[awmon]

Hi. I am new to this site so I hope I am doing this right. I have a complex problem (I think). My computer had windows 2000 professional. I have had a locking up problem for a while that I had attributed to viruses and had taken it to a couple of so-called pros who replaced my power supply and some other things they were vague about. They told me it was fixed, well it wasnt. After this all I could do on the computer without it locking up was play a couple of stupid little games I downloaded. Not wanting to pay them any more money...I decided to just upgrade to XP hoping that 2000 had gotten corrupted and that a reinstall would fix the problem. I have my kids' pictures on here from long ago that I had purchased a cd-burner to try to save. But with the constant locking up...I could not even get to the burning screen to do that. So I decided to just put XP prof over 2000 without a clean install.
In the middle of the upgrade (after it had deleted files from 2000 to install XP) when it told me I had 39 minutes left of installing xp...my computer froze up. I restarted the computer and it booted back to a screen that said "restarting set-up". Well, after this screen it loaded a blue screen.....then the mouse pointer and froze up again. Now I have tried many times to start again to which it goes to the same screen, restarts itself, and goes round and round until I shut it off. I tried F8 to try to boot last known good conf, I tried to boot 2000 but it no longer an option. Now, after about 25 tries it will no longer even go to the set-up screen. It just goes through its rounds. I guess what I am most concerned about are the pictures on my hard-drive. How would I get to these now (being that there is neither 2000 or xp installed). I am on my other computer now that has xp prof installed on it (which I upgraded the same way from ME)
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I have scoured a few sites like this and have not found a similar problem.

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If you have a friend that knows anything about computers, he can take out the hard drive from your computer, hook it up to his and copy the pictures and any other files you need from your hard drive onto his hard drive. You could also take it to a computer store and they could do it but it would cost you some money.

[Fenor]

If you have a friend that knows anything about computers, he can take out the hard drive from your computer, hook it up to his and copy the pictures and any other files you need from your hard drive onto his hard drive. You could also take it to a computer store and they could do it but it would cost you some money.

[awmon]

I can do some things...is it a difficult thing to do? I will look for instructions on how to do it. Would it still work if windows xp is still not intalled? Thanks for the suggestion.

[awmon]

I tried hooking the hard drive up in place of my cd rom and it wouldnt recognize it. So I downloaded Acronis disk selector and it still does not recognize it. Any other ways or suggestions before I have to spend more money on this thing would be greatly appreciated.

[Fenor]

You need to make sure the jumper on the hard drive is set correctly. Is the CD-ROM the only device that was connected to the cable before? or was there another device attached to it as well?

[awmon]

There is also my cd burner as drive d:. My cd-rom drive was drive E: but on the site I read it said that connecting to that (my cd-rom) would be my best bet. D: should probably be the one I attach to. That would be my master right? What would be a good reference to find the correct jumper setting and other pertinant info online (other than your welcome help of course). I hate to waste your time if there is a better reference site than I have found.

My computer does not even acknowledge the drive as existing when the HD is hooked up.

Thanx again

[Fenor]

Ok, when you have your case open, there should be 2 cables (referred to as bus cables) that are long and flat and they connect from the motherboard to your devices (hard drive, cd, etc..) I know that your hard drive is connected to one, but is there another one connected to that same cable as well? Each bus cable usually has 3 connection points, one plugs into the motherboard and the other 2 into devices like the hard drive/cd/etc... I need you to tell me what devices you have connected to the two cables. Like on bus cable 1 you have your hard drive and on bus cable 2 you have your cd and dvd drive.....

How many total devices are connected to your computer using these two cables?