Major crash

[captcrabby]

I had been putting off updating to Vista SP2 but bit the bullet 2 days ago.After downloading the machine shut off never to restart.When I restart now it wont boot.I have done all the recovery tests and programs.I have tried a manual restore(all restore point were somehow lost) via the command prompts nothing seems to work. The startup Repair log says registry is corupt.I can see my files and obviously want to retreve them before I do a complete system restore.As I see it I have 2 choices. Buy a external harddrive,run unbuntu and hopefully copy files to the drive. Option 2 but a internal harddrive,buy a new OS,load it, connect my bad drive and see if I can copy the files that way. Computer is 2 years old (Dell) no Vista disk,downloaded the Vista recovery disk(didnt help) Vista home premium 32 bit. If anybody has any ideas I am open!

 

[Blackhawk7188]

Sounds like you have a virus on the pc. You are better off attempting to backup your data but be careful...if you have a virus then it will be on the back up. You should contact Dell and see if they can send you the Recovery Disks or get a disk and use your CD Key on the bottom of the pc. Sorry to hear that tho.

 

[captcrabby]

Hi Blackhawk and thank you .Yeah I think I do.or should say did. I went and bought an external harddrive used a bootable ubuntu cd and transfered all my files to the external. Then i did teh dell restore which of course formats and dumps everything. So now I will sopend teh next week looking for cd's and geting all my preferences back.but least I still have the data.
Thanks again

 

[Sbrideau]

Well, it's not necessarily a virus that could have done that. I would've asked if you were able to get in safe mode, but it appears you did the system recovery. I guess it's pretty much cas closed then.

 

[usasma]

Please ensure that you scan the backed up data for viruses. I find that I average infected backups every 5 or 6 backups that I do at work.