Windows installation problem

[xwhatsit]

Mate, just fuck it, do what Gremlin said. You can speculate about faulty RAM or underpowered power supplies all day until you actually do a proper fresh installation from scratch. Back up your data, start anew. I wouldn't want to be half-arsing around with a patchwork Windows installation afterwards anyway.

You can get away with that kind of stuff under UNIX-y type stuff but Windows isn't so partitioned off and isolated (not speaking as a Linux fanboy here, this is just the truth), so for peace of mind and just keeping things simple, back-up, format, fresh install.

[Delphinus]

I often partition of 20gb or so at the start of the drive for windows, and store all data on another partition the size of the rest of the drive.
That way you can happily reformat without loosing data, and I do that ever 4 months or so

[Gremlin]

I often partition of 20gb or so at the start of the drive for windows, and store all data on another partition the size of the rest of the drive.

Depends on what you do... I have a 70gb primary, on one of my 320. 50 would be recommended, but it entirely depends on what you are up to.

Having data/software/movies is absolutely recommended to be on another partition. Easier to be on another drive... but partition will suffice in most situations. I use 3x 320 at the mo, normal layout, but will buy another 3x 320, and put a 2 disk raid 1, and a 4 disk raid 5 in.

RAID gives you much better security for drives falling over, but you have to use raid drivers on OS installs, drivers for work outside the OS etc... Not recommended for average users, but say, buy a 320, and keep a second copy of really important data on it.

Rule for recovering data... do not write anything to the disk.

Back on topic... Morcs, you've listed another potential cause of random crashing, insufficient power. IF you want to solve that issue, we'll need a full run down of whats in the case, and what power supply you have (both watts, and brand)

[Biff]

I experienced eggsacklee the same probs you've described there my friend, and it turned out to be a rooted audio card driver.

It took some frigging around for over a course of a week and a bit, then I managed to get it started in safe mode and started the drivers one by one in an attempt to isolate/identify the fault.

Good luck.

[sAsLEX]

You can still get back data after a format..... I was very angry and formatted the fucker..... but I got most/some of the data back. The tools are freeish on the net.

Best take the HDD out and go to a mates with some spare space and copy the not to incriminating stuff to his whilr you sort it out.

[Morcs]

Im just going to get a higher powered psu (sourced a 300w, 400w+ is preferable but a 300 should be sufficient.)

Everything in my computer has been recently been upgrading in the last few months - except main hdd and psu - both of which are 3 years old - hence replacing.

Cheers for the offer zapf, but looking to go a bit bigger than 40gb, to use as a primary drive with a fresh install, then have my old hdd running as slave to recover my data from.

[Gremlin]

You can still get back data after a format..... I was very angry and formatted the fucker..... but I got most/some of the data back.

You can retrieve data to varying degress of success (and depending how good the software is) after several writes on the hdd. The specialised forensics guys et al, have very nice software, capable of dialing down through layers of written data too...

The only truly safe, in regards to data sensitivity, hard drive is a destroyed one... and even then, you have to do a very thorough job on it.

[westie]

Probably stop surfing the porn. It might come right.

[RT527]

um , just a small point, have you tried cleaning your xp disc and making sure that it aint scratced....many a problem with installs is just a dirty or scratced disc , and the reader cant read the data properly so will hang.....

[Morcs]

um , just a small point, have you tried cleaning your xp disc and making sure that it aint scratced....many a problem with installs is just a dirty or scratced disc , and the reader cant read the data properly so will hang.....

Yep tried that. Its why I have a spare

I get a new HDD tomorrow, so wil just use my xp pro disk and use that instead of home.

[swbarnett]

Generally macs are for homos.

Or flashers...

[Delphinus]

Im just going to get a higher powered psu (sourced a 300w, 400w+ is preferable but a 300 should be sufficient.)

Everything in my computer has been recently been upgrading in the last few months - except main hdd and psu - both of which are 3 years old - hence replacing.

What brand psu are you getting? 300w isnt much these days... But a 300w Antec/Thermaltake/ will often be better than a 400w cheapo brand.

[sAsLEX]

The only truly safe, in regards to data sensitivity, hard drive is a destroyed one... and even then, you have to do a very thorough job on it.

Similar but not quite


A murder case in the states hinged on the data on a floppy disc that had been shredded, so some army forensic scientist painstakingly taped it back together and got the data so to be truely destroyed it must be in little pieces