple steps:
Step One: Click Start, select Run
Step Two: In the box, type cmd
Step Three: Click Ok
Step Four: Run the chkdsk utility by typing in the following command:
chkdsk c:
..or
chkdsk c: /f /r
NOTE: The /f command automatically fixes any errors encountered, the /r command locates bad sectors and recovers readable information.
NOTE: I am also assuming the drive you wish to check is the C: drive.
Step Five: A reboot is normally required for the chkdsk program to lock the disk and run correctly (this is typical on machines that have only one volume), so simply restart the computer and chkdsk will run automatically. When it's finished, (This process can take quite a while depending on the size of your disk, etc.), it will boot back to normal Windows.
Love Poppi
http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/67612-check-disk-chkdsk.html
As for the second question, what are you looking for in a machine?
I would guess it's a hardware failure because the system isnt POSTing (or at least not successfully). The process of diagnosing and repairing is fairly straightforward but
a) quite time consuming
b) requires a certain level of working knowledge about how the components fit together and interact
My guess would be the power supply has degraded and cant supply good volts (which caused the crash in the first place) but thats just speculation. Could be motherboard.
As to where to get a new machine, ebuyer.com is good, if you have money to throw about scan.co.uk are very good (but pricey), and finally if you look through dell's website you can probably find a few offers that make the systems very economical.
But as for getting the data off the hard drive, thats pretty straightforward, you just need to remove it and plug it in. If you get a laptop (assuming you have a desktop now) you will need either an external caddy or a little extender to plug it in but it will work
Genuine Windows Vista (R) Home Premium
3GB Memory
500GB Hard Drive
Multi-Format Dual Layer DVD Re-Writer
256MB nVidia GeForce 7050 Graphics
4 USB Connections
18-In-1 Card Reader
£399.99
Thing is, im pissed off nowhere does xp anymore
Genuine Windows Vista? Home Premium with Service Pack 1, 32-bit - English
4096MB 800MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [4x1024]
320GB (7200rpm) SATA Hard Drive
256MB ATI® Radeon? HD 3650 graphics card
DVD +/- RW Drive (read/write CD & DVD)
Integrated 7.1 Channel High Definition Audio
19-in-1 Media Card Reader
Microsoft® Works 9.0 - English
1Yr Limited Warranty - Collect & Return
£389.01 (that includes delivery)
http://www.bizrate.com/operatingsystems/product-line--windows-xp/products__att247--222241-.html
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Windows-XP-Home-Service-Pack/dp/B00061H588
Poppi
Look for the dbx and mbx files, it should suffice to copy these to the new computer in order to save your e-mails.
Doesn't matter. You already own XP, which you can transfer onto your new computer. The Windows EULA allows you to return Vista for a full refund if you don't agree to it.
http://blog.danieldk.org/post/2008/01/26/Dell-refunds-Vista-and-Works-license-fee
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=247844
And even though vista comes as an oem bundle, i could get my money back off it>?
The only thing is, the machine i like the look of, has 3gig of ram, and i dont think xp will take it, i dont think i would mind vista, would just take a bit of getting used to thats all.
Im going for the £399.99 quadcore
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Processor (2.40GHz, 1066MHz FSB, 8MB Cache)
Genuine Windows Vista (R) Home Premium
3GB Memory
500GB Hard Drive
Multi-Format Dual Layer DVD Re-Writer
256MB nVidia GeForce 7050 Graphics
4 USB Connections
18-In-1 Card Reader
£399.99
XP can in theory handle up to 4GB of Ram, although its hardware dependant. I have never seen a case where 3GB is too much tho.
That machine would be able to handle Vista Home Premium no sweat, save for maybe the integrated graphics card being your bottle-neck. It would handle XP better most likely, but it's doubtful you'll see any real difference.
Vista is something to get used to if you're not used to it however. It's kind of like XP with Mac "simplicity"... but with copious amounts of methamphetamine and LSD. Microsoft kind of made a bit of failure with that one seeing how Vista is so system intensive and user intrusive. But you have to give them the benefit of the doubt as they figured predominantly mothers and children were going to be using the machine, and they were right.
ETA: If you try Vista, hate it, and want XP but can't claim a refund as Click said, shoot me a PM.
Then i rang them up and explained that if i bought a graphic card from them (that i can get 64bit vista drivers for, and subsequently disabled the onboard graphics, along with the processor it comes with, asked if i should be able to install vista 64bit, and they said "we dont see why not"
So i think im going to go for it.
Does the onboard graphics not have 64 bit driver support? I'm using x64 and pretty much every popular graphics chipset is supported. Except some old ones, but if you're buying a new system...
As for the 3gb issue thing, its not that it wont support it, its just
because in order to use hardware and memory and stuff like that everything gets given an address in the computer. Think of like how every website has an IP address. So every bit in your memory (3gb = 3 * 8 billion bits) has an individual address. Depending on how much hardware you have, 32bit runs out of address space coming up to 4gb memory, so it just cant use the last bits, but it will still work fine and be detected fine.
Multiple applications can use more than this amount of address space combined.
This is because the address is stored in 32 bits but one bit is usually a signed bit so it actually works out as half of this amount that is genuine address space. Or it may be because the kernel uses up a certain amount of your address space.
Generally you should store most of your data and installation applications on an external drive. Then if you change your computer you just plug the drive in and can reinstall the programs from the installation applications.
You can change the location of things like "My Documents" etc. and where outlook stores your e-mails.