[Nfiniti2010]

Hello:

I do apologize if this has been addressed in this thread and I've seen posts that come close, but don't recall seeing the solution (if there is one). I have a Dell Inspiron 530s and it wouldn't boot. My daughter was the last one on the computer and swears she didn't do anything, but that that computer froze and then she pushed Ctrl+Alt+Del to shut it down. Now I try to boot and it would just freeze on the Windows start up blue screen. I tried to do a repair with the installation CD. I got to the screen where it seems like it noticed my current Win XP installation and pushed "R" for the repair process to begin. It seemed to be working just fine, but then it seemed like it stopped for a long period of time. Me like an idiot shut the computer down because I thought it froze, but now I wished I would've just waited to see if it would do anything. Now when I boot from the CD, it takes me to this screen that says

* To set up Windows XP on the selected item, press ENTER.
* To create a partition in the unpartitioned space, press C.
* To delete the selected partition, press D.

Then it says: 305243 MB Disk 0 at Id 0 on bus 0 on atapi [MBR]
-: Partition1 [FAT] 47 MB (38 MB free)
C: Partition2 [NTFS] 301807 MB (254027 MB free)
Unpartitioned space 8 MB
I: Partition3 [FAT32] 3381 MB (1310 MB free)

I really don't know what to do Have I already lost all of my stuff on my hard drive? I feel like such a fool now for not backing up my stuff. But I will just have a fit if I lose everything on this hard drive. I have EVERYTHING on here pertaining to my business and personal stuff, tons of music files, I mean everything. If I can just get this to boot so that I can see my stuff again, I promise I will start backing up. Is there anything I can do? Now when I just boot from the hard drive it goes the the Microsoft start up screen and then the screen just goes black. I don't recall if there is a cursor blanking at the top of the screen or not. Is there anything I can do to save my data? I am really freaking out and crying like a baby over here. Any advice would greatly be appreciated and I thank you in advance for it.

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Hiya

I'm not the bearer of good news unfortunately. From what I have seen it does seem that all data has been destroyed. I am guessing you either have a 30 or 40gb hard drive? If so it looks empty. You won't need all them partition either since all data has been destroyed you should delete partion numbers 1 and 3, this will leave you with 1 partion to re-install. (before re-installing please confim if you have a 30gb or 40gb hard drive, GB = Gigabyte)

All is not lost though as whatever can be destroyed can be recovered, after you perform a fresh installation please download and install PC inspector File Recovery from here and i hope you can recover your data.

Regards

[wizzy2k5]

Hiya

I'm not the bearer of good news unfortunately. From what I have seen it does seem that all data has been destroyed. I am guessing you either have a 30 or 40gb hard drive? If so it looks empty. You won't need all them partition either since all data has been destroyed you should delete partion numbers 1 and 3, this will leave you with 1 partion to re-install. (before re-installing please confim if you have a 30gb or 40gb hard drive, GB = Gigabyte)

All is not lost though as whatever can be destroyed can be recovered, after you perform a fresh installation please download and install PC inspector File Recovery from here and i hope you can recover your data.

Regards

[Nfiniti2010]

Thank you for your reply wizzy. I actually have a 320 GB hard drive. I followed the instructions as stated to do a repair, so I really don't know why it re-formatted or erased the hard drive. Bugger!! There has to be another way to do this without losing everything. Thanks for your help.

[wizzy2k5]

Hiya

I read the partions wrongly my boo boo

320gb hard drive and you have 301807 MB spare this still tells me its empty. Now I don't think doing what you did should cause this however I may have a possible solution for this but you will need your cd installation disc with you. Please follow these instructions from wannabe1 our Tech administrator.

Manual system restore

Edited by wizzy2k5, 04 July 2010 - 03:59 PM.

[123Runner]

You would need to run the PC Inspector or Recuva on the drive before you formatted again.
You would also need a drive as big as what you already have for a place to put the info.
This means you need another computer that you can hook 2 drives to. Possiby as slaves or in USB enclosures.

[Nfiniti2010]

OMG!!!! Thank you so much wizzy2k5. The Manual System Restore link you provided worked! I can't begin to tell you how much I appreciate your help. I literally cried when I was able to restore the system according to the instructions. You don't know how happy I was to see all of my work and files on this computer. I thought I had lost everything. As soon as I got the system up and running, I backed up everything and have set my system to do weekly backups. I can't thank you enough as I am so grateful for your help. Just to think Dell wanted to charge me $60 to help me solve the problem. Wow. You guys are really smart! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!

Edited by Nfiniti2010, 05 July 2010 - 02:11 PM.

[123Runner]

Wow!!!

I would have thought that the restore would not work since the drive was showing as empty.

Congratulations. for a successful resolution for your issue. I am happy everything has been worked out for you. With that being said I am happy to say:


You are very welcome. I'm glad we could help and please let us know how everything works out for you.
If there is anything else we can do to help please feel free to ask. I appreciate that you allowed me to assist you with your issue and for your patience. Thank you for choosing GeeksToGo for help.
This issue now appears to be resolved.


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