Please?

[Jennie@ifish]

I am in big trouble!
I need a windows expert, and now!
If anyone out there knows a windows trouble shooter, I need them to call me. Please, e mail, billh@harborside.com and I will call you if you call me.
I have lost everything! The contest entries, everything!
My computer won't start at all. I can't run a disk or a cd. Windows does not boot up. Just sits there with a little m in the corner?
Is my hard drive and it's contents all gone?
I will lose sooo much data. Biz, and everything else that I didn't back up regularly. I am petrified.
(And embarassed)
Please.... Bill will take you fishing if you come fix my computer!!!
SOmeone?
Jen

[Captain and Marie]

I can help you maybe.

Call Wayne at 842-6927


Good Luck

Marie @ TBC

[Jennie@ifish]

I love you MARIE!

Jen

[Captain and Marie]

Jen,

Why do you love me!

Am I in trouble?


Marie

[Hooked on fishin]

Jennie, did you get it fixed?

[WheresMyBobber]

Jennie, your data is not lost. I'm no computer expert, but I recently had a similar problem. My brother in law was able to hook up a spare hard drive to my computer, and transfer the data I needed to save to the spare using DOS language and commands. We then reformatted my hard drive, and transfered the stuff from the spare hard drive back to my computer again. This was a worst case scenario, was way over my head, but it was easy for him.

I guess my point is, don't panic. If you can find the right person, you can still save the data you want if you can't get windows running for some reason.

[Jennie@ifish]

Marie, of course you are not in trouble!
This Wayne guy is terrific!
I love you because you helped me!
Anyway, thanks for the help guys. I know I shouldn't post stuff like this here, but I am trying to save ifish and all of it's pieces!
I was relieved to find out I probably did not lose all my data, as you put, thanks Tom!
It is soooo frustating though!
Thanks so much everyone!
Jen

[Captain and Marie]

Jen,

WOW! I'm happy for you.!!!

Wayne is MY computer guy! Hes always there for me and I hope he never moves.

Im glad I was of some help to you.

Now, remember you asking about small split shot? Well I was looking in the wrong spot on the tackle wall. We have tons of small split shot. Come get some if you still need them! okay???

Good night!

Marie

[Fuzzybutt & Angel]

Sorry to hear about all your computer problems Jennie, and I hope they are soon fixed.
I hope everyone who spends alot of time working on projects on their computers heeds the warning to do back up files, just in case!!
I can sympathise, beleive me! My very first computer 4 years ago, it was a very popular brand which I paid $2500 for (Well,it was part of my prize which I chose in a competition ) so thought it would be a good one. In the first year, I lost EVERYTHING on my hard drive 8 times, and even received a replacement because they said there was a "glitch" that was removing parts of files everytime I used it.
The replacement proved to be just as bad so when the same thing began happening I demanded my money back, and had a computer made to my own specifications, to suit my needs.
After the first couple of times, I FINALLY began to keep back up files. The new comp was brilliant!! However, I couldn't bring it to the USA with me, but was so glad to have all those disks full of info I could bring over with me! (though there must be a good 100 of them at least!! lol)
A lesson was definately learnt!!


Angel
www.silentapproach.com

[smilesforu]

I hear you on losing lots of good data. I have lost months of work when I was selling real estate and some great formulas I had for commodity trading. Most of the time I lost the info i was messing with stuff to make my systems better. Some expensive lessons learned, so now when ever I "upgrade" I backup first. Live and learn, but I hope Jen recovers her work. There are some really smart comp guys that can help, so don't destroy what is remaining. Sometimes the simple fixes are the hardest.

[Jennie@ifish]

The computer guy was supposed to show up last night at ten, and never called. zzzz waited up for him till 11:30.
Luckily, I have all my most important files backed up. It's just the ones you never think to back up. Like my e mail list for the contest entries? Duh!
I haven't backed up in two days, when I started the contest.
I have all my billing, after all, and my web site is on my server, thats backed up nightly at the host, and and and.
It's just that game of remembering things... Oh shoot, I forgot to back up:
All my pictures of Hershey my dog
Pics of my salmon caught.
Silly things like that
Nice letters people have written me about my work, etc.
Little special things like that.
I thnk they will still be there soon though.
I have to go to Astoria to church now. If I don't hear from Wayne, I will call you later today, Tom. Thank you very much!
'
Jen

[Troutinator]

Hey Jen, I've had a couple similar happen, the good news from what you described, your data is sitting happily on your drive. The bad news is, you have ahardware failure, likely the motherboard. The reason I say this is you said all it does is give you a "m" or some such. The fact that you don't see the BIOS load says the MB is dead. The bios read is independant of any drives or memory, it is read directly from non-volatile memory. If you indeed do not see a little message in the upper left at any time when you turn the power on or hit reset, it's a real indication that the MB is so messed up it can't even read the NV memory to figure out HOW to find the hard drive or boot info on floppy. I imagine you'll be looking at a new MB. BUT... and this is a BIG but... DO NOT let your comp guy just slap in a new MB and try to get your HD to read. It will probably want to format your HD because it doesn't know where the FAT(file allocation table) is. The BEST and SAFEST way to recover your HD is to put it(swap) into a known working system as a slave drive then transfer your info to the bootable drive in that system. This prevents the problem of having the drive you are trying to protect from data loss having to bee the boot device in a "new" system. And if you change the MB, it will be much like a new system.

Feeel free to email me if you have questions, or we can arrange a call, but I really think you are looking at:

Mothre board failure, or a plug in board has failed so hard it's preventing the MB from functioning to the point it can't even read the BIOS(Built In Operating System). This is the most basic of functions and indeendant of drives.
The safest way to recover is to have your comp guy remove the HD from the system it's in and put it in a known working system as a slave drive and recover from there.

Best of luck!
email: cosmofurball@yahoo.com

[ZaQ]

Burn everything to CD. Cheap and easy.

------------------
Fish this!
ZaQ

[sinker]

Just a couple of months ago I got a new ABIT motherboard. Pulled my hard drive out of my old system and slapped it in my new one. It shouldn't try to to format it and look for a new FAT system. I *believe* FAT is a windows format. If I remember when I was messing with Linux it was a totally different style of partition.
The only problem I had with swapping motherboards was that windows had the drivers for the old motherboard resources installed and it was causing some conflicts. Which made my puter pretty unstable. I burned everything onto CD then I formatted the hard drive.
I like to format my drive every few months. Keeps things cleaned up and a lot more stable. Windows thing isn't the most stable thing in the world.
I just upgraded to 384MB PC133 RAM. I had 128 and memory was really cheap so I went and picked up another 256MB for about $80.
Still have to reboot just as often. Things run a little quicker now. But I figured with 384MB it would run alot better.
Might be time to dump this Me and go to Windblows 2k.

[This message has been edited by sinker (edited 03-18-2001).]

[Jennie@ifish]

My comp guy is coming soon.. I think!
Good idea ZaQ, get over here with your cd burner. Mine is in the mail.
Yeah, I had ! on one of my motherboards ever since my first crash.
Jen
He's here!