Computer Crapped Out

[Skirmisher]

Well while installing a newer version of Norton Internet Security it seems my old puter finally coughed its last.

While trying to save the registry in my sad attempt to apply cpr it went kabloey and froze and then tried to fix itself.

At that point I gave up and brought it to a tech shop where they told me the registry was shot to hell and even when they used some Norton Registry fixit tool and it found and fixed some 450+ registry errors(it seems thats alot for a registry) the stupid thing would try to fix itself again upon restart and screw it all up again.

I cannot view MY COMPUTER at all, but i was able to at least see and save a copy of MY DOCUMENTS to an external drive.

This is an older Dell P3 and I dont think it will be my main computer for much longer, but who knows, I thought the same thing a year ago.

Any advice would be appreciated while keeping in mind my meager computer technical skills please.:(

[Straight-up]

Nuke em all from orbit. It's the only way to be sure...


In other words. FDISK, FORMAT and Reinstall windows from scratch is my advice. With as many problems as you have it seems a fresh install is in order.


Straight

[HarmNone]

Ish. From what you are describing hon, it sounds like Straight-up is giving it to you straight-up. ;)

I'd reformat and start over from the get-go, like he said. If you try to patch it, you'll probably only create more havoc. :(

HarmNone

[Blazing247]

Yes- format. Registry errors have nothing to do with a computer crapping out, they are akin to your OS crapping out due to abuse by yourself.

Don't worry about FDISKing. Go to DOS, and do an unconditional format- this will wipe out the partitions. It's been awhile but I think it's format /u. This erases every bit of info on your hard drive. There's another command, I think it's format /u/s that formats and then transfers over system files making it a bootable drive once again.

Enjoy, and remember...like cars, computers need repairs every once in awhile, too. Defrag is your friend.

[Skirmisher]

Originally posted by Blazing247
Yes- format. Registry errors have nothing to do with a computer crapping out, they are akin to your OS crapping out due to abuse by yourself.

Don't worry about FDISKing. Go to DOS, and do an unconditional format- this will wipe out the partitions. It's been awhile but I think it's format /u. This erases every bit of info on your hard drive. There's another command, I think it's format /u/s that formats and then transfers over system files making it a bootable drive once again.

Enjoy, and remember...like cars, computers need repairs every once in awhile, too. Defrag is your friend.

Reading the end of that showed me how warped my mind is, I read it as abusing myself. :smilegrin:

Yeah, I was able to at least save my MY DOCUMENTS folder, but everything else is kaput.

Going to wipe it and reinstall. Mostly was just games, but alot of music too :( also and worst of all in my opinion is all my old emails...I have emails going back like four years. I'm kooky like that, but i liked to go back and reread some from time to time. It was like having a diary almost. ::sigh:: Ah well. My own fault for not backing them up when I had the chance.:banghead: