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— FPzero —
9590



Post 7124/9597
Active 5.5 years ago
Posted on 11-27-09 08:27:31 AM Link | Quote
So at about 2:40 tonight my computer decided to freeze, crash and no longer boot correctly. Cue me getting frantic and deciding to do the only thing I can think of doing at this point: staying up late and asking Jul's IRC. So after a lot of unsuccessful attempts at trying to make the computer boot properly, I'm finally sitting here running Slax off a CD, moving everything I can think of to my external hard drive. Thank god I brought it home for break.

But this still leaves me in a bad predicament. I NEED my laptop to function for these last two weeks of classes I have upcoming. I'm very much thinking of just reformatting the hard drive and installing Windows 7 Home Edition on it using the CD my dad has. But I've also got a free Windows 7 Professional upgrade courtesy of my school. However, that upgrade is a downloadable upgrade, not a cd one so I have no clue if there's any way to access it with the computer not booting to windows at all.

Whatever the case, I hope that I manage to solve this fast. Sorry this is more of a rant thread than a "I need help" thread but I just needed to get it all out.

Oh yes, and it's 5:30 AM now. Hooray. Thanks for all the help Sails.

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Sails
2800
as a video game‎‎‎‏‏‎ grows old its content and‏‏‎ internal logic‏‏‎ deteriorateÿ
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Posted on 11-27-09 08:40:48 AM Link | Quote
I don't think you can do an OS upgrade within the OS...So it is more then likely a burnable CD. That or it's an upgrade for 7 Home types that brings it to Professional.

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dirbaio
For future reference, "Responsible disclosure" isn't "acting like a douche about an exploit and demanding compensation".
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Posted on 11-27-09 10:04:33 AM (last edited by dirbaio at 11-27-09 07:06 AM) Link | Quote
hmmm... what is failing to boot? Windows or the computer itself?

If it is windows, you can try to boot it in safe mode (i think u have to press f8 at startup) and then upgrade from there. Safe mode usually prevents most crashes and viruses from loading. But i'm not sure, if your windows crashes it may be corrupt or have viruses, and upgrading is unlikely to fix them...
If its the computer, i've no idea maybe look into the bios config?

hope it helps

EDIT: and you could also use system restore in windows to restore it to a state where it worked well. but if it doesnt work, you'd better reformat it all
303darthbobby
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Posted on 11-27-09 02:42:21 PM Link | Quote

Originally posted by Sonicandtails
I don't think you can do an OS upgrade within the OS...So it is more then likely a burnable CD. That or it's an upgrade for 7 Home types that brings it to Professional.

On the contrary, an OS upgrade has to be started from within the OS. It does with Windows, anyway.
Sorry to here about this FirePhoenix, I wish I were up at the time to help you.

Can you try booting in Safe Mode and tell me where it hangs?

You prolly gave more info in IRC, but I wasn't in there to log.

____________________
The Wii would be more popular if it made toast.

— FPzero —
9590



Post 7127/9597
Active 5.5 years ago
Posted on 11-27-09 04:07:01 PM Link | Quote
We tried everything you two suggested including accessing the BIOS. When booting in safe mode it hangs after loading crcdisk.sys.

Depending on if I'm able to do anything with it today my parents and I may have to just resort to buying a new laptop this weekend. In that case, I'm hoping to get something decent.

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303darthbobby
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Posted on 11-27-09 04:12:08 PM Link | Quote

Honestly, I'd just reformat to Windows 7. Especially since you're able to back everything up.
I have an install disc for 7 Ultimate (32 and 64 versions), but it'd take a while to get you an ISO.

There are some rather shady ways to fix it, but I'd honestly say it isn't even worth it.

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The Wii would be more popular if it made toast.

Xkeeper

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Posted on 11-27-09 04:14:05 PM Link | Quote
I'll gladly take your old one off your hands

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Sails
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Posted on 11-27-09 05:50:18 PM Link | Quote
Originally posted by 303darthbobby
Originally posted by Sonicandtails
I don't think you can do an OS upgrade within the OS...So it is more then likely a burnable CD. That or it's an upgrade for 7 Home types that brings it to Professional.

On the contrary, an OS upgrade has to be started from within the OS. It does with Windows, anyway.

Yes but it also requires rebooting to the CD so...

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303darthbobby
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Posted on 11-27-09 05:52:18 PM Link | Quote

Originally posted by Sonicandtails
Originally posted by 303darthbobby
Originally posted by Sonicandtails
I don't think you can do an OS upgrade within the OS...So it is more then likely a burnable CD. That or it's an upgrade for 7 Home types that brings it to Professional.

On the contrary, an OS upgrade has to be started from within the OS. It does with Windows, anyway.

Yes but it also requires rebooting to the CD so...

But you have to start it from within the OS. If you try the upgrade from an initial cd boot, it tells you to boot normally and run setup.exe, IIRC.

____________________
The Wii would be more popular if it made toast.

dirbaio
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Posted on 11-27-09 06:38:14 PM Link | Quote
well. this seems a software problem. Your windows is broken. Thats all, and you'll have to reinstall it from scratch. NOT an upgrade. Put the windows cd in the cd drive and then tell the bios to boot from cd, and then follow instructions. Format all the disc when asked.

This is most likely not a hardware problem, so theres no need to buy a new computer!!
Joe
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Posted on 11-27-09 09:03:25 PM Link | Quote
Originally posted by FirePhoenix
When booting in safe mode it hangs after loading crcdisk.sys.


It might still work! That's where it stops when it's running checkdisk.

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Bagel

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Posted on 11-27-09 10:31:01 PM (last edited by Bagel at 11-27-09 07:32 PM) Link | Quote
I did a little poking around on Google and it seems like the most common symptom is that some software updates (usually for the mainboard or IDE controller; the nVidia nForce driver updates are a common culprit) cause the hang, or that the disk itself is failing and the disk check initially run by crcdisk.sys is hanging because it's unable to decipher the information (or lack thereof) that it is getting from the disk. Neither is particularly great, but the latter is obviously a much larger issue.

Seriously, try to format it using a linux disk check tool like gparted (there is even a gparted LiveCD that uses a recent kernel and fluxbox) or something. If the disk really is damaged, gparted will display some kind of anomaly (like 0GiB free/0GiB used) or put up an error message; it's usually pretty good about noticing issues with disks. If not, then you've got to reinstall Windows and restore your backups (which is a pain, but at least you'd be going again.) Only an upgrade version of Windows should ask to be started from within Windows.

But yeah. A new laptop could also be a viable solution.

____________________
— FPzero —
9590



Post 7132/9597
Active 5.5 years ago
Posted on 11-28-09 07:49:07 AM Link | Quote
So the solution i went with was to delete everything on all the partitions and install Windows 7. Everything works, I just need to finish up recovering all the programs I left behind. At the same time though, it can be a good way of weeding out what i do and do not use. Sure, I'll still download things like itunes and speedfan but I won't be downloading all those random games that I haven't played in ages, nor will I bother dealing with a 4GB ZSNES folder. So yeah, I'm getting used to 7 now that this is all solved.

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Girlydragon
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Posted on 11-28-09 07:56:33 AM Link | Quote
Originally posted by FirePhoenix
I'll still download things like itunes



This is from my experience like asking your computer to be slow.

There's tons of less bloated alternatives that does everything itunes does, and better. You should look into them.

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— FPzero —
9590



Post 7133/9597
Active 5.5 years ago
Posted on 11-28-09 03:25:19 PM Link | Quote
So everyone says but I don't like Winamp much.

____________________
Rena
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Posted on 11-28-09 08:21:27 PM Link | Quote
Post #2663 - 11-28-09 03:21:27 PM
Older versions of Winamp were better. Anyway that's only one alternative. I don't really know any others with that functionality though since I don't use Windows anyway.

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why not?
plushifoxed

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Posted on 11-29-09 04:23:17 AM Link | Quote
Supakitsune's post
Originally posted by Girlydragon
Originally posted by FirePhoenix
I'll still download things like iTunes
This is from my experience like asking your computer to be slow.

There's tons of less bloated alternatives that does everything iTunes does, and better. You should look into them.
Actually, iTunes v9.x is much more reasonable in terms of speed. Certainly not cranked up to "cheetah", but more like "normal speed" than "sloth". (sorry, can't remember all the SimCity2k speed tiers )

Also, if you use an iPod touch or an iPhone with any firmware about 2.1.x you pretty much HAVE to use iTunes because Apple continuously changes things about the iTunesDB file so that things like ml_iPod/pmp_iPod and whatnot can't access it. There are some hacky ways around it but it's not worth the time and effort; heck, even the developer of ml_iPod has basically given up.

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— FPzero —
9590



Post 7159/9597
Active 5.5 years ago
Posted on 11-29-09 05:14:04 AM Link | Quote
I've still got a 80GB Video so I'm okay in that regard but I don't feel like having to go through a bunch of steps just to be able to load stuff to my ipod because I'm not using itunes.

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Girlydragon
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Posted on 11-29-09 12:21:10 PM Link | Quote
Originally posted by FirePhoenix
So everyone says but I don't like Winamp much.



Yeah because Wianmp royally sucks.

I would recommend something such as Foobar with this for ipod functionality.

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