Blue screen of death! Help if you can!!!

robmar0se

zzzLazyDaisy wrote: »

You might want to delay doing anything until you can get someone to take the hard drive out and put it in a caddy, and retrieve the photos.

If they are in a d drive, you shouldn't lose them, but that depends on there being a partition and the photos being saved to the d drive.

If they are on the c drive, you stand to lose everything.

Chances are, you won't know unless you are techie (I only know because I was advised to move everything to my d drive by techies on here when my laptop started running slowly, I later got a virus that shut down my laptop, and I had to restore it to factory settings, but the d drive was left untouched).

Also, fortunately for me, I keep everything on a portable hard-drive as I swap between a laptop and a netbook, so everything is always backed up. Doesn't help you now, I know, but a thought for the future.

Good advice about taking backups generally - anyone risk adverse will do this anyway.

However as I said running the recovery console to do a chkdsk will not destroy any data (that is, that has not already been damaged by the corruption that has already taken place). I suspect from error 24 that either the MBR or boot sector are damaged, but there is a very good chance that the chkdsk will correct the issue if it is minor.

Incidentally chkdsk will give you a report at the end - if it says that the # of bad sectors is greater than 0, then it is time to replace the hdd anyway; hdd's go, its when rather than if.

RHYSDAD

Well ran CHKDSK from the disc and, crossed fingers, it's sorted it. Time to invest in an external hard drive methinks. Thanks for the help everyone, much appreciated.

Figment

Did the onset of BSOD's coincide with the installation of Norton?

If so, you might want to try uninstalling Norton completely (I believe there's a removal tool on their site for this purpose) and them installing it again from scratch

RHYSDAD

Figment wrote: »

Did the onset of BSOD's coincide with the installation of Norton?

If so, you might want to try uninstalling Norton completely (I believe there's a removal tool on their site for this purpose) and them installing it again from scratch

No, the other blue screens were way back and haven't coincided with the current version of Norton that I have. I'm just glad it's all sorted.

macman

It's not sorted until you do a back up. You have had a let-off with this, so don't get caught again.
If you are running XP then I'm guessing that this machine is around 7 or 8 years old? If so, the hard drive is liable to fail at any time, and often without warning. It's not a case of if, but when-it's already well beyond it's life expectancy. So back up tomorrow (you can use a DVD or flash drive as a temporary backup), because you may not get a second chance.
Forensic recovery will cost you hundreds of pounds-if it works at all.

waddler_8

robmar0se wrote: »

True on newer machines, but the older XP ones supplied with the OS CD this was not the case.

I'm posting this now from an older XP system with OS & drivers disks supplied which has the custom MBR & hidden recovery & HDD utilities partitions.

By the time the system reaches the point where an 0x24 error can occur, I'd say you've gone past the point where you can attribute the error to MBR corruption.

robmar0se

Good morning Waddler...........

I believe that the OPs problem is now resolved, so this is by way if a separate debate in regard to our prior comments.

What model Dell are you referring to?

Wouldn't you agree that if you have the Dell disks that the recovery partition is rather superfluous? Secondly the Dell utilities you refer to, are usually unnecessary bloatware which when removed do absolutely no harm to the operation of the system. Thirdly, as we know hdds break, its when - not if - so the recovery partiton in these circumstances is pretty useless.

In fact when we get these Dells in for repair, new hdds etc., we don't replace the recovery partition. If they have lost or never had the OS disk we give them a copy, and place the drivers in a folder on the hdd.

The whole concept of hidden recovery partitions is flawed in our view. Joe Public rarely make the recovery disks. MS in their anti-piracy crusade, do not have the answer for when the hdd fail - "your fault, you should have made the backup disks". Impractical and unreasonable in our view.

Will be interested in your views though.............

waddler_8

robmar0se wrote: »

Good morning Waddler...........

Good morning.

robmar0se wrote: »

I believe that the OPs problem is now resolved.

Yes, it looks like chkdsk solved it.

As I said, FIXMBR is often advised to attempt to fix boot problems when the boot is failing past the point where the MBR is responsible. An error of that nature is unlikely due MBR corruption. Why fix something that isn't broken when it has the potential to break something else? The caveat of what FIXMBR means & what it will actually do is often never explained to the OP.

robmar0se wrote: »

Wouldn't you agree that if you have the Dell disks that the recovery partition is rather superfluous?

Not really. Disks can be lost, become damaged etc. An alternate way of restoring/reinstalling the OS to working order - should it be required - can't be considered superfluous.

robmar0se wrote: »

Secondly the Dell utilities you refer to, are usually unnecessary bloatware which when removed do absolutely no harm to the operation of the system.

It equally does absolutely no harm leaving them intact either does it? In what way can a viable, alternate means of potentially resolving OS problems be considered bloat? (We all know that restoring/reinstalling the OS can be a pro's "get out of jail free" card when it is easier/more profitible to do so - when they don't have the required expertise to efficiently solve a problem).

robmar0se wrote: »

Thirdly, as we know hdds break, its when - not if - so the recovery partiton in these circumstances is pretty useless.

That's not a reason to remove it though is it? Isn't everything on a broken HDD pretty much "useless"? It's potential usefulness (as above), is in when the HDD is working.

robmar0se wrote: »

The whole concept of hidden recovery partitions is flawed in our view. Joe Public rarely make the recovery disks. MS in their anti-piracy crusade, do not have the answer for when the hdd fail - "your fault, you should have made the backup disks". Impractical and unreasonable in our view.

Is the reason for not giving disks MS's "anti-piracy crusade", or is it a cost cutting exercise by the OEM's? I'd agree it is better to have the disks, but unfortunately that increasingly isn't the case now . If a PC has a recovery partition, it surely serves a purpose to preserve it where possible - Wouldn't you agree?

robmar0se

I think without going into details we'll have to agree to disagree on most of this.

I can't understand that not providing disks is a cost saving exercise! They cost pennies to produce. And as you know Win 7 downloads are now provided officially.

zzzLazyDaisy

OP, you can get external hard drives on amazon and mymemory at reasonable prices. I like the portable ones as I can carry them around when I am away from home and if I want to access my photos or music they are there. It is also useful if friends have pics or music that I want to download.

But I am aware that if the portable hard-drive fails I stand to lose a lot of stuff that is not on my laptop....so I need to back that up to my other external hard drive.... (I know some people will tell me to use CDs/DVDs, but the truth is, I'd never actually do this...)