Vista boot woes

[Elysium]

I meant try to get their important files off the harddrive somehow onto my computer, then reinstall Vista on their computer...

Anyone know how to files of a harddrive in which you can't get into the OS?

[Reloadron]

Originally Posted by yellowhello

I meant try to get their important files off the harddrive somehow onto my computer, then reinstall Vista on their computer...

Anyone know how to files of a harddrive in which you can't get into the OS?

OK, makes more sense. Place the drivein your machine as a slave unless it is SATA then just add the drive to your machine. Now if the documents (or whatever) are in for example the My Documents folder then you will need to "Take Ownership":

Vista: How To Take Ownership of a System File - Tech-Recipes.com

The XP method:

How to take ownership of a file or folder in Windows XP

That may help.

Or this:

Microsoft Corporation

Ron

[Elysium]

Well, the only problem I can't get into the HDD... I can't log in, can't access the desktop, nothing. So it will have to be done outside of the OS, like off a bootable floppy for CD or something. Follow at all?

I don't know if there are any such programs...:dontknow:

[Reloadron]

Originally Posted by yellowhello

Well, the only problem I can't get into the HDD... I can't log in, can't access the desktop, nothing. So it will have to be done outside of the OS, like off a bootable floppy for CD or something. Follow at all?

I don't know if there are any such programs...:dontknow:

OK, let me see if I have this right (or at least close). Your friends machine won't boot. You tried all the options to repair. Still no go. You remove HDD from friends computer and place it in your computer. You only want to retrieve data correct?

When you place the HDD in your computer do not try to boot from it. Even if the drive contained a perfectly good OS the drive would not boot in your machine. Boot your machine as you normally would, booting to your OS just like normal. Now navigate to the drive from the other machine. Explore the drive. Drag the files you want to a location on your HDD. Burn them to a disk or whatever.

Once you have what you want saved I would use your machine to blow away the drive and fully reformat it. Then place the drive back in your friends machine and do a fresh install.

What am I maybe missing?

Ron

[Elysium]

Ahh, yes, you have is all exactly correct. Thank you! I'll try that and report back.

[Reloadron]

Originally Posted by yellowhello

Ahh, yes, you have is all exactly correct. Thank you! I'll try that and report back.

OTAY!

Remember something. Assuming the data retrieval goes OK and the drive goes back home, and you reinstall the OS, things need to be stable. I would look to add RAM as Capper mentioned early on. You may need to find out why things went to hell. Something caused this mess and it can happen again and if mom is upset, she will really be upset.

Ron

[Elysium]

Hmm, I don't know if they can afford another GB of RAM... maybe in another couple of months.

[Reloadron]

Originally Posted by yellowhello

Hmm, I don't know if they can afford another GB of RAM... maybe in another couple of months.

Just say a short prayer to the Vista RAM God. Vista will run on 1 GB as long as the system is not taxed with RAM intensive (or demanding) applications.

Ron

[screwballl]

one thing I always suggest for just these cases, partition the hard drive into 2 pieces. 40-60GB for Vista and the rest for storage and show them how to save stuff on the storage drive (usually in Vista as D: or E: depending on the drive situation).
This way even if Vista gets formatted and reinstalled, the stuff on the storage is untouched (unless someone accidentally allows Vista to repartition the whole thing).

[Elysium]

OK, so i just got off the phone with my friend. The System Restore didn't work, so he is going to try a full reinstall. I don't think he made two partitions, but he said that Vista puts all of your old documents in a folder called "Windows.old" so he should have all his old files, right?