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Hi all,
I'm sure something like this has been posted somewhere on this forum before but I didn't see it and I need some help ASAP. Here's what happened:

I came home and found my computer on the boot screen trying to boot to cd. I then went into bios and found that the boot sequence had been changed to the cd drive from the hard drive. I knew in the back of my head what Probably happened but was hoping maybe not and changed the boot sequence back to the original hd and tried to restart. It got to the windows screen, went theough the motions for a second and then blue screen flash and went back and restarted all over again. Since then when I start up, I get to the safe mode screen and no matter what option I pick, networking, dos prompt, last know etc, I get blue screen and back again.

So, my questions are: what is the easiest path to a functioning computer from here? Can I still ghost the drive? I checked the connections and the are all good, checked everything inside the of and it seems to be fine. Should I just get another hd and reinstall the os? I do have all my important data backed up, but I'd really like to get some of my software, little things here and there that were on C: and have them again, is there any way to restore it or ghost and put it on a new drive? What other options do you all think I have?

I really appreciate the help

Francois

First, let everyone know if the drive even spins and makes any sound. Can you hear it?

All I can think of right now before getting another drive is as follows:
- Change the IDE/SATA connector on the motherboard.
- Try to repair the OS via the cd.
- The other is to google for software that might be able to recover some lost stuff, but I have never had much luck with them. The only thing is that you still have to get a new drive and reinstall the OS before them software can test the integrity of the drive.

Check your PM. Sometimes Spinrite can fix a crashing hard drive,long enough to move the data to usb drive,burn it etc. I've had really good luck with it.I probably saved my old company over 10k dollars in data recovery fees.My good friend has not had as good of luck with it..so your mileage may vary


*Edit* keep in mind Spinrite wont help a drive that's had a mechanical failure. It's also VERY slow depending on whats it doing,But i swear by it.

I'll check to see if it is spinning, but would I even get the safemode windows statusbar screen if it wasn't?

So, what is the latest and greatest yet affordable OS drive to get these days? SSD and what brand, make?

francois wrote:

I'll check to see if it is spinning, but would I even get the safemode windows statusbar screen if it wasn't?

So, what is the latest and greatest yet affordable OS drive to get these days? SSD and what brand, make?

Correct. If you are getting to safe mode your drive is at least working. I would grab a copy of Linux, transfer the needed files, then reinstall. Sometimes updates completely bork windows installations, sometimes it means the drive is going bad. I would back the stuff up and run a disk utility to make sure everything with the drive is OK, then reinstall. If the drive dies again you have a back up and then you can think about replacing it.

francois wrote:

Hi all,
I'm sure something like this has been posted somewhere on this forum before but I didn't see it and I need some help ASAP. Here's what happened:

I came home and found my computer on the boot screen trying to boot to cd. I then went into bios and found that the boot sequence had been changed to the cd drive from the hard drive. I knew in the back of my head what Probably happened but was hoping maybe not and changed the boot sequence back to the original hd and tried to restart. It got to the windows screen, went theough the motions for a second and then blue screen flash and went back and restarted all over again. Since then when I start up, I get to the safe mode screen and no matter what option I pick, networking, dos prompt, last know etc, I get blue screen and back again.

So, my questions are: what is the easiest path to a functioning computer from here? Can I still ghost the drive? I checked the connections and the are all good, checked everything inside the of and it seems to be fine. Should I just get another hd and reinstall the os? I do have all my important data backed up, but I'd really like to get some of my software, little things here and there that were on C: and have them again, is there any way to restore it or ghost and put it on a new drive? What other options do you all think I have?

I really appreciate the help

Francois

In my experience, this is almost always a sign that the SATA controller mode is set to the opposite of what it was when the OS was installed. Go into the bios and check - usually under Advanced settings. If it's set to AHCI, set it to the other choice(usually called compatibility). Reboot and see what happens.