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Hard drive was replaced
This is pretty convoluted, but here goes. My pc had been slowing down and locking up for most of the summer. I had also been getting ending program now messages after each log-off or restart, and some error messages after I had un-installed or removed a program,about that same program.
What I tried to do was run rapid recovery and restore which promised it would create a back up. Most of our stuff was videos and music,and I saved most of my doc's to disk. What I never had when I brought my pc home was an installtion CD, and the 1st tech I spoke with said not to worry. I learned my lesson. (I also have Windows XP home). Right after RRRPC started my pc froze at 18% completion. I waited for an hour hoping! It didn't matter what I did,what keys I tried on the keyboard,it quit. I ended up powering it off and no start up screen, no windows, nothing. Just a black screen with a blinking white line at the top left corner. Not even command prompt. I went round and round with tech support, me telling them I already tried F11, and they asking me to try again. Finally the tech understood I had nothing to work with and no recovery CD. (I do now!) They sent me out a set of 4,and they installed, extracted, but when it came time to remove any CD's and press enter nothing happened except it went back to the black screen/white line. I tried 1 more time before getting back on the phone, and they had me try once more same result. So I ended up getting my first hard drive. But the installion CD's never installed correctly. My monitor settings wouldn't change out of 16 bit until I updated the driver manually. I ended going down the whole list in device manager and either reinstalling the drivers or having to up-date them. Since the pc had been off for a couple of weeks by then, I had a really hard time remembering what was supposed to be loaded on there as far as the start up menu. I wanted it at least back to the day I first bought it. (It's 1 1/2 yrs old). I'ts an IBM and none of the help and support stuff opened up. All I had on the desk top was the recycle bin icon. So okay I had to hunt for everything. I went through all the updates for both IBM and Windows got it up and running for 2 days, and it started freezing up, and the open windows slowly closing. I tried to back it up again and it froze, (18% completion) again. So I had to power it off and this time it booted up to the start up screen, went to Windows and I had all colors and symbols. At this time I'm starting to get frustrated, but to give them credit they sent out another tech, so I had another hard drive put in and a new processor (it went from a Celuron (sp?) to a P4) and a memory stick. Which they did think might of been causing me the problems, if the 1st hard drive didn't fix it. After those were replaced he (tech) left and I installed the 4 product recovery CD's again, and this time everything installed exactly like it should of the first time around. Windows even had me try to register which it had not done previously. I was even able to install Windows Service pack 2, since everything's so clean now. So now its working fine and I am never going to back up that way again! All my programs are on cd's and I use system restore, which I had used as a sort of back up before anyway. I always use an anti-virus, before it was Norton, and now it's through my high speed cable,Spy-bot, Google tool bar for pop-ups, do disk clean up, and run defrag when it tell me to and before I re-installed my son's games. I scan every download before I open them. What I would like to know is was there someway I could of prevented all this? The last tech thought maybe Windows was corrupted. Are there any diagnostic tools out there? I read everything I can in the help sections before I do anything. I'm glad I found this site because it looks like its going to be a lot more helpful. I still can't install my printer. Either with the CD of manually. It keeps telling me I am already installing a hardware device. It's pretty bad when you yell at your pc and say "Printer we don't know no stinking printer!" Also how can I found out if I have a sound card. Is SoundMax Digital Audio a sound card? And what about a video card? I did up date Intel's graphic controller today because device manager couldn't find any new updates and I knew it was out there. Is that considerd a video card or just some other device? Well, I think I've covered everything and appreciate any thoughts,opinions,or constructive criticism. Fae_rieMom |
#2
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Hi and welcome to cybertech.
I'm going to move this one to the hardware forum. You should get your answers there. |
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