# Computer crashed...I think



## mamahen (May 11, 2002)

I'm at work today, but my home computer crashed.

I probably won't have acess to another computer until next Tuesday, but would like suggestions!!

Here's how it went down:

I was on the internet, just surfing, when there was a knock at the door. Leave the house for 5-9 minutes. 

Come back in & see a blue screen with type (too far away to see what it said). And the computer turns off.

This happened 2 weeks ago @ work & it was the hard drive crashing.

I turn it back on, it goes to the Compaq opening screen, then to a black dos-like screen. Then I get the error message (can't remember what it said) you get when you turn on a computer that has a disk in the floppy drive. No, no disk in either drive.

I can get to the F10 set up screen, & I should have all original disks that came with the computer.
*
All I really want are the pictures that I haven't saved to CD yet. * They're in 2 seperate programs. After that I will decide what to do.

Any advice? Remember, I may not have acess for awhile. I have one other computer I may try to set up at home. Not sure if it will work.

It's a 2001 Compaq with windows XP home.

Forgot to add - the fan seemed to running ALOT on these hot days. I did try to turn off the system when I noticed, but my son would use it & I'm sure, no, make that positive, he never turned it off.


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## backwoodsman7 (Mar 22, 2007)

Check system setup and make sure the drive is still set correctly. Most computers have an "Auto" setting, which is where it should be.

Assuming no problem there, you need to get the machine booted some other way, like a Linux live CD if you can get one, and see if you can get to the drive. A bootable floppy might work too, depending on the file system. Or, pull the drive and install it as the second drive in another machine, and see if it's accessible. This has the advantage of eliminating the chance that it's a problem elsewhere in your machine, like the IDE interface. The chances of these things working aren't that great, but it's possible the boot sector is trashed but the partition table is OK, in which case the drive won't boot but may still be readable.

If no luck yet, it's probably an electronic problem. So if you can get your hands on an identical drive and swap the circuit boards, you might get it working. Or, you can send the drive to a hard drive recovery place and they'll get anything you want off it for a couple hundred bucks.

One other thing that's worth a try, that I've had work a few times. Put the drive in a plastic bag (wrapped in tin foil first if you don't have an anti-static bag) and put it in the freezer for several hours. Then without wasting any time, plug it in and see if it'll work long enough to read your files. If the problem is electronic, sometimes the cold will make a bad chip work for a little while.

-Dan


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## MELOC (Sep 26, 2005)

if you do get it hooked up as a second drive, and if doing so does not compromise your new drive (an issue my brother had while using compaq hard drive and trying to install a generic drive), just search the drive for images and you should be able to find your pics and move them easily.


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## Rocky Fields (Jan 24, 2007)

Hey.

Quote <<<"the fan seemed to running ALOT on these hot days. I did try to turn off the system when I noticed, but my son would use it & I'm sure, no, make that positive, he never turned it off.">>>

The processor fan(s), power supply fan(s), and case fan(s) should be running ALL THE TIME when the computer is turned on.

You better check to make sure they're all turning non-stop when the power is on. If not, clean them or replace the bad one(s). If it's too hot in the case, your hd, power supply, or processor will fry. 

You should write down the error code and look it up. 

RF


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## Rocky Fields (Jan 24, 2007)

BTW: You didn't give the model number, so we don't know if it's a laptop or a desktop.


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## WolfWalksSoftly (Aug 13, 2004)

mamahen said:


> I'm at work today, but my home computer crashed.
> 
> I probably won't have acess to another computer until next Tuesday, but would like suggestions!!
> 
> ...



The same thing happened to me today, I moved it to the bedroom (where the A/C is and everything works fine again.
Good luck.


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