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chimpy

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Posts posted by chimpy

    Question about Unmountable boot volume

    in General Windows PC Help

    Posted

    Something that I have made work before is by using a tool on Hiren's Boot CD that regenerates hard drive sectors. That has saved a couple of machines from the Unmmountable Boot Volume if the hard drive is just starting to fail.

    Here is the download link if you would like to try the bootable CD before you would do anything else.

    Thanks, he's left so I wont see him for a few days but I will DL it and keep it just incase :)

    Question about Unmountable boot volume

    in General Windows PC Help

    Posted · Edited by chimpy

    Thanks, I dont have the code yet but he does have it and will bring it down tomorrow, dell I see has a helpful list of which drivers to install first so thats good :D, normally tbh I just run things I DL so I am not even sure if my FF has the option to save, im pretty sure it doesnt from past DLs, not sure how to get that to work, i can DL and then it scans the DL and then i normally just click it to run, i dont know how else to do it.

    I do not even know if i have a burning prog, i've never done it before, I have ROXIO but ive not used that, does windows not have one already installed?

    Hes bringing a few dvds so hopefully all the drivers will fit on them and the linux distro.

    Or is it better to just install linux and forget all about windows? does linux come with all the drivers needed to get online and such? and what AV is compatible for it?

    sorry I am a newbe :P

    edit

    i dont seem to have ROXIO anymore, do I need a "burner" prog and if so can anyone recommend a free one for me?

    Question about Unmountable boot volume

    in General Windows PC Help

    Posted

    Thanks, I think the ethernet one might be what is stopping the connection.

    thing is as we will be DL the drivers from my PC and burning them onto a disc im just worried that I might accidentally install then on mine instead of burning to disc, im not even sure dell will have the option to burn the drivers to disc tbh.

    i wont be doing this till tuesday when I get back in town, i just hope i dont mess it up :D

    Question about Unmountable boot volume

    in General Windows PC Help

    Posted

    6-7 year old dell ... pretty "iffy" .

    "burned a copy of XP for him" ... your friend may be screwed .

    to the best of my knowledge , going back to dell and explaining what is happening/has happened and getting a copy of the flavored OS for that machine is your best bet .

    you will need the serial number of the machine and proof of purchase ... good luck on that though .

    remember ... they would prefer to sell you a new machine , there is more profit in that .

    you can dl ubuntu on your machine , burn an iso of it and install it on your friends machine .

    i would drop another drive in the box ... pull the old one .

    after you get ubuntu up and running , you can hook up the old drive to a spare sata slot or on the pata cable and grab the files/data off of it that are needed .

    i would get the model number of the machine and run some recon on it before doing anything further .

    some of those machines have a bad track record ... the swmps , MB , and hard drives are the usual culprits .

    we tried last time to get a copy from dell but like you said they didn't seem able to help they said it would cost 30-50 I think for a copy of xp :(

    i've looked on the dell site and there is a whole page of drivers, so im going to DL all those and burn to cd (if it lets me, i dont know how so if anyone could help? as we have two different machines and I do not want to "update" my drivers with the wrong ones and break my pc also)

    if that works then we can get him to DL linux, if not I will DL linux and we might as well just wipe the PC and use linux so if anyone has good links to any easy newbie friendly distros that would be great :)

    Question about Unmountable boot volume

    in General Windows PC Help

    Posted

    i quickly reviewed this thread ...

    how old is the machine ? what are the specifications of the machine in question (a link to the model would be helpful too) .

    this must be known before one can justify "cheaper" ... an old boat anchor that will barely pull a decent antivirus , firewall , anti-malware program(s) will soon become totally outdated .

    i had a similar problem a short time back ... running the recovery console from a disk and the "/chkdsk" worked .

    not knowing for certain whether it was/is the HHD , motherboard or ram is the issue .

    popping in another drive will require you to do a "bit copy" or "clone" the questionable drive or load the manufacturers "flavor" of the OS . i have known of others that have tried to use a "generic" (and legitimate) copy of the OS and it failed .

    to check on the state of the HD , it was suggested to use the SMART program to see what errors (if any) were occurring .

    there are a couple of utilities that will thoroughly check the ram for errors .

    once one eliminates the HD and the ram ... the next best bet is the MB and/or the power supply (dirty power can cause some weird problems) .

    another way around this is to use a new or known good HD in place of the questionable one , load ubuntu on it and run it for a while .

    this will put everything else through the paces and at least narrow down the possibilities .

    ---and it is a sort of sneaky way to get him to use ubuntu--- :lol:

    ubuntu is not hard to learn (for most people) ... i believe that the majority of people that are willing to apply themselves , do a little thinking and searching are capable of utilizing ubuntu as an alternate to windows .

    remember though , a person that is used to just sitting back and being an ignorant button pusher will have problems ... the first real test will be getting a dvd to run .

    it took me about 2 hours to figure it out ... after that (and many ubuntu systems later) it is almost a matter of wrote to do what is required .

    as i recall , it took me far longer to learn to ride a bicycle ... ;)

    there is another issue besides the online gaming ... as far as i know , netflix will not run unless IE is installed (DRM issues) . so , this sort puts netflix off limits on any linux system .

    not sure what the model is but its a dell about 6-7 years old, his mate burned a copy of a xp for him in case it happened again but some how this didn't work and the PC reformatted its self, now windows is saying its a illegal copy (makes sense) and as he doesn't have a key as it came pre installed he is pretty screwed.

    I think he said it said he had 30 days to reg it? so we are now trying to get the PC to see the router to get on the net to get a copy of a linux distro rather than him going out to get a new windows OS but this is proving difficult as his isp said that the router was fine (we knew this) and the reason he cannot get on the net is probably a missing driver (news to me!)so they were less than helpful :(

    I think he is just going to call someone out to "fix" it so once he at least then has the net he can rid himself of windows.

    Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware 1.51 released

    in Malwarebytes News

    Posted

    With the release of Malwarebytes Anti-Malware 1.51, there have been a number of exciting new features. One of these new features is the introduction of our FREE 14-day trial of the PRO version of Malwarebytes Anti-Malware.

    Many of our users have asked for the ability to try out the functionality of our PRO version and we have listened to this feedback. We have included this trial so our users can get a taste of what the PRO version offers and the benefits of using it to help keep your computer protected in real-time from today

    Mozilla down?

    in General Windows PC Help

    Posted

    I'm having issues with seeing facebook ads so I updated my ad ons, adblocker plus, no script and still I see them, so I removed abp and tried to re installed to see if that made a difference, well I now get a message saying addons cannot be downloaded because of a connection failure on addons.mozilla.org, so I went to apb's home page and that would not install either, and then I tried a few other moz ad ons and those would not install, is it just me? The fact abp would not install from the home page leads me to think that it might be, but I have no reason to as I updated NS perfectly fine only a few hours before.

    Edit

    I just checked and the home page is a link back to moz ad ons so that would explain it.

    sorry to waste your time, hopefully this will be up later.

    But if anyone knows how to block the ads on FB that would be appreciated. :)

    Question about Unmountable boot volume

    in General Windows PC Help

    Posted

    Well he knows very little about PCs (I know little too so I can't really help him on that) so is confused about all the distros (I heard puppy and mint were the most newbie friendly) But if he decides on the change I will definitely point him here :) I think he was part worried about surfing and buying online and whether or not you needed to have a windows OS to access some sites, I think only online gaming is that a must and he doesn't do that so I think he would be ok, its just taking that leap into the unknown :P

    Thank you all for your help! :)

    Question about Unmountable boot volume

    in General Windows PC Help

    Posted

    Thanks, I know he was going to do something with F12 as he knows little about these things like me neither of us knew what to do, I will tell him to run the tests, not sure about getting hold of the key though, he is finding it hard just to find anyone that has a copy of the XP disc and is it his key or the key from the person that he is getting the disc from?:( Though what do you mean "Dell Windows XP CD" is this a different CD from those that do not have Dell PC's?

    Sorry about all these questions.

    Question about Unmountable boot volume

    in General Windows PC Help

    Posted

    Well Dell were of no help to him :( He definitely does not have a disc but thinks XP came pre-installed, is there a way of accessing the partition it was installed on to get into the recovery console or is there no way to by-pass having a disc?

    And what about the licence key? It's been 6+ years since my friend has his PC so how would he find it and does he need the licence key of the XP disc is might borrow?

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