Aaaaaarrrrrrrrggggggghhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!

[Epi-do]

I have been working on this cardiovascular worksheet for medic class. It's seven pages long, 75 questions. I have put somewhere between 3-4 hours into it and am only about halfway finished. I went to open up the file on my laptop and the thing locked up. I killed the power and tried to reboot and the darn thing wouldn't start up again.

I took the laptop back to where I bought it 2 1/2 months ago, and they think I have had a "catastrophic hard drive failure" - wonderful. They are going to try and recover my files, but they are so busy it will be two weeks at least before they are able to get it fixed and back to me. And, there is no guarantee they can even get into the hard drive to get what I had on there. At least all of the other stuff for medic class that was on there had either already been printed, turned in, emailed, or whatever so all I have lost is this worksheet and some pictures. Still bummed about it, but I guess it could have been worse.

So, I have spent the last couple hours redoing what I already had done on the darn thing. At least I was able to do alot of it without having to look things up again, and the stuff I did have to look up didn't take as long because I already knew where to find it. I have also managed to get a little bit more done, but really need to take a break for a while. I figure I have all day while on duty to work on it as well.

 

[OreoThief]

Ugh...... that sux. Hang in there.

 

[firetender]

About 15 years after leaving EMS I began living in a community where for five years on every Monday I'd cook lunch for anywhere from 15 to 50 people (no, it wasn't jail!). Organic, vegetarian. I'd get to work with the leftovers from the weekend which were usually gourmet dishes for the conference attendees we'd serve.

Others in my community were stunned (and appalled!) at my cavalier attitude in the kitchen, my fearless mixology, my incredible combinations. Those who watched me were incredibly judgemental of the lack of care I seemed to take, as in my not "having knowledge" that this never goes with that.

Truth was in all that time I maybe made three or four meals that were real clunkers, all the rest were just fine (insert the possibility of a self-delusive moment here). I never worried whether or not things would work out. They usually did, and if not, I'd fix it.

Anyhow, one day I stopped to think about why the metaphor of cooking was so right on to describe my attitude about not sweating the small stuff in most everything I did after having been a medic.

Soon, you too will understand what high stakes are.

 

[Rattletrap]

if that does not work hit it with a bigger hammer!

 

[MSDeltaFlt]

If the hammer doesn't work, remember that buckshot is very therapeutic.

 

[Airwaygoddess]

I find that a very large baseball bat does the job just fine!!:blink:

 

[disassociative]

Tell me every message you see, and what is happening. I am a Licensed Programmer/Network Engineer and Senior Systems Analyst. I will get you back up and running; provided you give me the info I need to diagnose the problem.

 

[Epi-do]

Thanks, disassociative, but it is currently with the IT guys at the store I bought it from. It is still under warrenty, so the repair isn't going to cost me anything. Here's what would happen when I did try to turn it on. Since I don't have it with me though, I can't tell you exactly what the windows said that eventually popped up.

When I would turn it on though, I would get the brief screen with the Hp logo on it, that also has the "push F10 for...." stuff in the bottom corner. Then, the Windows screen that should appear next never comes up. It just has a black screen that stays up for 20-30 minutes, and then a completely blank blue screen that also stays for about the same amount of time. Then I got a series of windows that asked different things, and eventually led to a window that would offer to repair the version of windows listed in the box, but no versions were listed. The next thing that came up was a window with a list of different options of things for the computer to attempt to diagnose and repair. The only option that it would allow anything at all to happen on was one to diagnose/repair the startup sequence for windows. That literally ran all night long and absolutely nothing happened. If you tried to cancel it, a window would pop up that said the operation could not be canceled at this time.

If you tried to run the self diagnostic tool for the hard drive that is in the BIOS, it would tell you that there was an error and then it said "#1 - 07 failed." I didn't try to do anything at all in the BIOS because I figured I would just mess it up even more.

 

[disassociative]

vgarx32.dll driver is missing or corrupt.

Due to an invalid drive sector, this file has become corrupt and or unreadable and therefore will not offer it's libraries to the Windows native kernel. Therefore, one can infer; given that this is a required file; that it would detriment the overall startup process--Your computer simply did not know what to do after this file was missing.

Easy Fix:

Windows Recovery Console(Not Windows Recovery): This is a specialized command prompt one can enter; afterwhich you would run chkdsk /r to recover any faulty sectors. Your computer will be back good as new.

 

[Epi-do]

I am so glad to hear that! Now I just have to wait for the Geek Squad to call and tell me that they have it up and running and I can pick it back up. They told me they were pretty backed up with things when I dropped it off and estimated that it would probably be two weeks. Hopefully they get it done before that though.

 

[Tincanfireman]

You might also want to get a small (512MB or so) USB Flash Drive (aka thumb drive, dangle drive, etc) and keep your stuff backed up, just in case. It's kind of like BSI for your data and it has saved my bacon more than once! I hope the Geeky Guys can help you out and get your stuff back.

 

[Epi-do]

I do typically back things up, I just hadn't done it for about a week. As for the computer....they called and told me the hard drive had definately failed, and unfortunately they were unable to get any of my files off of it.

 

[disassociative]

That is just like the physician that attributes someone going crazy to high/low ammonia levels; it is the best smoke-screen for, "I don't know".

I hate geek squad for this. Most of their employees are not even MCSE, MCSA, or even MCDST; bunch of amateurs if you ask me.

Make sure to get your hard drive back; and I will show you step by step how to get your files back; because even if HD failure were the case(which it isnt as that takes some pretty massive damage); you would still be able to load your HD as a Primary Slave; and use the Windows install disk to run a Non-Partitioned Restore; keeping the NTFS, EFS, or FAT file system intact.

For those of you who are technologically challenged; please reference the following analogy:

What geek squad has done is pretty much diagnosed a patient as being in cardiac arrest while they are still breathing.(sure this will eventually become cardiac arrest; e.g. old age) however, there are interventions which must take place before coming to such assumptions. (If I were Dr. Cox; I would hand them 5 "Man" cards and take 2 away).

 

[wolfwyndd]

I do desktop support professionally and while I can neither confirm, nor deny disassociative's original diagnosis, I CONCUR that you can probably hook your original hard drive up as a slave drive to the first (or a secondary drive) and access the information on it with very little trouble. It sounds to me like the Geek Squad is throwing out something at you in the hopes that you don't understand that THEY don't know WTF is wrong with it.

Disassociative. You say your 'licensed?' Who licenses computer techies? Do you mean your certified? That one I can buy but I don't know of any state that 'licenses' computer people.

 

[disassociative]

Yes; I did mean certified; I have a habit of saying licensed to due workin in EMS too much, I suppose.

I am: MCSE, MCDST, .Net Architect, CCIE, and a few more.

I specialize in artificial intellegence neural networking as well as .net entperprise level corporate coding and network engineering using secure(usually triple blowfish implementations with multiple site authentication; by use of domain controllers, remoting services, etc.)

 

[Epi-do]

Well, I just got a call from the service center to let me know that they have replaced the hard drive and will be shipping it back to the store for me to pick up. I requested they send the old hard drive with it, so I will let you know when it all is back in my grubby little hands.

 

[wolfwyndd]

Yes; I did mean certified; I have a habit of saying licensed to due workin in EMS too much, I suppose.

Ok, gotcha. I THOUGHT that was what you meant, but I figured I'd clearify. I USED to be MCSE with NT. I let it expire and the only certification I can still say I am is MCP. Gonna hit up my company after the first of the year to see if they'll pay for my MSDE. I think I'm still certified as a CNA (certified novell administrator, NOT certified nursing assistant), but I haven't touched a novell box is close to three years. Kind of a shame too. I liked novell SSSOOO much better then winblows.

 

[MedicineMan975]

Get this immediatley!

Ive been where you are and I have three words for you: external hard drive. Now a days, there almost essential. I have a Dell and I expreienced a hard drive failure. Fortunatley, I had just recently purchased an external hard drive and was using it as a storage device and general back up unit. Even though I had to wait for a new hard drive, I still had my docs, pics, music, etc. backed up and within easy access by other computers. They are literally a life and time saver.