Fail hard drive

[||§§|| Sven The Slayer]

So I have been having problems with my hard drive for a while now where my computer would just lock up. I would have to giggle cables before it would boot again. Well this time it won't boot up any more. It gets to the windows loading screen and just restarts. I've tried every restoration technique I know short of just re-installing the bloody thing. The issue doesn't seem to be with the registry files.

So...
Restored back up registry files... No boot
Restored original registry files... No boot
Start in safe mode with each of the aforementioned registry fixes.... No boot
Start computer off of Z:... BOOT!

When I install my system I always have a small partition containing a clean installation of windows. This allows me to easily restore the registry in case of failures such as this. What's getting me now is even with a clean registry the machine will still not chug to life. But my back up system will work just fine.I really want to get my system running again without having to spend the hours installing all my programs again... I have a lot of programs.

Any ideas on what other then a blown registry will stop a computer from booting?

[||§§||Eraser]

Virus or Spyware could do it.

just do a windows repair on it.

[||§§|| Sven The Slayer]

the problem is you cannot repair windows C: via windows Z: Some other file needed to boot the computer is corrupted so it will need to be replaced before it will do anything. I'm to tired to deal with it now so I'll have to work on it tomorrow.

[||§§|| Sven The Slayer]

Ran windows repair installer. If anybody has ever used this before you know all it does is re-installs windows and over writes everything. I have actually vowed to never use it but in this case it seemed like I had nothing else to lose. I re-named documents and settings so it would be lost in the install and went to town. After the install was complete I re-renamed D&S and then restored my original registry files... this let me boot up into my system normally although taking 10 times longer then normal. Some things are still messed up being part of windows is fresh off the disk and part is over a year old... I hope to sort out any issues without a full re-install which I will probably end up being forced to do once I get a replacement drive

[||§§|| Sven The Slayer]

so the computer REALLY doesn't like to run off the old registry but will run pretty good off the new. I'll try and update the system and give the old registry one more go and maybe the files will be more compatible...

That worked... Once I had windows updated I was able to implant my original registry and have it function. It was still a bit sluggish so a final system restore did the trick and besides a few hours of work and a little more work that needs to be done the system is back to it's state before this disaster.

[||§§||Hand_O_Death]

Hope you didnt loose any imporant data

[||§§|| Sven The Slayer]

Hope you didnt loose any imporant data

All of the important stuff is on a storage drive and not the system drive. A while ago I learned that keeping all the stuff you want to keep on a separate drive, even if it's only a partition will enable you to wipe the system clean without much loss of data. Over the years I've also learned what needs to be saved that cannot be moved before a system wipe. This is why I backed up the document and settings folder before doing anything. The second system partition helps a lot for this as well as restoring the registry if that is in case the problem. When this second system partition is not available I can boot windows XP off of a special CD I have. This is just a culmination of all my experience coming together and fixing a BIG problem with relative ease. When It first happened I didn't even know what to do, as this thread suggests. This had happened to most people, not just the average person, even people who know PCs they would have been SOL and had to re-install. I know in the past that's what I would have done. If I had taken it to any repair shop it would come back with a shinny new installation of windows without any of the gigabytes of installed data already contained on it.

If you hadn't noticed I'm rather proud of myself. Registry errors I can deal with on the fly but to recover from an unknown corrupt system file with minimal loss in data is really something. My wall master (a program I use to change my background from an archive of 150 pictures) forgot all my background images that it had stored, but those are all in a folder so they are easy to add back. Also my windowsblinds forgot how to access my custom windows theme, and I cannot remember how to make it. All my custom theme was is a default theme with one image changed. So I just put the new image in the old folder and that works as well. There might be other system damages that I am un-aware of at this time but everything else looks good so far.

I should really get a job working with PCs so my skills and talent are not wasted so