Laptop dead after updating Service Pack 1

JAM1376

Hi all

I hope somebody can help. My internet kept crashing and a message came up to update windows. I went on the website and it said I needed to update Service Pack 1 (I think!). I did this and now the laptop is dead.

When I try to turn on, I get a blue screen saying windows has a problem and to press f8 and to start in safe mode. I have tried every mode possible when opening and I just keep getting booted back to this blue screen.

The main problem I have is all my babies pictures are on the laptop and I never got around to backing them up. I am desperate .

Can anybody help with how to open Windows? I/DH are reasonably computer literate but this has us stumped. We have tried installing a (dodgy) version of Windows XP and this said that it could not find the harddrive? Also, if we did this, would the pictures still be there?

If there is someone local (Tameside/East Manchester) who can take the laptop and get the pictures off, I am very willing to pay for their time .

Any suggestions are very welcome. We're out this afternoon but will check back 6ish and the fun will start with the mammoth 'try anything to fix it session'.

The laptop is an HP and is running Vista and is about 2.5 years old. We can afford a new one (I just got a redundancy pay out) but we're desperate for these pictues.

Thanks in advance for any help xxx

SugarSpun

Try this link.

Good luck!

macman

Take the hard drive out, place it in a suitable USB hard drive caddy, connect to another PC and laptop and then copy over the data you need.
And then back it up straight away...
Once you have done that you can reinstall Vista at your leisure.

enigma52

1st thing first, whatever you do DO NOT RESTART YOUR PC. you need to remove the hard drive from laptop and buy a caddie to put it in and connect to another pc. Then you can recover the photo's, otherwise you may overwrite them.
If you have any difficulties in doing any of this, then send me a pm

Toxteth_OGrady

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/use-ubuntu-live-cd-to-backup-files-from-your-dead-windows-computer/

JAM1376

Thanks all (back a bit later than planned).

I'm off to look for a hard drive caddy you talk about and DH is going to look at the other sites linked to in the morning.

Toxteth - the site you linked to keeps kicking out on this laptop (my parents). It might be their virus software. Have you used the disc it lets you burn? Gonna try all options!

Thanks again, will let you know tomorrow how we get on xxx

ETA is this the sort of caddy? Will check what hard drive we have if we have to go via this option.
http://www.netpcdirect.co.uk/hard-disc-caddies/dynamode-25-usb-20-sata-hard-disk-caddy.html

Thanks

Toxteth_OGrady

Download Ubuntu here

http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download

macman

JAM1376 wrote: »

Thanks all (back a bit later than planned).

I'm off to look for a hard drive caddy you talk about and DH is going to look at the other sites linked to in the morning.

Toxteth - the site you linked to keeps kicking out on this laptop (my parents). It might be their virus software. Have you used the disc it lets you burn? Gonna try all options!

Thanks again, will let you know tomorrow how we get on xxx

ETA is this the sort of caddy? Will check what hard drive we have if we have to go via this option.
http://www.netpcdirect.co.uk/hard-disc-caddies/dynamode-25-usb-20-sata-hard-disk-caddy.html

Thanks

Yes, you will need a laptop drive caddy (2.5 in). On a 2.5 year old machine most likely it's a SATA connection, but if you take the drive with you, you can be sure to get one that will match it.

pendulum

There is no need to spend money on a caddy at this stage, do what Toxteth says and download and burn Ubunto to CD, boot from it (you may have to set your computer to boot from CD/DVD Drive first in the boot order of your BIOS to be able to do this) then you should be able to see all your baby photos by browsing the hard disk, then you can email them or move them to a pen drive etc for safe keeping. The link he posted http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/use-ubuntu-live-cd-to-backup-files-from-your-dead-windows-computer/ contains very good instructions for doing this

JAM1376

Morning all

Thanks for the replies so far.

We have got as far as opening our computer with the Unbuntu disk. It shows a file system and then a 120GB harddrive/117 file system (no cd drive or anything else). When we double click the hard drive it just opens a load of mostly empty files.

We can't go on and type in all the commands to connect it cos you need the error message first and we don't get one!

Anyone used this and has any ideas or are we back to the caddy idea?

Apparently our laptop will not even attempt to start now :eek:

Any help?

Thanks

macman

Get yourself a caddy and sort out the data recovery first. Then you can tackle the laptop repair/reinstall.