Did I mention I hate computers...especially my

[Ken Fitzgerald]

home computer?

We got back Monday evening and I posted some photos of our trip. I started to shut the computer down and it informed me there was 17 critical updates available. So....I updated the thing ....restarted it....everything was hunky/dory.......'til I went to turn the thing on Tuesday morning......Dead....won't do a Safe boot......Won't get to any recovery screen.......Long story short....I think I've got a HD going gunny....but I had some personal information like tax records and quicken checking acount information that I knew SWMBO would kill me if I didn't recover it. I've spent several evenings and all day today and finally....FINALLY got it back running. It seems that the Photo Queen (SWMBO) had not backed up her family photos...some from early in the 20th century......She's not worried about balancing the check book or filing taxes this year.......I sure wished I'd put a bathroom in that new shop. It'd be a whole lot easier living there if it had a bathroom......Now if I'm lucky....I'll recover over 1800 family photos.....Did I mention SWMBO is referred to as the "PHOTO QUEEN"?.....35MM...APS.....Digital......camcorder. ........she does it all.....

Did I mention.....I hate computers.....?

[Per Swenson]

Ken,

As soon as you get your machine together,
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...asp?CatId=136&
get one of these.

Pick one in your budget, I have two. 250 gig sea gate and a 200 gig

maxtor. I like the seagate. Yup I am backed up twice.

Can take my hard drive anywhere.

There is some stuff now a days you just can't lose.

Darn computers.

Per

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Per .....I located one locally today.......They'll be backed up......if I can get them recovered......I believe at this point I may luck out........

[Nancy Laird]

Ken, buy an external hard drive - NOW!!! Tonight! Back up everything you have onto that. Just to be safe, get two! I had the same thing happen about 1-1/2 years ago, lost 5 years of e-mails, all photos, fortunately I don't keep personal tax records on computer (yet), but I'd have lost those too. I work in a law office where everything is on computer, and not only do we have individual external hard drives for each one of the individual computers, but a back-up system for the entire network.

Better to be safe than to be living in the workshop ...if SWMBO gets mad enough, she might not even let you in the house to use the bathroom.

I feel your pain.

Nancy

[Joe Pelonio]

What the heck did we do for all those years without computers?

I've added a DVD Writer and those hold a lot of data for backups. You just have to remember to do it regularly. When you have a problem it's always going to be the day before you were going to run a backup. A second hard drive is probably a better idea, you can run a backup daily, and if the PC crashes you can always move the drive(s) to another one.

[Ian Abraham]

2 types of files on a computer.. Ones that you have backups of, and ones that ARE going to get lost.

Did you have to reload Win XP from scratch?
If so, and you DIDN'T format the disk, then the files are probably easily recoverable. The new install will have created a new user profile and new (empty) My Documents etc. As long as you didn't format the disk the files from the old profile will still be there under c:\documents and settings\ .
If you had to format the C drive.. they are pretty much toast.. well now that windows has been reloaded anyway.

Good luck

Cheers

Ian

[David G Baker]

home computer?

We got back Monday evening and I posted some photos of our trip. I started to shut the computer down and it informed me there was 17 critical updates available. So....I updated the thing ....restarted it....everything was hunky/dory.......'til I went to turn the thing on Tuesday morning......Dead....won't do a Safe boot......Won't get to any recovery screen.......Long story short....I think I've got a HD going gunny....but I had some personal information like tax records and quicken checking acount information that I knew SWMBO would kill me if I didn't recover it. I've spent several evenings and all day today and finally....FINALLY got it back running. It seems that the Photo Queen (SWMBO) had not backed up her family photos...some from early in the 20th century......She's not worried about balancing the check book or filing taxes this year.......I sure wished I'd put a bathroom in that new shop. It'd be a whole lot easier living there if it had a bathroom......Now if I'm lucky....I'll recover over 1800 family photos.....Did I mention SWMBO is referred to as the "PHOTO QUEEN"?.....35MM...APS.....Digital......camcorder. ........she does it all.....

Did I mention.....I hate computers.....?

Ken,
Question, did you install the updated version of Internet Explorer? The same thing happened to me about one month after installing it. I did not realize that it was the Explorer upgrade that killed my system so I downloaded it again and installed it. Couple of weeks later the same thing happened again. The Explorer upgrade was the only new thing I had installed for months. This time I went back to the older version of Explorer and shut off my automatic upgrade feature. Haven't had a problem for around 2 months.
If you haven't formatted your hard drive and have been able to put a version of Windows on your computer, you may be able to find your photos and files. If you do, you will have to copy them onto a DVD or CD because if you crash a second time you may not be able to access them. I too recommend a back up hard drive when you get your system up and running again.
Good luck.
David B

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Ian and David...

Yup...I was able to reload Windows without reformatting the disk so I'll probably be able to get those photos.

Yup.....I'd loaded Explorer version 7 about a month or so ago and was really enjoying the tab function......

I'm still in the process of recovering the system but I do now have email service and I'm writing this from my personal computer and not from my business laptop so I'm making headway.

I think I'll stay with the old version of IE for a while......

[Joash Boyton]

How old is your computer??
Do you have an optimizer software?? Often, the problem is in the registry...for years, our computer crashed many times...I did some scans, and come up with errors, in values up to 5,000. A virus may be the problem as well...I install/uninstall, software, around 50 times a week....I have 438 programs installed. No problem. The optimizer software is the best...Tune-up utilities, Advanced system optimizer, and Registry mechanic, are the best I've ever tested...I am in no way affiliated with them. You can download fully functional trials of most software these days, that last for 30 days.

Hope you get everything back to 100% and your opinion of computers changes I love em!!

Joash

EDIT: Oh!! and yes, keep away from IE7 for a while!!! till they get it all sorted out...it's all bad news

[Dave Hale]

Forget IE, get Firefox. Version 2. It's got tabs......
and it's faster than IE. I have a bookmark (favorites) folder with all my favorite sites (SMC included) and I just 'open all in tabs'. Sweet.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

How old is your computer??
Do you have an optimizer software?? Often, the problem is in the registry...for years, our computer crashed many times...I did some scans, and come up with errors, in values up to 5,000. A virus may be the problem as well...I install/uninstall, software, around 50 times a week....I have 438 programs installed. No problem. The optimizer software is the best...Tune-up utilities, Advanced system optimizer, and Registry mechanic, are the best I've ever tested...I am in no way affiliated with them. You can download fully functional trials of most software these days, that last for 30 days.

Hope you get everything back to 100% and your opinion of computers changes I love em!!

Joash

EDIT: Oh!! and yes, keep away from IE7 for a while!!! till they get it all sorted out...it's all bad news

Joash,

I install and repair computerized equipment everyday. Like a lot of us in the business, I'm the most conservative person in the world when it comes to my home computer. I've had this computer for 4 years now. I had it built for my wife's photography and videography. This is the 1st time in 4 1/2 years I've had any problem with it. I actually do enjoy working with computers, but I find the "home computer" industry a little backwards compared to the stuff I work on everyday. I can take 3 DVDs at work....load an operating system, the applications and calibration data and do it in a couple of hours. I don't have to mess with a dozen cds and dvds to get back to where I started. When it gets to loading software 50 times a week....I'll get rid of my computer. I don't need a second job!

[Joash Boyton]

Opera 10!!!!

[Charles McKinley]

Hi Ken,

With things as sensative as old family photos you need to put them on CD or DVD and distribute them to various family members or an off site storage location. God forbid you have a catastrophic loss at your home but that would take the originals and all of your backups if they are all stored at your home.

Also with just backing up to harddrives especially if it is done automatically it is possible that a virus can get your internal and back up drives. With the photos and tax records on CD they are safely removed from this danger.

BTW how are you in trouble for your wife's computer not being backed up?????

[Richard Keller]

Forget IE, get Firefox. Version 2. It's got tabs......
and it's faster than IE. I have a bookmark (favorites) folder with all my favorite sites (SMC included) and I just 'open all in tabs'. Sweet.

Or forget MS anything and move to Linux. Much much better. Switched over two months ago, havn't enjoyed using the computer like this since I was a kid Firefox has IE beat hands down, among other things.

Like buying used WW machines, not for the faint of heart.

Richard.

[David Howden]

I am a realy sad case! This AM logged on and dealt with mail, went on line. Two hours later blearly deloved went on and had lost browser! Three hours later, mainly on phone to ISP was told to reload Explorer. Did a full scan and getting to wits end turned off firewall-and got on. Found B/D had somehow changed firewall settings to block all internet traffic. Fixed it.
After 38 years we are stll together but she is chancing her arm. I am reading up on DOS.