Computer crash help!

My wife's computer will not boot, it just hangs on the loading windows screen. I did run a Kasper disc that will scan the HD from the CD drive, and the HD appears to be working.

Is there a way to boot to a USB (linux?) and then have access to copy all the files off with a USB connected HD? I think the Toshiba restore disc is going to completely wipe out everything, and I need to pull as much as possible before I attempt that. Any help would be great!

~mrmiller

If you have the $ you're best of bringing it to a reputable PC shop.
What I would do in your situation:

-Try to access Safe Mode, while logging in it should show a list of all the drivers being loaded. If it stops on one and gets no further, write it down. That is your culprit. You could then remove that driver (if it is non system essential)

To test hardware (which is easy):

-Take out the RAM and boot it. If it works, awesome. You have a bad RAM stick.

Anything further than that (except maybe graphics card) is too involved to do easily.

Your easiest way to recover the files:

I assume you have 2 PCs. Take the HDD out of the broken one, open up your working one. Plug in the power and SATA cables to the problem Hard Drive.

From there it will show up on your PC as another drive. You can drag and drop files as normal. Once that is done just reformat the drive and reinstall windows. Then you can move the files back over, since you have them on a working pc.

*** Obviously the PC should be powered off and have all energy discharged while doing any of this.

It's a laptop, and never gets to anything for safe mode (it's also windows 7). Just hits the windows screen and sits loading forever. I'll pull the ram and see what happens.

~mrmiller

S7 mrmiller wrote:It's a laptop, and never gets to anything for safe mode (it's also windows 7). Just hits the windows screen and sits loading forever. I'll pull the ram and see what happens.

~mrmiller

You should still be able to remove the HDD too.

I used the Kasper Recovery disc, that let it boot to windows where I could run safe mode and do a system restore. That seems to have fixed it... at least for now. Either way, I was able to back up her HD so if it happens again it will not be so tragic.

~mrmiller