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When it Breaks

by JM

tired.jpgYou’ve seen some of this before in how to freshen your PC… see http://www.homecomputertalk.com/old-age-or-just-clogged-arteries-part-2/

From Mr JM
Way to fix Windows problems so you can get back in and (usually) have everything working again.
Blue Screen of Death
If Windows tries to start & give BSOD - Blue Screen of Death (blue screen with lots of white gibberish on it) reboot & as soon as the Video info disappears, press the F8 key. Press it several times until you get the white menus on a black background.
Choose Safe Mode & press Enter a couple of times to get into Windows. This starts Windows with a very basic set of generic drivers & you can rescue stuff or re-install things or even uninstall the thing you put on that broke it.
Restart & let it run & you should pass into normal Windows without a problem.

Tools:
- 1 x bootable Windows OS CDROM - preferably with your current level of Service Pack installed on it. - to check version, open My Computer, click on & note version & Service Pack

Tricky bit: Boot to CD. This may require going in to CMOS to set the 1st Boot device or there may be a key to press at start of computer to allow choice of boot device. Watch the screen at Startup - that black screen with white writing will tell you quite a few things if you’re quick enough - and the PAUSE button works.

A lot of motherboards give access to CMOS with the Delete key, some use F2 and there are other combinations out there.

Start the PC & boot to the CDROM - watch the screen as usually you have to press a key to OK the CD boot.
Let it run till it asks if you want to Repair. Choose the NO option. Then press F8 when it shows you the User Agreement. Masochists can read it.

The Setup process looks at the hard disk(s) to find previous versions of Windows & asks if you want to repair it/them. Choose the C Drive one & follow the options to Repair it. BE PATIENT!!! It can take up to 45 minutes to go through it all.

Restart the PC. Note if you had to change the CMOS Boot option you will need to go back in & reset it to boot from the Hard disk.

Windows should now start with a complete refresh of all Windows files so whatever you did to break it [i]should[/i] be fixed. Unless you [i]really[/i] corrupted the registry, all programs & hardware should be working. On occasion I’ve seen it lose things like backgrounds & screensavers but nothing significant & it doesn’t touch data.


Posted in Daily Use, Hardware, Software on April 16th, 2008

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