Windows wont load and pc closes down after taking it to shop

culpepper

in opera you can export your bookmarks and contacts,its in the first part o the menu. Also you can have the bookmarks as an html which comes up as a page of all the bookmarks as links.
In mozilla look in C:\documentsandsettings\yourname\applicationdata\mozilla
Where it says your name you type your user name or find the folder If you save the whole mozilla folder to a disc and all your opera files that you export to a disc that will be some of your settings.
Youll see an opera folder in applicationdata too and I think if you save that whole folder onto disc it will have your mail as mbs files. Not certain but i think so. Write down all your mail information onto a piece of paper so you can just type them back in to the new installation. You need the incoming and outgoing mail servers and youll need you user name and password.
I think it shows user ame but password is starred out ....in opera,tools,mail and chat accounts(click edit to read all the information)
I dont use IE but I expect there are ways of saving that info too.
look in the file menu for import and export.
Save all the details to a CD or DVD if youve got one you can burn to.
You can download nero from their own website.
Not sure if you can get your nero password numbers from inside of the program but XP has burning software anyway if you cant.
Best of luck

danivtec

Presume you have a prebuilt desktop from say Dell, HP etc. You will need the disc that came with that pc to do a reinstall as it will come with all the correct drivers preinstalled.

What browser are you using out of those 3?

They may be able to do something without reinstallation however if it was mine at home I would just reinstall windows. The temperatures do seem still a little high.

Best thing to do is let the good shop sort it out and hopefully they will do "mates rates" for you.

Lady_K

I don't have norton ghost though but I'll see what I can do. I'll try saving some info to notepad and whatever else I can do in the browsers etc.

My default browser is internet explorer 7 but I use opera for other things and store passwords and have a lot of links set up in the browser. It took me a lot of messing about to get the settings on firefox and opera to use with cashback sites etc but because explorer is my default I didn't want passwords saving on there. I do the same thing with firefox, lots of links and passwords saved, none for banking though or email.

The pc isnt a proper make it was made up by someone for the person that gave it my daughter, we did ask if he had a disc he said he never had one. All I have is a windows xp disc that has not been opened that came with a pre installed laptop. The laptop was then stolen from my daughters uni accomodation so the disc has never been used. This is why the person gave us the pc because she was left in a mess. I do have another windows xp pro though but thats been used before on more 2 machines could I use that as pro is better than xp home isnt it?

Is reformatting just a matter of putting the xp cd in the drive and reinstalling it? Then adding whatever else you want to after that?

How could I get power dvd program back on and the cd burner thing? would it all copy to the spare hardrive and be useable when I put it back on?

I don't know the rates for work like that from the shop but everything else they do is expensive so I'm pretty sure they will be for this too.

Lady_K

The speedfan has a list on the front and that list has fire icons next to 2 of the temps in the list one I think is the processor fan as its saying similar readings to what I get from the bios it goes up from when I start the computer its saying 52 at the mo but it started ad 45 and the pc had been left off for a couple of hours.

The one further down the list though I'm not sure what thats for it says 124c It doesnt say what its for just a temperature

Lady_K

I just rang to ask for rough estimate for the work but the owner wasnt in so I asked as a guide how much it would cost for a complete reformat and she said that if reformatting is the same as reinstallation it is £80 + vat which is about £97.50 if I've worked that out right. Flippin heck I hope I can do that myself as thats excluding any parts I might need and labour for anything else.

culpepper

reformatting can be done from the XP disc if you choose that option.You need to boot into the CD Look in bios or it might be press F8 to choose where to boot from when you first start the computer.After it formats it, it will load the setup thing onto the computer and then it reboots again(dont press any key to boot from CD the second that time ) and it will work through its installation and you just choose the right keyboard and locale etc(UK) and near the end you type in your code from the XP disc. Ive just done it on 2 seprate computers and it takes around 40 minutes to install not including the formatting.

Lady_K

Do you think £97.50 is expensive for a reformat on its own?

danivtec

Reformat seems very expensive for around an hours work.

If you have the disc that came with the pc, presume it is a legit copy and you have the key sticker on your machine you can do it youself. What does the disc say on it?

http://www.theeldergeek.com/clean_installation_of_windows_xp.htm

^ guide on installation.

You should make sure that you set your BIOS to boot from the cd first, then change it back to the original configuartion once it has restarted for the first time.

BritBrat

danivtec wrote: »

You should make sure that you set your BIOS to boot from the cd first, then change it back to the original configuartion once it has restarted for the first time.

The above is important but can be changed at any time.

I always set mine up to boot from, CD - floppy - hard drive - any other device.

If you are not using a system restore CD you will have to make sure you have all the drivers for your hardware.

I would try and get them all before you start.

You will also need the Microsoft CD key if you go here and download Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder v1.51 you can run that and it will tell you the key you currently have, but you may also have to activate XP and maybe phone Microsoft to be able to do that.

Lady_K

BritBrat wrote: »

The above is important but can be changed at any time.

I always set mine up to boot from, CD - floppy - hard drive - any other device.

If you are not using a system restore CD you will have to make sure you have all the drivers for your hardware.

I would try and get them all before you start.

You will also need the Microsoft CD key if you go here and download Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder v1.51 you can run that and it will tell you the key you currently have, but you may also have to activate XP and maybe phone Microsoft to be able to do that.

Oh flippin heck it sounds quite complicated for me as its not a store purchased pc. How do I find all the drivers I thought about that earlier on. I'm sure theres going to be something I forget Thanx for the useful links both of you. I was going to take it in tomorrow but it looks like its going to take me a bit of time sorting out those drivers and things.

What about the dvd burner and player ect do they work automatically afterwards?

Do you usually have to phone microsoft then everytime you reformat because I have known some people reformat once a month. I don't like the idea of having to ring them. Would they want to know my name ect because I don't know whos name this computer would have been in really before as it was given to us. I know its a legit one though because it checked it when I did microsoft update with the validation tool.

I thought that if I hadn't got the drivers they would show up in
micro update