OT: Computer's...gotta hate 'em.

Renegade 13 · #1 April 3rd, 2006, 11:40 PM

Today I was repairing the power supply on my computer...unfortunately in the process of doing this, I restarted and shut off the computer many times, and not the way they like it. Using the power button to kill it quite often. Unfortunately, when I then proceeded to restart the computer after I was finished, the computer had this nice, pleasant message for me, something along the lines of "You didn't shut down your computer properly, so here's some options:

Restart, safe mode.
Restart, normally.

Naturally, I pick Normal. Whoops, sorry, no can do. Continues the boot and restarts the computer. Brings me to the same screen. Alright, normal didn't work so I'll try Safe. Nope, can't do that either. Restarts the computer and brings me to that same infernal screen again. Nothing I could think of doing next, so I inserted the "XP Home Recovery CD" that came with the computer. No problem, it does its thing, starts reinstalling Windows. Great, no problem. Except now comes the problem...it begins formatting the hard drive. I had absolutely no backups for anything on my hard drive. Nothing. At all. Zippo. [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Cold.gif[/img]

So now I have a functioning computer, but with nothing at all on it. Nothing. Oh many things can be installed, sure. Of course, all my pictures, partially created shipsets, original shipset files, everything is gone. I really really really really hate windows. There's no reason for the g**damn thing to f*** up this bad just because it wasn't shut down properly a few times. I just wanna beat my head into a really solid surface for a while. But I won't. I'll go reinstall what I can, and beat my head on a wall after that's done for all the stuff I can't replace...

Jack Simth · #2 April 3rd, 2006, 11:57 PM

Ran into something vaguely similar once with restarting in MS dos mode - seems at some point it backed up the DOS boot autoexec.bat over the backup for getting it back into Windows Boot mode. I was able to repair the thing, but then, it was merely Windows 98.

A suggestion (for next time, unfortunately):
1) Get a CD-R(or CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD-RW), separate from a CD-ROM (or DVD-ROM) drive.
2) Get (or download/burn) a live Linux CD/DVD - bootable CD/DVD that won't try to install onto the hard disk (such as Knoppix) (DVD works too, but they are more fragile)
3) Make multiple copies of the Live Linux CD/DVD
4) Double-check to make certain your machine will boot from a CD/DVD drive (and test it with the Live Linux CD/DVD).
5) Next time this happens, boot up with the Linux CD, and burn everything you want to keep to CD before reinstalling the OS.

Atrocities · #3 April 4th, 2006, 12:00 AM

Do you have restore points? I had to restore mine a couple of times because of power failures. To bad there isn't a way to protect your PC if your power supply HD fails. A back up power supply that can slowly power down your system if your main power supply HD fails. (If The power supply in your computer fails, but you still have power.)

Thermodyne · #4 April 4th, 2006, 12:50 AM

WTF did you format it? Didn�t you know that it would wipe your drive?

Classic case of �I can fix this� fubars a rig.

You should have done a repair to the boot loader. Stick an XP cd in and select repair from the menu. Actually you shouldn�t have been aborting the startup-shutdown process, then you wouldn�t have hose�d the boot loader. If your stuffs worth $500 and a month without the drive, send it off and have it recovered. Then spend $9.95 on an XP book and read up on the errors of your ways. XP does a ton of house keeping during the shutdown process, maintaining the boot files being part of this. This was user error, not a windows flaw.

Get a copy of Ghost and do some backup images. That way you can always reset to a previous state.

Suicide Junkie · #5 April 4th, 2006, 01:29 AM

It would also be a good idea to ditch emoticon OS, and get an upgrade to win98 or 2k.

Renegade 13 · #6 April 4th, 2006, 01:37 AM

Of course I knew goddamn well formatting it would wipe the hard drive. As I mentioned, the XP restore disk I had did the formatting ON ITS OWN. I did not tell it to format. There was no menu to select "repair" from. Put the CD in the drive, boots automatically from the drive, starts the formatting automatically, no input from me involved. Nothing I could do once the "Recovery" disk was in...

Not worth recovering the data. As mentioned, it's personal stuff, pictures, shipsets, etc. Can't justify the expense to recover.

I know this was an issue of user error, but there is an aspect of poor design in this. Power failures don't exactly let XP do it's thing upon shutdown. Evidently, a power failure could [censored] things up as well, if what I did was sufficient to do it. It should be designed so the boot files aren't messed around with upon shutdown. I'm no expert (obviously) but it seems like there should be little need to, unless maybe there was a software change.

In this case "I can fix this" did fix it. It wrecked the data I had, but having a functioning computer with no data is better than a [censored] up computer that won't even boot! Sure, the problem was caused by me, but I'll be damned if I'll spend $60 per hour to get someone to fix it for me!

Live and learn. Backup data, have a real XP CD, not some bull**** "Recovery" CD that comes with the computer...

Fyron · #7 April 4th, 2006, 01:46 AM

What kind of "recovery" CD was this? If it was provided by an OEM, it is possible that it has a config file that is set to say yes to some or all of the installation prompts, such as "format the drive and install, even if an install already exists." You'd have to have a pretty stupid OEM to do that, but you never know...

Renegade: You should probably throw the "recovery" CD in the face of the head of the company that made your comp, then demand a real XP CD sans the garbage config file.

OSes shouldn't be managing boot files willy-nilly during the normal shutdown process... The boot files don't need to change unless you change your hardware or kernel files, which certainly doesn't happen every time you are running the OS. That's just asking for trouble, and definitely a Windows flaw if true.

Note that he never said he was turning it off while shutting down, but rather while booting up. Killing the bootup early on isn't an issue, since all its doing is reading data and building up RAM files. Perhaps not good due to mild stress on the drive, but definitely not going to kill Windows at this point.

Don't forget that NTFS is a journalling file system. It doesn't let files be written to the real location until they are completely on the drive...

Suicide Junkie · #8 April 4th, 2006, 01:52 AM

Oh, and before you get too far into the reinstallation process;

***Partition your Drive***

Never let windows sit on the same drive letter as your irreplacable stuff.

Sivran · #9 April 4th, 2006, 02:24 AM

Well, the OS is already installed from what I gather. However, all is not lost. He could upgrade to any other version of Windows, or, he could get hold of Partition Logic.

Since I'm plugging Partition Logic, I may as well mention the site where I discovered its existence: The OSSWin project ... lots of F/OSS for windows.

Renegade 13 · #10 April 4th, 2006, 02:54 AM

Quote:

Imperator Fyron said:
What kind of "recovery" CD was this? If it was provided by an OEM, it is possible that it has a config file that is set to say yes to some or all of the installation prompts, such as "format the drive and install, even if an install already exists." You'd have to have a pretty stupid OEM to do that, but you never know...

Renegade: You should probably throw the "recovery" CD in the face of the head of the company that made your comp, then demand a real XP CD sans the garbage config file.

Yep, it was provided by the OEM. I should send 'em the CD and tell them where to stick it...I've reinstalled OS's before, and always just had them reinstall over the existing installation. Easy, no data lost. I (foolishly, it seems) trusted that this recovery CD would allow me to do the same. I think I will be having a little chat the company, and see if I can get a real copy of XP.

Quote:

Note that he never said he was turning it off while shutting down, but rather while booting up. Killing the bootup early on isn't an issue, since all its doing is reading data and building up RAM files. Perhaps not good due to mild stress on the drive, but definitely not going to kill Windows at this point.

That's exactly what happened. I never shut down during the shutdown procedure, only during the start-up, which I had done before with no ill effects, assuming it would have no ill effects again...

SJ, I will be partitioning the drive into a purely windows drive and an "Everything else" drive. The more safeguards, the better.

Sivran, thanks a lot for the link

I'll have to take a look at that program, see what I can do.

It's a good thing I have a bunch of data on another computer. No personal files unfortunately, but things like mods, a few shipset files, that kind of stuff.