[PHutch]

Hi Donna;
I stay up late most nights, not a good thing, at this point, my memory is foggy concerning this area.
So to answer your questions:
"When you did the emergency backup, did you back, where did you back it up to and did you name the backup Paula.PaulaPC?"
The answer to this question is I used Dell Data Safe Local Backup; I know this for sure. It created a shortcut to my desktop named emergency back up - (at this point, I can not access it, because it has to search for it or I have to browse the computer).

As far as naming the back up, I believe I named it emergency back up (thus the shortcut on my desktop named emergency back up).
Where did I back it up to? I think the C Drive. When I rebooted and started the emergency back up, it stated it would create a memory folder. I clicked ok and went to bed.
When I returned from work the next day, I noticed my computer was still not working properly. However, I searched my external hard drive and noticed two folders, back up and Paula PC. I started PaulaPC and I received messages that files were already present, did I want to copy, replace, or copy and replace. I chose the option to copy (not knowing what files were important, so I was afraid). Since then I noticed when I search for files, I have a regular file and then a regular file(1) that will show up. The Dell Data Safe would pop up every minute or two, so I deleted that from my system (I couldn't find a way to shut notifications off, and I didn't want to copy a bad hard drive).

I hope this explains what you are looking for and answers your question(s). If not, I will try to answer to the best of my ability.  MiniToolBox.txt   9.12KB   174 downloads

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I know with the holiday season everyone is busy - including myself. What I really want to know is did I really jack up my computer (which I most likely did considering the time frame I performed functions just to get it working); and do I need to do a clean swipe? I will back up what I need to and restart if I have to.
Thanks.

[PHutch]

I know with the holiday season everyone is busy - including myself. What I really want to know is did I really jack up my computer (which I most likely did considering the time frame I performed functions just to get it working); and do I need to do a clean swipe? I will back up what I need to and restart if I have to.
Thanks.

[DonnaB]

Hi PHutch,

Please accept my apologies for the very long delay in responding. It was not my true intention to leave you hanging on the line. Yes. The Holidays was a big factor. As much as I hate to see them go, I am so glad they're over and family has gone home to leave me to clean up the mess.

Please do me a favor, click on that Paula.PaulaPC folder and tell me what is in it.

Where did I back it up to? I think the C Drive.

That's actually defeating your purpose. If your HD crashes or you experience system failure, etc. you won't be able to access your backup! You should never backup to the recovery partition, either as that can corrupt any chance of recovering your computer to factory condition, if ever needed. It's always best to backup to an external source.

When I rebooted and started the emergency back up, it stated it would create a memory folder. I clicked ok and went to bed.

I think that might be your problem. I've been searching for infomation concerning Dell DataSafe Local Backup and even on the Dell sites I can't find any explanation for the memory folder it creates. I know so very little about that program. Had hoped to find something on hoe to delete the backup and the memory folder it created.

I'll keep looking and get back to you as soon as I can. If you come across something, please let know.

Edited by DonnaB, 30 December 2012 - 10:17 PM.

[PHutch]

Hi Donna;
No worries about the delay. I had a little bit of time to kill and was checking to see if I had an answer. I agree with you about the holidays and getting things over with and the house picked back up.
I had just considered the other day to post a pic of what is in the Paula.PaulaPC folder.

I spent some time looking through my external hard drive, on the folders, when I hover over them and it shows created date, the dates do not match when I was having my last difficulty.

Did I tell you that I did a reboot from the recovery discs after the dell back up, because the computer still wasn't working properly? (When I made them, it made 4 disks). After I inserted and ran the first disc, the computer restarted and then started running smoothly. It wasn't until a few days later that I noticed my memory was half of what it had been and I was getting the side by side configuration notice.

The pic of the folder of Paula.PaulaPC. (I looked in the folder of back up files, it says the folder is empty).

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Edited by PHutch, 01 January 2013 - 11:28 PM.

[DonnaB]

Hi PHutch,

Did I tell you that I did a reboot from the recovery discs after the dell back up, because the computer still wasn't working properly? (When I made them, it made 4 disks). After I inserted and ran the first disc, the computer restarted and then started running smoothly.

No. You did mention that you created the 4 recovery disks, though I don't recall you mentioning that after you performed the backup that you inserted the 1st of 4 recovery disks and the computer rebooted. To be honest, that doesn't make sense. I've used recovery disks many times to reinstall the factory image and usually when you slip in the disk the computer does not reboot after each disk. Under normal circumstances it should eject the 1st disk and ask for the 2nd disk to be inserted into the disk drive and continue with the reinstall process asking for the 3rd, then 4th disk in the same manner till reinstall is complete.

When did that Paula.PaulaPC folder appear? I'm thinking that might be your back up. Do you have an external that you can transfer that folder to?

Edited by DonnaB, 02 January 2013 - 12:36 AM.

[PHutch]

Hi PHutch,

Did I tell you that I did a reboot from the recovery discs after the dell back up, because the computer still wasn't working properly? (When I made them, it made 4 disks). After I inserted and ran the first disc, the computer restarted and then started running smoothly.

No. You did mention that you created the 4 recovery disks, though I don't recall you mentioning that after you performed the backup that you inserted the 1st of 4 recovery disks and the computer rebooted. To be honest, that doesn't make sense. I've used recovery disks many times to reinstall the factory image and usually when you slip in the disk the computer does not reboot after each disk. Under normal circumstances it should eject the 1st disk and ask for the 2nd disk to be inserted into the disk drive and continue with the reinstall process asking for the 3rd, then 4th disk in the same manner till reinstall is complete.

When did that Paula.PaulaPC folder appear? I'm thinking that might be your back up. Do you have an external that you can transfer that folder to?

Hi Donna;
I was confused after the first disk started and my computer started back up, it did not ask for the second disk etc. I rebooted from the ms dos recovery mode and used the cd drive on the first disc. I inserted the first disc and then my computer restarted on it's own. It did not ask for a second disc, etc. That is when my computer starting running properly, but I noticed the side by side configuration ( thus the copy, copy and save, copy and replace, etc.);
The Paula.PaulaPc folder showed after running the installation disc.

[DonnaB]

PHutch,

I think it might be best just to reformat the HD. You do have everything backed up? Correct? Before you proceed with a reformat I'd like to verify the HD is in good condition. I know we attempted this before but we never did get the log that was produced. Let's try it one more time.

• Click on Start then click on Computer
• Right click on the C: drive, scroll down and click on Properties
• Click on the Tools tab
• Click on the Check Now... button
• In the dialog box that opens, place a checkmark in the 2 boxes and click on Start
• The next dialog box will now show a similar message as below:
  
  • Windows can't check the disk while it's in use.
    Do you want to check for hard disk errors the next time you
    start your computer ? <Schedule disk check/Cancel>
  • Click on Schedule disk check and reboot the computer if it does not reboot on it's own.
• Checkdisk will start once the computer reboots. It can take up to an hour or more to complete as it goes through the stages. Allow it to run uninterrupted till complete.

To find the log that is produced, please do the following:

• Reboot the computer.
• Click on Start > Run and type in eventvwr.msc
• Next, click on Windows Logs and in the middle pane double click on Application.
• Scroll down to find the Wininit entry under Source column for the date and time the scan was performed.
• Double click on the Wininit entry and a window will open.
• Click on the Copy button in the lower left to copy to clipboard then paste to your next reply.

[DonnaB]

That chkdsk may take about an hour or more to complete. It's getting very late where I'm located. I'll check back in the A.M.

[PHutch]

Hi Donna;
I'm sorry I left you like that. It was late here for me. I will do the checkdisk now.

[DonnaB]

No problem at all. I'll keep an eye for your post once the chkdsk is finished.

[PHutch]

I remember, I couldn't find that file you needed me to find.
I have been backing up a majority of my files since this started. I have a few things I need to back up, but otherwise, most of my files are backed up.


Log Name: Application
Source: Microsoft-Windows-Wininit
Date: 1/2/2013 9:03:11 PM
Event ID: 1001
Task Category: None
Level: Information
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: Paula-PC
Description:


Checking file system on C:
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Volume label is OS.

A disk check has been scheduled.
Windows will now check the disk.

CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 5)...
259584 file records processed.

File verification completed.
285 large file records processed.

0 bad file records processed.

0 EA records processed.

44 reparse records processed.

CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 5)...
321790 index entries processed.

Index verification completed.
0 unindexed files scanned.

0 unindexed files recovered.

CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors (stage 3 of 5)...
259584 file SDs/SIDs processed.

Cleaning up 95 unused index entries from index $SII of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 95 unused index entries from index $SDH of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 95 unused security descriptors.
Security descriptor verification completed.
31104 data files processed.

CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
35104632 USN bytes processed.

Usn Journal verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying file data (stage 4 of 5)...
259568 files processed.

File data verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying free space (stage 5 of 5)...
49795567 free clusters processed.

Free space verification is complete.
Windows has checked the file system and found no problems.

472922135 KB total disk space.
273268116 KB in 151007 files.
91508 KB in 31105 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
380243 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
199182268 KB available on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
118230533 total allocation units on disk.
49795567 allocation units available on disk.

Internal Info:
00 f6 03 00 6c c7 02 00 02 22 05 00 00 00 00 00 ....l...."......
c8 4b 00 00 2c 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 .K..,...........
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................

Windows has finished checking your disk.
Please wait while your computer restarts.

Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.micro.../events/event">
<System>
<Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-Wininit" Guid="{206f6dea-d3c5-4d10-bc72-989f03c8b84b}" EventSourceName="Wininit" />
<EventID Qualifiers="16384">1001</EventID>
<Version>0</Version>
<Level>4</Level>
<Task>0</Task>
<Opcode>0</Opcode>
<Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2013-01-03T03:03:11.000000000Z" />
<EventRecordID>8721</EventRecordID>
<Correlation />
<Execution ProcessID="0" ThreadID="0" />
<Channel>Application</Channel>
<Computer>Paula-PC</Computer>
<Security />
</System>
<EventData>
<Data>

Checking file system on C:
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Volume label is OS.

A disk check has been scheduled.
Windows will now check the disk.

CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 5)...
259584 file records processed.

File verification completed.
285 large file records processed.

0 bad file records processed.

0 EA records processed.

44 reparse records processed.

CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 5)...
321790 index entries processed.

Index verification completed.
0 unindexed files scanned.

0 unindexed files recovered.

CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors (stage 3 of 5)...
259584 file SDs/SIDs processed.

Cleaning up 95 unused index entries from index $SII of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 95 unused index entries from index $SDH of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 95 unused security descriptors.
Security descriptor verification completed.
31104 data files processed.

CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
35104632 USN bytes processed.

Usn Journal verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying file data (stage 4 of 5)...
259568 files processed.

File data verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying free space (stage 5 of 5)...
49795567 free clusters processed.

Free space verification is complete.
Windows has checked the file system and found no problems.

472922135 KB total disk space.
273268116 KB in 151007 files.
91508 KB in 31105 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
380243 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
199182268 KB available on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
118230533 total allocation units on disk.
49795567 allocation units available on disk.

Internal Info:
00 f6 03 00 6c c7 02 00 02 22 05 00 00 00 00 00 ....l...."......
c8 4b 00 00 2c 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 .K..,...........
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................

Windows has finished checking your disk.
Please wait while your computer restarts.
</Data>
</EventData>
</Event>

[NeonFx]

Hi PHutch,

Do you have a Windows.old folder under your C:\ drive? Don't do anything to it, just let me know if it exists.

[PHutch]

Do you have a Windows.old folder under your C:\ drive? Don't do anything to it, just let me know if it exists.

No, I do not have the windows.old folder.
I did find a file RegBackUp. Inside that is PaulaPC. Then the following (this would be around the time frame that I actually performed the back up).

[NeonFx]

Alright. Let's back up then. Everything is fixed now except for the fact that your harddrive is twice as full as it used to be?

[PHutch]

Alright. Let's back up then. Everything is fixed now except for the fact that your harddrive is twice as full as it used to be?

Correct.
I will back up either tonight or tomorrow and let you know.