laptop keeps restarting

[Kage]

Hmm, possibly. Had you already installed Service Pack 2? Some computers have problems like that, and if so, I think we might have hit why.

Anyhow, without setting up as slave (almost impossible in a laptop) I have no idea how your going to backup

If your recovery disk has a recovery console though, I've heard you can use this to rename the registry files, and this would, I've heard, create tempory ones to boot up windows if theres a problem. You wouldn't be able to run any programs, but it could be a chance for you to backup.

Also, you can download a file to go onto a floppy disc that will allow USB devices like a hard drive to load, as long as its FAT32 formatted, and you could then use the XCOPY function to copy whole directories to your personal hard drive.

So theres 2 ways, and the only ways I think are possible, because otherwise, I think your screwed and would have to reset the whole lot

If anyone knows how to implement my ideas, please post

 

[sou]

I've never used the recovery discs but i dont think they have a recovery console. though do you think I can run the discs even though i can't get past the windows xp page (where its still loading)?
And i have no idea how to do the second thing:
"Also, you can download a file to go onto a floppy disc that will allow USB devices like a hard drive to load, as long as its FAT32 formatted, and you could then use the XCOPY function to copy whole directories to your personal hard drive."

 

[Kage]

Well, I'm not completley sure, as I got it from a mate, but it should work.

First download this which i found after a bit of searching:

http://panasonic.co.jp/pcc/products/drive/cdrrw/kxlrw40an/driver/kxlrw40an.exe

That is the exe file to allow your computer to read USB drives before Windows boots.
You'd use that file to unzip the neccessary files to place onto a floppy disc.

You'd then need this:

http://www.driver.novac.co.jp/driver/hd352u/hd352u_dos.zip

That will allow the USB drive to gain a letter, for example your hard drive may be C. You could make your USB drive L or something to start loading to it.

You'd probably also need the XP boot disc, so get this from here:

www.bootdisk.com

So, you'd place all these files onto one floppy, and restart. The bootdisc should then boot, and you'll have to manually load the USB devices from the floppy to gain access to maybe a USB pen drive, or hard drive to back up data.

WHAT TO DO AFTER IT LOADS THE BOOTDISC:

Here is where my information starts getting a bit patchy, as I'm trying to understand it from a website.

Recommended Usage:

> To detect your USB Mass storage device (.e.g. a USB 2.0 external hard drive) put this line in your boot diskette CONFIG.SYS file

device=USBASPI.SYS /w /v

So i think after getting to it, you'd have to first type that to find a USB device in your USB sockets.

You'd then have to type something like this:

"If you want specify the "L" drive letter for a storage
device, try:

device[high]=[{path}]di1000dd.sys /dL

To make the USB device the letter L for example to start storing data.

ALL THIS CAME FROM HERE:

http://www.computing.net/dos/wwwboard/forum/15416.html

But after getting this sorted, you should now be able to save onto that USB device, any file from the specified drive that won't get into windows, for example C. So pretend we've called the USB device L.

XCOPY C:\ L:\

XCOPY is basically built to copy from one directory to another, and can copy the whole hard drive onto another device if you wanted it too. This would do just that. There are many commands though that can get it to do different things:

http://www.computerhope.com/xcopyhlp.htm

For example

/H Copies hidden and system files also.
/S Copies directories and sub directories except empty ones.

So it'd become:

XCOPY C:\ L:\ /s /h

Or, if you wanted to only copy the file My documents from C. It'd probably be:

XCOPY C:\Documents and settings\? L:\ /s /h

Anyway, in dos, when you load a device, or select any drive, you can use this command:

DIR

This will directory list whats on the drive, so you can find what your looking for.

I don't know if this is going to help, as i'm abit confused myself But i've tried lol...

Can anyone make this a little simpler by explaining my jibberish?

 

[sou]

Ok i'm gonna try to do all those, but the things i need to download i can only do them on another computer ie the one im using now, not the "ruined" one so will it still work if i then save them to a usb? and maybe try to run them on the ruined computer. Although i'm not sure how because i can't acces DOS or get past the Windows XP loading page.

 

[sou]

Cant do that either, save onto this computer and put on the "ruined" one, since this computer has no floppy drive and boot disks need to be saved on a floppy. Thanx for all the trouble sorry to pile up the problems.

 

[Kage]

I'm afraid your stuffed...

The only option is to format and start over I'm afraid, and learnt to backup better in the future if it ever happened again.

Oh..one thing you could try, but it'd mean opening your laptop up, and I'm not sure if you'd want to do that.
I'm sure you can get harddrive extensions for 3.5mm laptop drives so they'll go into PC's, in which case, you could try settings it as a slave and grabbing data off it.

Other than that, thats all I can think of.