Unable to boot into Vista

stilltheone

How large is your external drive? What exactly happens when you are hitting F8...nothing?

Laura_Browne

stilltheone wrote: »

How large is your external drive? What exactly happens when you are hitting F8...nothing?

its got maybe 20gig, maybe up to 100gig. Its bigger than that but it has other things on it. (i guess worst to worst i could delete what was on there in favour of my actual files)

also, no time change on the restore, rebooted went into Del settings (where BIOS is etc) and it thinks the time and date are correct (ish) only minutes out, not days or hours.

EDIT: it has 70GB of free space

oh, sorry, when i hit F8 i get the usual F8 screen - start in safe mode, start windows normally, start in safe mode with networking. BUT all of these take me to login screen, where i have the "other user" and nothing else, so cant login to use them

stilltheone

We can copy your files directly from WRE, but I'm not sure if the external drive has to match the size of the source drive in this instance.

Otherwise we could just use a Live CD, such as UBUNTU. Download and save. Create the disc in the same way as the others. Boot up with it as before. Don't choose the Install option when it is presented. You want the Try Ubuntu option.

It will create an Operating System using the RAM in your PC(won't harm anything on your hard drive). From there you can 'Mount' the hard drive, plug in your external drive and copy your data over.

Laura_Browne

stilltheone wrote: »

We can copy your files directly from WRE, but I'm not sure if the external drive has to match the source drive in this instance.

Otherwise we could just use a Live CD, such as . Download and save. Create the disc in the same way as the others. Boot up with it as before. Don't choose the Install option when it is presented. You want the Try Ubuntu option.

It will create an Operating System using the RAM in your PC(won't harm anything on your hard drive). From there you can 'Mount' the hard drive, plug in your external drive and copy your data over.

i dont have to have the external HD plugged in first? i already have an Ubuntu cd, the guy from work gave me one as a sorta last resort get data thing. ok i shall try that. least it will get me data so ill chose try ubuntu, itll load up normally then? and i can just use it as it used to be to get data.


also, "mount a hard drive" sounds like something i wont just be able to do???

then do i have to use that CD we made to wipe the computer??

stilltheone

No, you won't need to use my CD.

It doesn't matter when you plug the HDD in.

So what actually happens when you are tapping away at F8? No response or just no Safe Mode option?

Laura_Browne

stilltheone wrote: »

No, you won't need to use my CD.

It doesn't matter when you plug the HDD in.

So what actually happens when you are tapping away at F8? No response or just no Safe Mode option?

nono, misunderstanding.

I can click on safe mode, itll start, then it takes me to the login screen where i cant log in (god knows why the safe mode is taking me to login screen i have no idea) so i cant get further than there)

also, never used Linux based stuff, how do i access the HD's to copy from one to another. will it open like in windows?

closed

cant login even as administrator?

Laura_Browne

closed wrote: »

cant login even as administrator?

ive tried ADMIN, admin, Admin, supervisor, ....lots of other things i cant remember. Just says that the user or something (O_O) doesnt exist or cant be found..(cant quite remember the words)

should i go and do the ubuntu thing now?

stilltheone

Laura_Browne wrote: »

nono, misunderstanding.

I can click on safe mode, itll start, then it takes me to the login screen where i cant log in (god knows why the safe mode is taking me to login screen i have no idea) so i cant get further than there)

also, never used Linux based stuff, how do i access the HD's to copy from one to another. will it open like in windows?

Oh...now you tell me.

Ok, we can try to log in as Administrator.

You decide. Do you want to begin to transfer you data or try to log in as Administrator on the troubled machine?

closed

lots of things including administrator?