Any computer experts out there?

[torinsmom]

DS' laptop has crashed. When it is turned on, it will go to a black screen that tells about the computer components and repeat that info over and over. If you go into the BIOS(I think that is what its called when you hit F12 and 0) It gives the option to start normally or repair windows. Either option, it will show the windows loading and act like its loading and then a black screen with the arrow comes up. I used an IDE/SATA adapter and hooked his hard drive up to my computer, but it says "The request could not be performed because of an I/0 error". I ran a chkdsk on it while it was attached and it went through the whole process, said it added one bad cluster to the bad cluster file. Then it said it was correcting errors in the volume bitmap. Then it said Windows had made corrections in the file system and gave a bunch of info about types of files on the disk. When that was done, I was still getting the same error when I try to access the file on my laptop and his laptop does the same thing when I put it back in. Any ideas? He has a huge project due tomorrow and the data and program he needs to edit it is on that hard drive. HELP

 

[dawson5]

can you get into safe mode and get the info off of there?

I think my son used a "live cd" and pulled off all our data using a flash drive when the last hard drive went bad. The live cd let us get into it without installing. I think it's unbuntu, not sure. He's in bed, still sleeping, fighting off the flu or I would wake and ask him.

I think when I started having problems with the last hard drive, I was able to go into safe mode and go into the event viewer to see what was going on. After replacing the hard drive, it still acted wonky. I think my problems tied into the graphics driver needing to be updated after the reinstall of windows.

 

[lovesmurfs]

Sounds silly, but have you tried removing the battery and putting it back in? I've not had the specific problem, but I've had similar, and that's helped in the past for me.

 

[torinsmom]

Safe mode just gives us a black screen with SAFE MODE in each corner. You can't really do anything but move the cursor around.

A friend at church gave me a Windows 7 CD, thinking it might be Windows, but when I boot from the CD, the same thing happens.

Anything else I can try? My son is going to fail this class if this project isn't in tomorrow.

 

[Albort]

it sounds like ur hard drive hit a critical file that is missing. Have u tried using a Disk to windows recovery and recover it?

if not, ur best solution is to run to a electronic store and get an external hdd and another laptop to get ur files off the HDD and slowly work to get it fix.

 

[torinsmom]

I've hooked the HDD from the bad laptop up to my laptop and I get an I/O error. I don't know how to hook it up to my external hard drive, as I can't pull up a screen on the laptop to find the files I need to move, you know?

Windows 7 CD does not work. I have the battery out now and will try everything again in a few minutes. Then I plan to hook the hard drive up to my laptop again and try the chkdsk again to see if there are more bad sectors there keeping it from running.

Any other ideas, PLEASE lay them on me. I am so upset about this. Why did it have to happen last night and not tomorrow night when he had everything turned in?

 

[Albort]

what do u mean u hooked bad laptop to ur laptop? did u remove the HDD out of the bad and plug it into ur laptop?

 

[FireDancer]

Sounds like a job for SpinRite. It is a utility that will do a deep scan of the hard drive and if there are any recoverable sectors it will fix them. It sounds like some critical files are on a sector that is no longer readable. Unless the disc is physically damaged or can no longer track the program almost always fixes it. Depending on how bad the disc is it would take a while though. I ran it for 2 months on one of our directors laptop and while it took a while the computer was fully repaired once it was done and booted right up.

 

[torinsmom]

what do u mean u hooked bad laptop to ur laptop? did u remove the HDD out of the bad and plug it into ur laptop?

Yes, I have an IDE/SATA adapter I use for that.

The good news is that I ran the chkdsk command several more times and finally got my laptop to recognize the drive and show the files. Then I put the drive back in my son's laptop and I was able to recover Windows. Bad news is my son is now searching for a file converter that will convert MAC video files to PC ones so he can do his project. The laptop has already given him a blue screen once.