Having an issue with my Dell 4600 Desktop

[jon@af]

Ok, I was on my computer about 30 min ago and was getting ready to turn it off to take back to my room (was using it downstairs, no internet in my room) and before I got the chance to close everything, it locked up on me. After trying everything I knew of to get things moving again, I used the external power button to simply turn the machine off. No problem.

Well, I take it back to my room and get everything reconnected at my desk and turn on the computer. Everything seems to start up fine, runs through to the screen that prompts me for my password and all, to which I happily enter it in.

Then things get weird (to me). First thing is, I've got my speakers plugged in and on a nice volume but don't here the log-on music that usually plays, at which point I checked my connection and saw that it was fine. Then, I see that my task bar is missing all of the quicklaunch icons I usually have placed...no biggy, I can put them back.

Next, I go into my Task Menu to close some processes...but it doesn't show that my username is on the computer and doesn't recognize that system processes either which strikes me as odd because I've never experienced an issue like that before.

Well, I open my itunes and start using it and I hear my HD start "thinking" as you could say about the action, which sort of worried me because I'm used to only minimal noise, if any at all coming from my HD. Also, while the application is open, if I clicked on the desktop, it would disappear, not even sure why or even how it managed this, as I had done nothing like this before.

So, a little weirded out by the way everything is acting, I restart my computer to see if it was something like a glitch. Everything starts back up again just fine, I enter my PW and let things go from there. Same thing, no music and now, NO TASK BAR. I cannot get it to show up. at all. I start searching for ways to maybe get the thing back and can't seem to find them so I just turn the thing off, frustrated.

And here I am. Anyone have any ideas?

[Oz]

Because of the hard power off, I would suggest running a scandisk to make sure your hard drive is OK first.

The problem you're experiencing sounds like a corrupt windows account. Try logging into Safe mode with the builtin Administrator account, the password will be nothing unless you entered one during setup. Create a new local admin account.

If you can create a new account OK, login to the new account and check if everything works, taskbar quicklaunch etc. If it does, let us know and I'll tell you how to copy all your user data and stuff across so it's 99.9% the same as your existing corrupt account (except of course, it won't be corrupted)

[jon@af]

I'm thinking it's more like time to do a reformat of the HDD to be honest. I made an attempt at the creation of a new account and couldn't get the user accounts option to work. That's ok though, I've been thinking of reformatting for a little while now so this just gives me a reason to go ahead and do it.

I'm going to back up most of my files on my iPod using it as a drive (got about 18GB free space), but haven't ever reformatted a HDD before, so how would you recommend I go about this?

[Oz]

There are a few excellent utilities that I have to do this that make the process very painless. Let me get to work and I'll upload them for you and post a link.

[BeZerK2112]

Once you get everything off your dirve the process is rather simple, but before you do make sure you have all the drivers for the Dell or many things wont work. If you dont have the disc, just get them from dell and put them on your ipod.

Reset your computer and press whatever button to get into the system Bios, something like del, f1 or escape. After that make your CD Rom the first boot device. Save the settings and restart with your Windows disc in the drive.

It will load on a blue screen and then once thats done, fallow the prompts to tell it to install a new copy.

Put a new copy on the drive with a full format. I find it installs a lot cleaner then a quick format.

Let it format, copy, and then it will restart into a more windows like screen. It will prompt you twice. Once for the code and another time for your network connections. They come very close together so just stick around for them.

Once thats compleate your done! You may have to activate with windows but thats no big deal. I cant remember if you do or not with dell's.

Thats it. Hope everything goes well for ya. If you just read and fallow the promts theres really no way to mess it up.

Oh and once you done you should get into your bios and set the first boot device to the hard drive again.

[dave92cherokee]

Only problem with what you said bezerk is dell ships all their systems media-less and even if you call into dell support they cannot ship you the media. Hopefully you still have the recovery partition intact so when the system boots up it will have the dell logo and in the corner it will usually say press f12 or something for system recovery if you do that it will go into the recovery and give you the option to do a complete recovery of the system formatting the hard drive first and then reinstalling windows and all drivers and software that shipped with the system. If it's an older model or you have removed the recovery partition then time to hunt down the disks needed to install windows and drivers.

[Oz]

OK, first step is to backup all your drivers. The utility I use is called Windriver Ghost. You can get it here:
http://3d2f.com/download/17-324-wind...download.shtml

The next step is to backup all your data. This is one of the better free utilities available, and the one I use. It's called Fab's Autobackup Win:
http://fabs.dyndns.org/autobackup/download-en.htm

There are a few things it misses: custom email signatures, ms office templates are things I think should be built into a future version.

The final step is to backup any data you have on your drive in custom folders ie. anything you want to keep that isn't in My Documents.

As someone mentioned above, you can use the Dell recovery partition to restore your system, but personally I would be using a partitioning tool to recover that space and just doing a clean XP SP2 install.

Let us know if you need a hand with anything else. Actually, let us know what happens because I have a decent list of the things you'll want after your system is back up and running (Java, .NET framework, Codec pack, etc)

[Digitaleuphoria]

Originally Posted by BeZerK2112

Once you get everything off your dirve the process is rather simple, but before you do make sure you have all the drivers for the Dell or many things wont work. If you dont have the disc, just get them from dell and put them on your ipod.

Reset your computer and press whatever button to get into the system Bios, something like del, f1 or escape. After that make your CD Rom the first boot device. Save the settings and restart with your Windows disc in the drive.

It will load on a blue screen and then once thats done, fallow the prompts to tell it to install a new copy.

Put a new copy on the drive with a full format. I find it installs a lot cleaner then a quick format.

Let it format, copy, and then it will restart into a more windows like screen. It will prompt you twice. Once for the code and another time for your network connections. They come very close together so just stick around for them.

Once thats compleate your done! You may have to activate with windows but thats no big deal. I cant remember if you do or not with dell's.

Thats it. Hope everything goes well for ya. If you just read and fallow the promts theres really no way to mess it up.

Oh and once you done you should get into your bios and set the first boot device to the hard drive again.

Anoter note, since I'm assuming your using windows xp, make sure you format using an NTFS partition.

Also, Unless this changed from when I bought my dell *5 years ago maybe*, they ship them with all the media, drivers, xp disc, etc...

[Damien]

what happened to the mac???

[Oz]

Originally Posted by Digitaleuphoria

Anoter note, since I'm assuming your using windows xp, make sure you format using an NTFS partition.

Also, Unless this changed from when I bought my dell *5 years ago maybe*, they ship them with all the media, drivers, xp disc, etc...

XP Setup defaults to NTFS. Dell don't ship all those CDs any more, they just steal some advertised hard drive space and call it a "Rescue Partition".

[jon@af]

I have about 12-15 CD's that came with my computer that are *supposed* to contain all of my drivers and media that came with my computer when I opened the box. Am I missing something?

[Digitaleuphoria]

Originally Posted by J_Swigz

I have about 12-15 CD's that came with my computer that are *supposed* to contain all of my drivers and media that came with my computer when I opened the box. Am I missing something?

Yea, should be your drivers. Just find your windows xp disc and do what the others told ya to do.

That's cheap of dell not to ship the drivers anymore though, Glad I don't deal with them anymore.

[jon@af]

Yeah, I actually have been planning to build a brand new desktop come next summer.

[Oz]

I still recommend backing up your current drivers, they have probably been updated since the factory drivers.

[jon@af]

Now that I'm home, I'm backing up my files and drivers right now. In order to unpack them, should I put the executable files for the backup programs on my iPod as well or will they do their own thing when I go to load them onto the reformatted system?