Running on Safe Mode AGAIN!

Well, let me start from the beginning.

I was playing an online game (been playing it for over a year), then suddenly the whole screen turned black and I could not see the mouse nor would it take commands.
So after a number of minutes waiting, I held the power button on the computer to restart it. First screen that came on before computer start up was an American Megratrends page which had info on my computer. I thought this was weird, because I hadnt seen it before, so I just pressed F2 for continue.
The computer started up perfect as if nothing happened, and then I got into AOL and after a few minutes, AOL suddenly dissapeared. I shut AOL down, and I tried opening up another program, I think it was my pictures file, and it would not open! I tried opening up other programs, and still, nothing would open.
I restarted the computer, same American Megatrends screen came out, and had it go on safe mode. I ran my antiviruses and adware stuff and it found absolutely nothing.
Now I have a feeling that it has somthing to do with the Driver.
I ran the system restore, and went back to over a month ago. The American Megatrends screen still came up, and the same problems occoured with the opening of files and programs.
It seems like it can't take a certain amount of work. It will either not open it or shut the program down in a couple of moments.

HELP!!!
Is there anything that I can try? Any help will be greatly appreciated!
I really don't want to do the System Recovery again

 

We really need a subforum for Lalo's computer problems.
Not sure whats really the problem, but heres the steps I would take.

1. Take your XP cd (hopefully its XP) and boot to the cd. When the menu boots up, hit R for the repair console. When you get to the DOS prompt, type CHKDSK and hit enter, see what it says. If it wants you to do /f, then do so. Reboot and see what happens.
2. If that doesnt work, do the same thing, but type FIXMBR.
3. Actually one of the first thing I would do is give my hard drive a nice little whack. It usually helps most of my problems, this is from a computer hardware guy. You might not want to do this, but whatever. :P
4. If these fail, I might try reflashing the BIOS, seeing as something might have gotten messed up. If you want help with this, post here or email me or something.
5. I hate saying this, but if all else fails, you might want to reinstall windows. I highly doubt it will come to this, should get cleared up with step one. I hate freaking reinstalling.

Hope this helps man.

 

it sounds to me like you are possibly having problems with your video card. the american megatrends screen you are seeing is the bios screen for your motherboard, and it is possible that the power on self test or POST procedure is being slowed down because of video ram caching checking video memory on the card. you may not normally see this when the machine is working alright, but since something is hanging it up you are seeing a screen that normally flashes right by. the screen blacking out without the machine shutting down really sounds to me like a heat issue with the video card. some cards ship with fans that have cheap bearings, and when the bearings go out the fans stop turning which causes the card to overheat. Try replacing the card. dont go and get the hammer out on your hard drive just yet. the heads that read a hard drive usually ride extremely close to the platters (thousandths of an inch) which makes the hard drive in your drive very sensitive to even slight vibration. so if you want to lose your data go ahead and hammer mechanic it....

it could be memory, or even processor related as well.

also listen to the hard drive for any odd sounding clicking as that is a telltale sign of a dying drive.

hope this helps...

 

I agree with Johnny. It sounds like a hardware problem, especially since you did a system restore point. Because of the issues you're having I'd say one of your memory DIMMs is bad (had the same problem myself a while back). Get a new one of the same size/speed and try that in both slots (assuming you have 2 DIMMs in there right now). If you're not comfortable messing with that stuff, take it to a PC builder shop and have them run a hardware diagnostics on it.

You're not running Windows ME are you? (Stands for Multiple Errors )

 

thanks a lot guys for the quick responses!

Well, here is the information i get in that American Megatrends page:

DDR frequency 320Mhz, Dual-Channel, Tiled Mode
Checking NVRAM...
504MB OK

Auto Detecting Pri Master.. IDE Hard Disk
Auto Detecting Sec Master.. ATAPI CD-ROM
Auto Detecting Sec Slave.. ATAPI CD-ROM

Pri Master: TL 100-24 Samsung SP1203N
Ultra DMA Mode-5, S.M.A.R.T. Capable and Status BAD
Sec Master: 1.25 Hewlett-Packard DVD Writer 300
Ultra DMA Mode-2
Sec Slave: B100 Samsung CD-ROM SC-148C
Ultra DMA Mode-2

Auto detecting USB Mass storage devices...
00USB Mass sotrage devices found and configured

Pri Master Hard Disk: S.M.A.R.T. Status BAD, Backup and Replace

all of the bads got me a little worried.

 

Ah, your drive is dieing. Happens to me all the time. Backup your junk, buy a new hard drive, and load her up. The only solution. The SMART thing is like a monitor thingy. Thats all it means, your drive has gone to crap.

Sorry though, drives are pretty cheap these days though.

 

NOOO!!! :cry:

oh well... so, how do I backup my stuff?

Any recommended hard drives?
How does a hard drive fry?

 

They pretty much just get old, slow down and die. If your quick, you can get a new drive and copy everything over from one drive to another. If not, use DVDs and burn your junk to them. I can recommend Western Digital Drives. Seagates are good too. Maxtor got bought up by one of them. (I had a bad experience with Maxtor). You can usually come by a 120-160 gig drive for less than a hundred bucks. I have a Western Digital Caviar. Its black and looks nice in my painted interior.

 

What type of things am I supposed to burn?

I really want to burn my Microsoft Office 2003 and Microsoft Expressions. Are those possible?

I would really like to just transer the files from one drive to another. How would I be able to do that? or, is it better for a person who knows about that stuff to do it for me?

Sorry about the million questions, but I'm new to this stuff.

Thanks you SO MUCH!

 

Youll want to burn your media files and documents and what not, it is better if you have those other programs on CD and then you can just install them. You could theoretically burn the entire drive, but you might lose your registry and MBR so Windows wouldnt work. What I would do is get the new drive, install windows, copy all the docs and some programs over, and then install the other software with the discs.

Putting in the new drive invovles opening the computer and messing with cables and stuff, so if youre not into that, might be good to get someone who knows how. If you are, I can write up some detailed instructions. I could do it for ya in a couple minutes if I lived less than a billion miles from you, if you can wait until June Ill be in San Diego/LA/SF . Its not really a big deal messing with the internals of computers. I learned when I was like 10. I ripped apart my computer and put it back together, and it worked (I was one of those kids ).

Its no problem really, I like to help people out whenever I can.

 

Once again... THANK YOU! :worship:

 

Without reading all of the posts.......are you running Windows XP? If you are you can run the File Transfer Wizard, located under Start\programs\accessories\system tools.
This program will compact all of your email, office docs, spreadsheets, contacts, etc into a single file. You choose the location for the file. Don't worry about the SMART feature finding that your drive is bad, it most likely will still work okay for a bit, but since your system is locking up you might want to do this as soon as you can. When you run the File transfer wizard it will ask you if it is the new or old computer. Select old. When it asks where you want to store the files, create a new folder on your C drive, just call it transfer.

Once you get your new hard drive, make sure you set it to the same settings as your old drive (Master, Slave or cable select). Remove the old drive and install the new one. You will need to reinstall your operating system and applications. Once you have everything installed turn the computer off again and disconnect the power. Now, disconnect the IDE cable (the wide ribbon cable) and power from the cdrom that does not share the ribbon cable with the harddrive. Connect the cables to your old hard drive. It is okay to just have your drive laying there, you don't have to reinstall it. Now plug the power back in to the pc and start it. Once up and running, run the File transfer wizard. This time select New. You should get to a screen where you just select the last option (something like you don't need a disk). When it asks where the file is located, click on browse, go to the old disc, go into the transfer folder and then into the subfolder it created and select the file. Let it do its job and once done it will say you have to log off and then back on. All of your old files will be back including your internet connection. It just wont copy passwords. Once all the data is there, turn off the computer, remove the old drive and connect your cd rom again.

2 options you can do with the old drive.

1. Go to the manufacturers website and download their harddrive diagnostics. Do a low level format and that will set the drive back to default settings. 50% of the time that fixes the SMART error. Keep in mind this erases the entire disc.

2. Tear the drive apart and then beat it to death with a hammer.

Note: I highly suggest you do not, repeat, do not hit the hard drive while you are still using it, especially when it is running. The drive you have spins at either 5400 or 7200 rpm. Hitting the drive will cause the heads to skip off of the platters rendering the drive absolutely useless.

 

Thanks a lot guys!!!

Great help. Got a new Driver and just finished updating it and installing the important programs I need.
Now to just extract the info of the old Driver.

John- I will make sure to to do option number 2 after I get what I need

 

What one did you go with?

 

We went cheap (I made sure to stay away from the Maxtors)

Hitachi DeskStar 250GB/ 7200RPM
Was $142, we had 37 dollar credit with Fry's, plus 60 dollars worth of mail in rebates. Total of $45

And we got a half giga worth of memory for forty bucks, and it came with a 10 dollar mir :P

 

Wow. Thats a pretty good deal!

 

yea it was... we werent expecting to steal one like that.

It's pretty cool having a computer with one whole Giga worth of memory

 

Bought an Enclosure and got all of the important info (and music ) from the old drive.