About Justin Breithaupt Expertise I can recover information off of most any hard drive if fragmented, partitioned, or damaged with fire holes or anything as long as the person did not coppy files over the ones that have been deleated or formated.
Experience I am the owner and designer of Cellocity Linux www.cellocity.net The new operating system for the new computers that IBM just invented not long ago.
Question I have a Sony Vaio laptop (PCG-FX290). It has a PIII-1Ghz processor, 256 MB ram, a DVD-CDRW drive (fixed), floppy drive (removable), and a 30Gig HD (fixed) that has two partitions: C:\ is an NTFS 10Gig (OS), and D:\ is a FAT32 20Gig (Data).
Everything was fine and dandy until I got some sort of spy ware that required that I manually go through the registry to delete some entries.
I guess I got carried away deleting some Windows entries, because I lost the DVD-CDRW drive. Each time I started the laptop, it would say it detected the new drive, but when I tried to go through the hardware wizard to re-install it, it would fail and say that the registry was corrupt.
SOOOO, I kept using my laptop without a drive...It was fine for several months, I could boot into Win2K, and use my computer, less the DVD/CDRW drive....until I finally decided to do something about it.
When I went through the Device Manager, I noted that it had complained about my DVD-CDRW drive, and also a PCI controller. So I figured I would try to install the PCI controller first through the add hardware wizard.
I went through the list of available drivers, and chose the Generic Standard PCI controller...well, BIG MISTAKE. I immediately got a blue screen with this message:
Below that error, there were some instructions suggesting that I may have gotten a virus. If this was the first time I got this error message, try restarting the machine; remove any newly installed Hard drive or Hard Drive controllers and check the Hard drive configuration and make sure it is properly terminated.
Run chkdisk /f to check for corruption, restart computer.
Well, I tried restarting, and the same error message pops up.
I can't even get it to start in Safe mode, and can't get it to go back to its pervious last known configuration, same blue screen keeps popping up.
At this point, I would be glad to get it to boot up again, whether it can recognize the DVD-CDRW or not.
I've been able to boot from a downloaded Floppy that recognizes NTFS drives, but I have no idea what driver file I've written over?
Is there a location of some text log file that windows keeps that might give me a clue as to what dll was last changed?
Is there a chance that the error is actually because it's trying to boot from the driver-damaged DVD-CDRW drive instead of the HD?
Thanks!
Answer This is not as bad as you think. If you have a windwos XP install cd that came with your pc or a friend's cd all you need to do is stick it in the cd drive. I know you think it will not work. Maybe it won't because of a virus but in dos as long as the BIOS recognizes it is there you are fine. What is the BIOS you ask? well its the one thing you never want to mess with unless you know what you are doing. Its a chip that first boots up your computer. Its the first thing that happens in your computer. It controls the voltage levels, speeds, drivers, and hardware that connect to your computer. It also loads a basic set of instructions to your computer's ram. Then that command tells the computer to look for an opperating system. Now it looks and finds DOS. Dos loads. Then NTFS loads then Windows. You get the idea. To access the hidden bios in your computer all you need to do is hit the delete key several times when you start it. If that does not work try F1, F2, F3, and so on. Untill you get a blue screen with a menu. Check to see that the CD drive is activated. I beleive it already is. If so you can skip this step and restart the computer. Put the Windows XP cd in your computer. Act boot your computer from the CD drive. You may need to change yoru bios to boot form the CD drive this is easy. make the CD drive the first boot device. hit F10 to save the changes in the bios and restart the computer. wait for the blue screen to boot from the cmputer after hitting the key on your keyboard to boot from cd. (any key) then hit r to repair. type 1 and press enter then enter the password if there is one to log into windows In the recovery console type help and press enter. The list of commands will be shown. You can scrole up and down the commands. FIXBOOT and CHKDISK are some of the commands that will fix the boot. do CHKDSK or CHKDISK first. I can't remember which it is but you will see it on the list. Then to FIXBOOT. this should fix everything after you do all the fix commands in the list. Restart the computer. Then to solve your CD DRIVE and PCI problems.
First install McAfee AntiVirus, Firewall, and Anti Spy Ware.
Version 2005
Connect to the internet with your Sony Vio. Right click on my computer and select properties. Go into hardware and then right click on the queshtion marks. under driver click update driver. Check on the web for updates.
OR
Try going to www.windowsupdate.com with enternet explorer add updatingyour computer. DO NOT CLICK ON EXPRESS! CLICK CUSTOM. check to see that there are no drivers that need to be installed. If there are select them and install the updates. After doing this restart the computer. This will fix your problems.
If this fails go to www.sony.com on a nother computer and go to support and downloads. Type in the model of your computer and look for driver downloads and installs. Download them to a floppy disk if they will fit and install them on your computer. If you can't do this install them off the internet on your computer. Thanks. Let me know how it turns out and if this information was helpfull.
