Windows XP *Now Totally Screwed* Problem!

So you had your drive as a slave in RX3’s computer and could see and copy the files just fine, then when you put that working drive back in your computer it shows up as 0KB? Where are you seeing the drive as 0kb on your computer? Windows? Linux boot disk? Recovery console?

At this point it’s dangerous to keep suggesting trial and error methods if you want to have any hope of recovering your data. My suggestion would be to pull that main drive, slave it into a working computer, and start copying any critical data off it. That’s assuming it doesn’t show up as 0kb on the working computer as well. You can pick up a 1TB external drive at best buy for $120. It’s only USB 2.0 so it won’t be the fastest way to back the data up but it would work. Or if you want to wait a couple days I’m sure Newegg has some internal sata 1TB drives under $100.

Now if you want to keep fucking with it at least the data is safe. At this point no one who knows anything about computers is going to suggest leaving that OS alone, even if by some chance you do manage to get it booting again. With all these errors and the virus it’s time for a fresh install if you ever want your computer to be reliable again. Yes, that means your programs would be gone, but my guess is most of them are probably broken anyway once the recovery program crashed in the middle of the recovery.

Grab a copy of Media Center from someone, boot from the CD, and reinstall Windows fresh on that drive. Delete the partitions, create a new 100 GB or so partition to put the OS on, and do a long format on the drive to make sure there isn’t some physical problem with the drive. I like breaking my drive up into a 100 GB or so partition for programs and the OS and partition the rest into a data section. It makes formatting and reinstalling the OS much easier down the road and gives you a little more security should a virus screw up your OS partition.

lol sounds like you got conficker, judging by the initial problem of your time being fucked up… it wont allow you to access microsoft.com (and all other patch/anti-virus sites).

since it fucked up during system restore just backup your files and reformat/reinstall, it will be the fastest way to get back up and running.

dude, if you have a recovery partition, you can boot to that and do a fresh install. It’s super easy and faster than doing an install from a CD/DVD.

If you don’t have that, call Sony and get a new disc.

Jay, no I didn’t have the HD in Rick’s PC. We only tried out the Linux Boot DVD to learn the program before trying it in my PC. And I don’t have any partitions on the main drive… Rick has been preaching that to me for a while now.

Thanks for the help guys.

btw http://www.baylor.edu/its/security/conficker/

^^ I gave that a shot, and that’s not it.

I’ve been starting & restarting the computer, working in that 2 min window of time, and all of a sudden it connected and updated the Media Center guide, lol. And apparently caught some windows updates too… Then shut off.

On my 2nd last restart I changed the resolution down to 800x600 and, after crashing once more and restarting, it has stayed on since! I’m moving all my important files to my 2nd drive now. Now I’m thinking the video card might have a role in this…

Check out the event log…

How do I do that? Let me know and I’ll post it up. I’ve never looked at it before.

To start Event Viewer by using the Windows interface

1.Click the Start button.
2. Click Control Panel.
3. Click System and Maintenance.
4.Click Administrative Tools.
5.Double-click Event Viewer.

OR

To start Event Viewer by using a command line

  1. Open a command prompt. To open a command prompt, click Start, click All Programs, click Accessories and then click Command Prompt.
  2. Type eventvwr.

Also right clicking my computer and selecting manage is another way…

Usually the System/Application log will give you some cryptic insight…look for critical errors.

There is a lot of shit in there… I don’t know where to begin. There are a bunch of ‘assembly not installed on your system’ errors in the System Events.

yeah, reading log files can SUCK

i think my time is off by like an hour, i tried to change it once, but never changed. havent tried since then

Sort by type…look for critical they will all be red…

thats sweet, lol i wish i had that when this first hit. much quicker than checking services/event logs

edit: all though once i started getting lazy i would just hit microsoft.com and if it worked i moved on

Well I ran the Viao program and it made me some bootable recovery DVDs (something I should have done back when I bought the computer) so now if I need to format I can.

stop looking at gay porn!