[Corey.B]

I have a Toshiba Satelite Laptop with Windows XP Media Center Edition installed. When turned on, I receive a screen stating that windows did not start successfully. It has the options of Safe Mode, Last Known Good Configuration, or Boot Normally. All choice end with the same result:
A BSOD which appears for about a millisecond, goes away, and reboots the computer.
The same is then repeated.
First, I need to get all my files off the machine. I don't have a backup. I only have one CD drive. Is there a way to do this?
Also, I need to fix the problem whatever it may be. I do not have a recovery cd or a windows cd. How can I go about fixing this problem?

Please help me!!!

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If you really need to save files off the drive the easiest way is to buy a laptop drive adapter off Ebay and install the drive in a desktop machine. You can then transfer any files you want to the desktop hard drive. You may need to go thru the process of taking ownership of the files if you let windows put them in the "Documents and settings" folder. I personally have both a laptop, and desktop external USB drive kit to use when i need to save information from drives.

Since you cannot boot into windows at all, using a XP cd and doing a repair install would be the easiest method to repair the OS. If you could have got to the desktop before any blue screens you might have been able to turn off "auto reboot" so you could see what the blue screen is.

For Your Information- to turn off "auto restart"

1. Right-click My Computer, and then click Properties.
2. Click the Advanced tab.
3. Under Startup and Recovery, click Settings to open the Startup and Recovery dialog box.
4. Clear the Automatically restart check box, and click OK the necessary number of times.
5. Restart your computer for the settings to take effect.

I know it's a little late for you now, but i always turn off auto restart on all my computers.

Link to repair install

http://www.geekstogo...ws-XP-t138.html

SRX660

[SRX660]

If you really need to save files off the drive the easiest way is to buy a laptop drive adapter off Ebay and install the drive in a desktop machine. You can then transfer any files you want to the desktop hard drive. You may need to go thru the process of taking ownership of the files if you let windows put them in the "Documents and settings" folder. I personally have both a laptop, and desktop external USB drive kit to use when i need to save information from drives.

Since you cannot boot into windows at all, using a XP cd and doing a repair install would be the easiest method to repair the OS. If you could have got to the desktop before any blue screens you might have been able to turn off "auto reboot" so you could see what the blue screen is.

For Your Information- to turn off "auto restart"

1. Right-click My Computer, and then click Properties.
2. Click the Advanced tab.
3. Under Startup and Recovery, click Settings to open the Startup and Recovery dialog box.
4. Clear the Automatically restart check box, and click OK the necessary number of times.
5. Restart your computer for the settings to take effect.

I know it's a little late for you now, but i always turn off auto restart on all my computers.

Link to repair install

http://www.geekstogo...ws-XP-t138.html

SRX660

[happyrock]

another option...
get puppy linux...Get puppy-2.16-seamonkey-fulldrivers.iso download it and burn it to cd ...if you don't have a burning program that will burn .ISO files go [url="http://"http://www.snapfiles.com/get/burncdcc.html"]here [/url]and get burncdcc ..a small FAST no frills iso burning program...make sure in the bios the cd drive is the first boot device....put the cd in the cd drive..boot your computer....puppy will boot and run totally in ram...if your hardware is is good working order you will know...
after you get it running and your at the desktop...you take the puppy linux cd out and then you can use the burner to copy all yor data to cd/dvds
you can also use it to backup your data to a external usb harddrive..just have it hooked to the computer when you boot up with puppy...
==========================
quick guide for saving data...music..files on a system that will not boot using puppy Linux..


after you get to puppy desktop..
click on the drives icon...looks like a flash drive...top row..it will list all the drives connected to

your computer...

click on the red icon for the drive you want to mount...in this case its a flash drive ...puppy will

mount the drive..the drive icon turns green when its mounted...
minimize the drives mounter window..you will need it again in a few minutes..
drag the right edge of it sideways to shrink it to its narrowest size...then drag the window to the
right edge of the screen...

now click on the icon that looks like a filing cabinet (kind of yellow) on the main drive...it should
already be green..
you will see a list of all the folders on the main drive Usually your C: drive..shrink that window to

the narrowest you can..drag that window to the left side of the screen...
at this point you should have 2 windows open on your desktop..the flash drive on the right side..
go back to the folders on the C: drive...click on the documents and settings folder...then your user
name or all users..find the folders that has your data..
drag and drop the folder with the data you want to make copies of to the flash drive window...

your options are to move ..copy ect...JUST COPY..if its to big you will have to open the folder and
drag and drop individual files until the flash drive is full...(I have a 120 GB external USB drive for
big data recovery jobs and a 4 GB flash drive for the smaller jobs)..after you get the files copied to
the flash drive...
Click on the drives mounter you minimized earlier
UNMOUNT THE FLASH DRIVE by clicking on the green icon..you will once in awhile get error messages when
unmouting the drive..ignore them..when the flash drive icon turns red again its safe to remove the
flash drive..trot on over (stroll if you want to look cool) to another computer and plug in the flash

drive and copy all the data files ( I drag and drop) to the other computer..
make sure the other computer can read them...

now delete the data on the flash drive...take it back to the misbehaving computer and plug it in

again..click on the drives icon again and repeat until you have all your data transferred to the working
system..

Edited by happyrck, 01 February 2008 - 07:25 PM.

[Corey.B]

Thanks for the tips.
I ran chkdsk in BartPE.
It fixed the computer.
I will create a backup tomorrow.