Oh s&#t!!!

[PR Design]

Okay, the story goes thus:

My PC bluescreened today. Luckily all that I was working on was already saved - so no work inn progress was lost. But it doesn't end there - oh no!

I rebooted the machine but every time it got past the startup options screen it bluescreened again, did the memory dump, then restarted. Only to bluescreen again, do the memory dump, then restart. Only to bluescreen again, do the memory dump, then restart. Only to bluescreen again... you get the idea.

So now, I have a PC which is, for want of a better word, f*cked, and which I can't access files on. I have three end of year projects to hand in at 8.55am tomorrow, which I can't get at. There's also a load of design work, client files etc yadda yadda on there.

I installed a 512Mb DIMM about a fortnight ago, and it has only ever bluescreened before when I was running my local server (Apache) - don't know if that's of any significance.

I'm not too bothered about the needing a new PC bit, as it was obvioulsy well overdue anyway - it's just these files which are on there!

Any advice as to a remedy for any of the above will be much appreciated.

Thanks, Harry

[flick]

can't you just take your hard drive into college and explain what happened to them?

[PR Design]

I don't know, can I? lol. I'm not the tech-y type to be honest. Is it not likely the HD that's at fault?

[flick]

well if it's your hard drive then you really are juiced but it could just as easily be the memory or the cpu. what error does the blue screen give you?

[ianm]

well the data is no problem, that can be recovered

If it hasn't blue screened before then i can only think the ram wasn't installed propperly and has worked it's way out, i know that's not much help. how old is the machine? is it the original HD? as it may be just eventual hardware failure in a part or (in the worst case scenario) the HD.

I'd get it checked out mate, and if it is anything like that at least they can recover your data, well as long as it's not the HD failure :)

[LeadMagnet]

By 'startup options' what do you mean? Past where it says to boot in safe mode or normally and all that? Or past your login screen?
This may or may not be obvious to you, but a bluescreen is a windows error, so since it's getting as far as you seeing that, your HDD contains readable data, therefore the HDD has not failed... at least not completely. So there's a good chance the data you want is fine. Some system data may have become corrupt and that's causing your bluescreen. Bluescreens will tell you what file is causing the fault near the top of the text, so tell us what that says and that should provide some clues.

If you haven't gone to bed already and you're willing to spend some time working through this, then pm me and i'll try to help you out.

Your quickest option (since time is not on your side) is to take out your HDD and plug it into another pc (hopefully you have another, otherwise phone a friend) and use that pc to take off what you need, then sort out the problem later when you have more time.

[PR Design]

Okay, the error is "irql_not_less_or_equal" - which after a bit of looking around points to either a CPU overheat or some dodgy RAM. At least the HD is okay - I'll have to whack it in another PC at some point.

Cheers everyone.

[cre8]

hey,
looks like it is you start up disk... ik think you're comp doesn't find one...what computer do you have?
an apple or a pc?
If you have an apple you can try to start up computer while holding the "alt"key
Then you can shose you're start up disk..if you put the instal cd in you're machine you can start up from there and get acces to you're files...

If you have a pc, then sorry, i can't help you, i don't know anything about pc's i only know they cose trouble ;)

[blueocto]

Sounds like dodgy RAM - when my Dell turned up after a few days the same thing started happening to me, and it gradully got worse the more i rebooted.
Had the technician come out to check it - then RAM needed replcing. Never had any bother since.
Sometimes it can be conflicting drivers, I installed a new hard drive on, with a clean install of Windows, and kept getting the BSoD and it turned out some of my old drivers were conflicting with new software.

[PR Design]

Yeah, I'll have to take a look at a lot of different possibilities - but I think a new PC is in order. I got it 2 1/2 years ago, and constantly threw new stuff at it (RAM, Graphics Card, monitor, HD...). If it was a dog it would've been put down by now.