General Chat

Puter thrown a wobbly comes up error bootdisk cant be found or disc error. Can get it onto the Bios setup utility screen but no idea what to do. Is my outer dead as a dodo or can I save him and all photos etc on him.

The PC is not dead otherwise you would not get the BIOS screen.
You do not say much about yr pc which does not help. Is it a laptop of desktop? How old? Which version of Windows is it running?

The first step is to find out whether the hard drive is seen by the BIOS. Go into the BIOS set up and find it if it can "see" the hard drive. If it can you will be able to read the entry for it which will also have the drive size.

If the BIOS cannot see the hard drive power off, removed the hard drive and then put it back making sure there are no loose cables. This can be tricky with a laptop and no special tools.

If the drive can be seen OK by the BIOS then recovery is possible fairly easily most of the time. DO NOT TRY AND RUN THE DRIVE until the boot problem is fixed or you may lose data. You don't have a backup? Consider it as a good future choice.

Report back when you have a bit more info then.

Rollo its a pc not laptop is running windows 8 from what I remember never upgraded to 10. In the bios bit wher am I looking in boot options bit it 1st boot device (hard disk) then2nd boot 3rd bout and 4th boot if its the main tab on bios that gives me date built version processor memory size product name system serial number base board number. sorry about typing having to do on small phone

OK not too bad then.

The problem is that a few small files which must be present at boot time in the C:\ root directory have gone awol. This is a known Windows bug which has existed since the days of NT4. They have fixed it with Windows 10. Do not UG to Windows 10 if your cmputer is more than three years old unless you have al the drivers for it.

I shall try to figure out how you can restore the files after lunch.
Most likely yu will need a USB drive - they just pop into a USB socket and are handy for backing up, movoing photos around etc etc.
Do you have one?
If not you are going to need one just a few pounds at Tesco, JSainsbury, Currys , Dyas etc.

The second thing you will need are the boot files. Do you have the original Windows DVD ? If not they can be downloaded from the net. That means access to the net from a computer other than a mobile. You may need access to a spare PC and if you don't have such a thing then a friend's PC or visit to the library / internet cafe.

keep me posted.

Hello Dawnie ~~~~~~~~~ <3

Apart from the PC..........I hope all is good with you.

Prickles <3

Have usb sticks. can fire up you youngests laptop or hubbys tablet if that would work.will go looking for cds that came with it.

Prickles we are ok just going from one trauma to the next as we do but grandson keeps us smiling I can put up with all the ailments being flung at me just wish they wouldn't keep going at the kids. Compute us just icing on cake lol

Awww, hang on in there Dawnie.

Nice to see you posting. xxx

ok you have a usb stick and access to a net enabled computer.
good to go
what you have to do is
1 make a usb stick bootable - this will zap anything stored on the usb stick
2 copy the windows boot files to the usb stick
3 boot the dead pc using the stick - make sure the bios has usb boot enabled
4 copy the boot files to c:\
5 set boot to HD
note: you will need to invoke the command shell aka DOS to copy files to the damaged HD

Rollo mentioned the dreaded word "Backup".
Often the intention is there but the execution gets put off as it is fiddly and you have to decide what to back up and then find that the memory stick is too small or the CD/DVD writer hasn't been used for a time and has seized up.

Best solution I've found is that for about 50 quid you can get a 1terrabyte external hard drive which will hold the whole of the computer's memory if you wish.

You can then just copy and paste the whole of your "My documents" and "Pictures" etc. once a week, fortnight or month, depending on how quickly you add data.

To create a bootable USB flash drive

Insert a USB flash drive into a running computer.
Open a Command Prompt window as an administrator.
Type diskpart .
In the new command line window that opens, to determine the USB flash drive number or drive letter, at the command prompt, type list disk , and then click ENTER.

This will walk you through the repair process

http://www.intowindows.com/how-to-repair-windows-8-1-installation/

Well I am being really think and cant work it out. Have empty usb but daughters laptop is windows 7 main pc trying to fix is windows 8 . Cant work out on internet what I need to download onto usb. My brain is frazzled I'm a numpty who cant work anything out.

Rollo would it work if I bought recovery disk off amazon and used that cd in the non working pc. Am away tomorrow so cant do anything til Tues afternoon so if order now it should be here then or just after?

you can download win 8 recovery for free from Microsoft. It will install fine onto a usb plugged into win 7. Be v carefull to do a repair otherwise you will lose yr photos etc.

the best way to backup is use cloud back up such as dropbox which is impervious to disk problems and changes in operating system. Free for about 2 Gb.

Rollo being the total numpty I am waiting til Thursday and getting my friends husband around who is better with these things and he will do all your steps for me. Thanks for help will let you know how it goes.

Rollo bad news friend took it to check hard drive absolutely nothing on it as if someone has put it all together and its just waiting for a system to be put on it so looks like I've lost everything but he says looks like hardrive is ok . Baffles me how everything has just disappeared is like someone has got into it even though has antivirus on it.

Lesson learnt now computerless for forseeable.

That is a shame Dannie and strange too. Wonder what happened there?

that is just how it will look with the system files missing!
dl win8 rescue free from microsoft, install it and run a repair insult which will need the current logon and password.
Other options take it to a reliable independent who will charge around £100 or a data recovery firm charge about £ 250 plus carriage.
If you took the photos with a smart phone there is a good chance they are backed up to dropbox or similar.
don't panic

Ok I will stop panicking and take it to a shop to see what they have to say. Only know one shop round here never dealt with them but local forum people say they are ok. X

data recovery firms will not charge for the initial analysis. (you will need to remove the drive of course and properly pack it up.)
please remember that if somebody not used to recovering disks witb problems they can make things a whole lot worse
from what you say the partition record may be missing too but the system keeps a backup of it so rescue is possible.
Software to fix these problems retails at £ 30 - 120 typical £ 40.
The usual scenario is to remove the HD and temp install it in another PC which has the recovery software installed.
good luck