Vista - Living Nightmare... please help!

I don't even know where to start... the problems started from about a month ago, and last 24 hours just got a lot worse. I am just a basic PC user, so my technical vocab is limited. I've been using mac because I am a graphic designer for the past 3 years, and I got this PC for my family.

The followings are the computer's components, my friend picked for me, purchased in March:
- Intel Pentium Dual Core E2200 Dual Core Processor LGA775 2.2GHZ 800FSB 1MB
- Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L ATX LGA775 P35 1333FSB 1PCI-E16 3PCI-E1 3PCI SATA2 Sound GBLAN Motherboard
- EVGA E-GEFORCE 7600 GT 560MHZ PCI-E 256MB 128BIT 1.4GHZ GDDR3 Dual DVI-I HDTV Out Video Card
- Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 3.5IN 500GB SATA2 8.5MS 7200RPM 32MB Cache NCQ Hard Drive
- Corsair XMS2 TWIN2X2048-5400C4 2GB 2X1GB PC2-5400 DDR2-667 CL 4-4-4-12 240PIN Dual Channel Memory

oh, and it came with Windows Vista Home Premium 32bit OEM

I can't completely sure of what happened anymore or are any of these events are related... It all started when I downloaded this movie with weird characters title, so I decided to rename the folder for easier understanding... after I renamed the folder, the folder's content disappeared. At that moment, I didn't really care, so I just deleted the folder. Later I read that I can just 'undo rename', but I guess it was too late then.

So, around this week, the computer starts to act very very slow... so slow to a point everything is not responding... and sometimes when I reboot the computer, it will say insert disc to repair... at that time, I just keep rebooting it because I don't know where my disc was... after rebooting it few times, it will go back to windows, but it is still very slow.

Then last 2 days, this message pops up: "The instruction at 0x769b6d95 referenced memory at 0x769b6d95. The required data was not placed into memory because of an I/O error status of 0xc0000185..." and it closes explorer.exe... leaving the computer with just the background, so I restart the computer not knowing what to do. I also started looking into the problem, and I found a lot of different comments, like hdd is failing, bad ram... etc. I did virus scan & defrag and found no problem... And at one forum, I found people were talking about doing a DISK CHECK... so I did a DISK CHECK... and here's where I turned these problems into living nightmare.

Since Disk Check can't be done when windows is running so my computer suggested to reboot... I never thought that single tiny 'yes' button can do so much harm... without thinking that I haven't backup any of the files in the computer (my eurotrip photos & some of my new portfolio & the office season 1 to 5 & final fantasy 7 gamesave... etc) I clicked the dam button. It rebooted, and start running the check and STUCK!... I left it running until it makes this noise that sounds abnormal, didn't know what to do, I retarted the computer again... which leads Open windows in Safe Mode... etc, but my keyboard don't seem to be responding, and it just opens windows normally, which leads to another Disk Check, somehow my keyboard is not responding, supposingly if I hit a key or something, it will skip the check, anyway it got stuck the same place as last time... the same thing happens again and again, now I AM SCARED...

I am in the state of panic, and started reading all these things on internet... and I found my Vista disk, and I was like YAY. It took me awhile to figure out clicking F12 in very beginning to boot from the drive I want which is CD/DVD... it was slow... Got in, clicked Repair your computer... there's NO operation system! I clicked Load Drivers, and in there I searched every single folder, but my C: is gone... then I discovered I can click Next even without selecting an operating system. Quickly clicked Startup Repair, 3, 2, 1, GOOO~ and it just say it can't be fixed... I never did System Restore, Windows Complete PC Restore since I just never did it in the first place... so both of those don't work. Never try the Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool because anything with Disk Check scares me now... when I click Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool, it states "Memory problems can cause your computer to lose information or stop working." and 2 choices of "Restart now and check for problems (recommended) Save your work and close any open programs before restarting" and "Check for problems the next time I start my computer" I just clicked cancel because I don't know... and the last option Command Prompt... and I found this "How to use the Bootrec.exe tool in the Windows Recovery Environment to troubleshoot and repair startup issues in Windows Vista" but I don't dare to try.

I don't know what to do, so I went back to the page where you choose Repair your computer... I was thinking maybe I can select the drive and reinstall windows as an Upgrade and keep my files safe... but I wasn't allowed to use Upgrade, only Custom... I tried that and yep, my harddrive is gone... so I cannot install Vista anywhere... and my computer is running on a X drive... whatever that is...

I restarted, and I went into my computer BIOS, and in Standard CMOS Features, I can still find my hd as IDE Channel 0 Master... very strange. I also checked Advanced BIOS Features, and checked the Hard Disk Boot Priority is still my harddrive, what's going on? Then I went into Integrated Peripherals and I see my USB Keyboard Support was disabled, so I enabled it because my keyboard was not responding before, was not even sure if I should've done that. Don't know what else I can do, I saved the setting and logout. This time, at the screen where I can choose ways to open Windows, I was able to move! So I tried safe mode which stuck at the line "\Windows\system32\driver\crcdisk.sys". So I restarted the machine, and tried every option, and Last Good Setting or something worked!! It loaded my windows and I was able to go to my desktop, and I started pucking usb into my computer to take my files away to safety... after transferring some of the photos, something went wrong and it crashed!!!

I was hoping it can load from Last Good Setting again... but it didn't work and somehow every single option I tries goes to this cursed black screen with the white mouse. ARGH!! I searched on net and tried ctrl + alt + del, no response. I restarted, put the disc, loaded from disc and try Repair your computer, and to my surprise, it found my operating system! So I tried Startup Repair, and the message appears: "If you have recently attached a device to this computer, such as a camera or portable music player, remove it and restart your computer. If you continue to see this message, contact your system administrator or computer manufacturer for assistance." But I don't think I attached any camera or music player recently.

So now, I think I can install windows as customs in my C drive, but I don't want to erase my files... I was reading I can try buying a hard drive enclosure and try taking the data out, but I am not sure... I still haven't try the Command Prompt. What's the cause of all these problem? Was it really my harddrive is failing?

I will appreciate any help from you guys. It took me 2 hours to type this out. I have lost 2 nights of sleep over this, and I really don't know what to do now... please help, thank you.

I hope you were able to save a good portion of what you need to your USB
drives because it sure seems like your hard drive is going bad.

Download the drive check utility for your particular brand hard drive from
the manufacturers web site onto another computer. Make the bootable
CD/floppy from the utility. Then boot from this CD/floppy and allow it to
check your drive.

--

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP
Windows Desktop Experience


"lambiebambiebam" <guest@xxxxxx-email.com> wrote in message
news:89d1a693e6dc45c47c323adb99c88f61@xxxxxx-gateway.com...

Don't download movies.
It's illegal and you can be infected badly as you see now.
Don't, as the other poster suggested, plug that drive in as a slave in
another machine and boot it.. You will infect that machine as well if it is
indeed an infection you are looking at.
If you plug it into a running machine with anti-virus installed, running,
and updated, you should be safe enough to disinfect and then download your
documents via a usb to sata/ide adapter.
there is the possiblity that this is just coincidence, and you had a
hardware falure.
"lambiebambiebam" <guest@xxxxxx-email.com> wrote in message
news:89d1a693e6dc45c47c323adb99c88f61@xxxxxx-gateway.com...

I was only able to get a few things before it completely cut me off... I downloaded the drive check utility: SeaTools for DOS from here. And the test said that there're bad sectors in my drive, and actually a bunch of them is just the same number/location, after I select fix drive, it just stuck there... so, I don't know what to do.

After a long hard search, I found an old harddrive I had back in the days and installed windows vista on it, and I used the primary drive to see if I can access the bad drive, and it didn't work. However, when I tried to make a backup of the current drive, it lets me select the bad drive and stating there's 270GB left, meaning my data is still there... and I can still complete the backup file on there... So, I need help getting into that bad harddrive. My friend suggested to us DOS? I have no idea how it works, but he can't find DOS in Vista...

I have the AVG package set up to prevent virus... etc. and when the computer became slow in the first place, I did defrag and virus check, but nothing shows up... I also worry the possibility of a bad ram... just wondering how do you check ram?

Here are some additional things I am looking at...

1) When you start a Windows Vista-based computer, the system may stop responding (hang) at a black screen
2) Windows Vista no longer starts, and Startup Repair does not fix problem
3) Self-Service
4) Transactional NTFS (TxF) (Windows)

The more you mess with the drive the greater the chance that you will lose
everything. At this point you have to turn it over to people who have
experience in this sort of thing. I mean to be cruel, but it sounds like you
are in over your head.

At the least, the drive must be connected up to another computer as a slave
drive. This entails possibly changing the jumper configuration of the
drivers if they are IDE type drives. Then you could possibly be able to get
some files off of the old drive. But be aware, that even doing this you may
lose "more" information from the defective drive.

There are companies that exist solely to reclaim information from bad
drives. Drive Savers and OnTrack Data Recovery are but two, and are among
the best. Be forewarned that there services do not come cheap. Be prepared
to pay between $500 - $2500 for the rescue.

Are the files really worth this. Only you can decide.

My eldest son went through this about 2 years ago. I told him to pack the
drive up and send it to me. Instead he played around with it for a couple of
weeks. When he finally decided to send it to Drive Savers he had done
irreparable harm to the files and nothing could be recovered. He lost all of
his wedding and honeymoon photos and now has nothing but memories of those
happy days.

--

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP
Windows Desktop Experience


"lambiebambiebam" <guest@xxxxxx-email.com> wrote in message
news:daa6b08249a2e00176cd1f74d7d727c8@xxxxxx-gateway.com...

So sorry!

I meant to say "I don't mean to be cruel".

Forgive please!

--

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP
Windows Desktop Experience


"Richard Urban" <richardurbanREMOVETHIS@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:uJctmpSXJHA.1336@xxxxxx