Blue screen of death... what to do..?

DVardysShadow

foreign_correspondent wrote: »

Hi all,
thanks for your help last week - I managed to get hold of the work I needed to do urgently and work on it on a different PC - however, I am now looking at whether to try and get my laptop working... can someone explain, in idiot proof terms, what Ubuntu does, and why I should download it?

many thanks!

fc

The Ubuntu live CD is a complete Linux Operating System which runs from a CD or a USB memory stick. It is well regarded for problems like yours, in that if you boot into the CD it will allow you to look at the hard drive - and using Open Office, you can open any MS Word files.

You have now moved on from the pressure of marking assignments, so it may not be so useful to you to do this, but if you understand what your problem is, Ubuntu may still give you a means of fixing it.

2010

About three years ago I suffered the BSoD and basically lost everything.

The only solution, even after rigging the HD onto another PC to try to salvage anything,was to restore everything back to day one.(factory settings).

The advice I was given then was to buy an external HD and back-up at regular intervals, which is exactly what I did.

I know it`s locking the stable door after

---

but no matter what happens now everything is on the ex HD.

A lesson hard learned.

gonzo127

Ubuntu is a full free operating system which contains 95% of the things most people need (main things i feel are needed ontop of the basic set up is the ubuntu restricted extras package and the VLC media player)

its ability to run entierly from a CD or USB stick makes it very useful for recovering data on a hard drive where windows has died as running it in the LiveCD mode will make no lasting changes to your hard drive

this however is not everything you can also install a windows virus scanner in it which allows you to scan your hard drive for windows based virus's and since Ubuntu just doesnt get virus's + can not be affected by windows virus's you dont have to worry about them whilst running in ubuntu

Ubuntu also make's a great replacement for windows and which i have been using for the past year, 95% of the time using Ubuntu and only booting into windows when i want to play a game. i have personally found Ubuntu to be great, very stable no worry about virus's, all the software i need is free and virtually every program on windows has got a alternative for ubuntu which can be easily found and installed through the software centre and if you need a specific windows program, a lot can be gotten to work in WINE, yes Ubuntu will not be for everyone but i woudl certainly suggest you look into it as a possibility, even more so if you cant fix your windows problem

foreign_correspondent

Hi Folks,

Thanks for all the useful information.

Last night I used this to put ubuntu onto a memory stick:
http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

However, when I try to boot up from the usb, I get a message telling me there is no operating system there...

It looks like other people have experienced the same issue, so I need to try and work out why that is now, and what to do about it...

any ideas?

gonzo127

could you download the ISO image seperatly and then try again instead of using the program to get it? (sorry i have not used the USB version as i have a full install)

maybe try this instead

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/put-ubuntu-10-04-on-flash-drive-using-windows/

another idea is to check out the ubuntu forums for advice

cherry76

When this happened to me I got the same message like you on the blue screen of death. I had to re-install window. Computer ok now but I have lost everything as I did not back up. Hope this helps.