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windows 8.1 computer crashed


Pieere

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Rover,

Most computers when new give you a recovery option to create a set of three or four DVDs in case your restore partition is deleted or corrupted. You'll have the same thing with an ordered disk. I am trying to help now with a friends computer that has great hardware but is vista and no longer supported by HP, I gave up and decided to do a factory restore and lo and behold there was a folder in the recovery partition named Dell and the rest of the partition was empty as was the Dell folder. So I loaded a fresh install and apparently there are remaining cooties of the bios/rootkit kind. I swear this the very last one I'm doing for infection removal. They are just getting too far ahead of me when I'm only doing one a year, maybe two. I am not keeping up like I used to.

 

If everyone would do recovery disks before even loading programs, then do images of the drives with a reputable third party program or if Window 7 with no boot security anti legacy settings with Windows 7 Backup and recovery images, life would be so much simpler for everybody.

 

You'll be OK again rover with the factory restore disks however. Then be sure to keep up with the Windows updates.

 

Let us know how that goes, and then if you need any help getting backups and images set up.

 

Safe computing!

RV/Derek
http://www.rvroadie.com Email on the bottom of my website page.
Retired AF 1971-1998


When you see a worthy man, endeavor to emulate him. When you see an unworthy man, look inside yourself. - Confucius

 

“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” ... Voltaire

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Lo and behold. I turned on the computer last evening. I entered the F2 and went to the reset to factory settings. Then rebooted and the repair screen popped up. Selected the remove files and folders again. It recovered the factory Win-8 program. After it installed it the screen came up with Warning your hard drive is not working properly, it states to do a backup and have it checked by a technician. I am not hooked up to the internet and will go to the library in the next few days

:) Living Life One Day At A Time!

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I hooked up to the internet. I keep getting a message to do a backup as there is a hard disc failure. I have ran Win/Defender w/ update. Ran Norton. Ran Malwarebytes and am trying to do the Windows updates with no success. It will connect to IE! Trying to update again.

:) Living Life One Day At A Time!

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Rover,

Get a new hard drive after you back up all your files! It looks like you need a new drive? If you keep going you will lose all your data.

RV/Derek
http://www.rvroadie.com Email on the bottom of my website page.
Retired AF 1971-1998


When you see a worthy man, endeavor to emulate him. When you see an unworthy man, look inside yourself. - Confucius

 

“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” ... Voltaire

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There are a couple of utilities that you can run before buying a new hard drive and transferring all you data/programs. First, try http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-run-an-error-check-on-a-drive-from-windows-.html. You can also try https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/929833

 

The advice to backup your hard drive is also good and should be done regardless of whether either of the above utilities removes your warning message.

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Thanks all! I beleive it's repaired. I ran Norton. Unistalled it. Ran Malwarebytes, Ran WD; then Malwarebytes again; it cleaned out a dozen infections. I removed them and ran windows cleaner; then defragmenter. I will know more after using it a few more times.

:) Living Life One Day At A Time!

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Rover,

With a Windows 8.1 computer you will run into issues if you try to effect changes without the backup you made specifically for that computer. If it is still in warranty call the vendor and tell them that you have an issue and need them to send you the media to restore your computer. And make sure they tell you how for your particular system. Even if they tell you 30 bucks for a thumb drive for your system pay it because whether you actually have a bad drive, and replace it, or when you do a factory restore to it from the stick and find your hard drive is OK, you need the media from your vendor company either way.

not all vendors will send you a restore disc!! I know asus is one of them that won't send you a free restore disc they tell you to burn a copy from the hard drive!!

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I usually wipe the hard drive on any computer I get but just in case I make an image of the original drive before I do anything else. Worst case I can put things back to exactly like it was shipped to me. Lots of ways to get that image but I usually use one of the free Linux disk imaging tools since they are free and don't require me to boot the Windows system and answer the mandatory questions it pops up.

First rule of computer consulting:

Sell a customer a Linux computer and you'll eat for a day.

Sell a customer a Windows computer and you'll eat for a lifetime.

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Rover,

That's great! Norton Eraser is great isn't it? Glad you finally got time to get it done. Those programs, in that sequence usually does the trick nine times out of ten.

 

Ganto,

My answer was an answer to this post of Rover's saying he lost the recovery flash drive: http://www.rvnetwork.com/index.php?showtopic=115064&p=755647

 

What you say is true. However, if the hardware won't let you work, or an infection as in this case won't, and the owner never burned a restore set, or lost it and their system like HP, only allows one set to be created, one must be ordered either to clean it up if all else fails, or to restore a factory image to a new drive if the problem was the hard drive. I usually get computers to repair from folks like Rover at the point I told him to start by doing what he finally did. If it is indeed a bad drive it is highly unlikely that it will reliably burn the restore flash USB thumbdrive which requires a drive to work continuously for 30 minutes to an hour.

 

I recommend all people burn their disk set and keep them in a safe place, and to do a full system image once all updates are done, and all software and data is installed.

 

Failing that, my customers have to pay for a recovery set/USB stick from the manufacturer usually $30.00 or less. I have one now that the customer has decided to not repair because he or someone before him deleted the restore partition contents and put an empty Dell folder in it, on an HP computer. Why not order the repair set? HP said it is obsolete and they no longer carry it. That is a shame because this one is a laptop with a BluRay burner drive but only 2GB of DDR2. I just happen to have a stick of DDR2 that is 2 GB. This one can be upgraded to Win 7 as it is a Vista 64 bit system. There was no way to clean the infection out in one afternoon. Any more and it would be too expensive for him as it turned out to be.

 

It's always easier when the customer made or bought a restore set an had their current data backed up before hardware failed, or software was corrupted to fail point.

 

I like to do images now monthly. I check them by cloning and replacing my drive, then trying to restore the inmate to the clone. Then I know how it works, and learn any tricks to successful restores with my original drive sitting safely next to the system under test. Then I can either leave the newer drive in it and keep the original drive as a backup. Then, should I need it, I can just pop it in and restore the last image. Our accounting software, Quicken Home and Business is backed up after EVERY session so it is not a month behind. In the last 18 years I have had to do complete drive swaps and restored from images perfectly, then restored our Quicken data from the flash drive. EZPZ!

RV/Derek
http://www.rvroadie.com Email on the bottom of my website page.
Retired AF 1971-1998


When you see a worthy man, endeavor to emulate him. When you see an unworthy man, look inside yourself. - Confucius

 

“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” ... Voltaire

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  • 4 weeks later...

Yep! The Gateway crashed again! I have the BIOS and it will try to do a repair. Lets me click on to the Language! I select English with the external mouse then it looks like the drive light is working. After about 10-20 minutes it comes back to the language screen. Well; I boke down again and bought an Aspire E 15 with an optical drive. Just a Celeron processor N2840; 4 gb DDR3 L memory and 500 GB HD for 229.00 + Tax. Burned the recovery to 1 USB and the drivers and apps to a second USB. I put the 8.0 recovery USB from the Gateway and checked the files on my Acer. Yep they show up but when I go to the Gateway computer's BIOS and move the USB up to #1 spot and click save then exit and it reboots. it doesn't load. Oh Well! I really know how to jinx up a computer. Maybe this will last a year or two. :ph34r::ph34r:

:) Living Life One Day At A Time!

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