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Vista Crash--Personal files recover help
Last night after I uninstalled Mcafee (preparing to install Norton 360) from my XPS M1530 Vista (Home Premium) failed to restart. I've been through the standard recovery procedures, including system restore, and tech support, to no avail. No hardware issues involved so far as I can tell.
I would be happy to do a clean install after I copy some personal files from the last two weeks. If anyone could give me instructions or links on how get at and copy some of my personal documents in my user directory it would be greatly appreciated. Techs just want me to do a clean install and overwrite everything (pretty standard--that's the quick easy way). I have quite a number of irreplaceable photos and business docs from my last business trip that I'm loathe to relinquish if there is the possibility to recover them.
Thanks
ejn63
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July 24th, 2008 16:00
Remove the hard drive, mount it in a 2.5" SATA USB case ($10-20), and attach it to a working system by USB, and back up your files. When you order the drive case, you might seriously consider buying a hard drive to go with it, for backup purposes. Keeping a single copy of any irreplaceable files on a single hard drive anywhere, is playing Russian roulette with your data - there are two kinds of hard drives: those that have failed, and those that will fail.
ejn63
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July 24th, 2008 17:00
If Windows won't load at all, you need another system to do the recovery. You can take ownership of the files from the OS on the working system.
Matto2134
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July 24th, 2008 17:00
retroptan
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July 24th, 2008 17:00
ejn63,
As an alternative to taking the HD out and using a USB case, do you know if it would be possible to temporarily copy my files to the Dell Restore partition (it has 5 gigs of extra space so far as I can tell), and then get at those files once I've reinstalled Vista?
I was concerned with access to the files since they are in a windows "user" directory. Can I use my original windows username and password to access these, or do I have to reset permissions for those files?
hotrent1
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July 24th, 2008 18:00
here is what i did. I had same problem. for some odd reason the bootloader gets corrupt or something. When i turned on, bios finished, then said no operating system found. So i put in install disc, which is bootable. The screen said hit any key to boot from disc. I did nothing, the computer booted into my system, after a few seconds. If you hit a key it will boot into install program, left mine alone and it booted to my os. I then went online and googled boot restore and found a free program that rewrites the boot file. I took the disc out and it booted fine. This happened a couple of times when i was uninstalling or updating drivers. the program was called easyBCD 1.7.1. go to bootloader manager and hit rebuild bootloader. It has worked every time. Another option is to make a bootable cd and boot into vista from cd, then repair bootloader with a pogram. Obviously if you do get into your os, back up all your files on usb memory stick or something. Any way good luck.
none of the restore options did anything, without complete reinstall. I stumbled on this fix by accident. When it asked to boot from cd, i thought about it just enough time for it to read the bootloader on cd and start up.
TheRealFireblad
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July 25th, 2008 05:00
I assume the recovery CD's/DVD's offer similar options to the standard OS CD/DVD?
If they do... you might get away with doing a 'Repair' install - which (as the name suggests) simply fixes any broken/missing files etc, on the original installation - such that all your personal files will remain intact.
[edit] I can't see any mention of it - specifically... but have you tried booting into 'Safe Mode'? [/edit]