Help! PLEASE!

So, I ran CHKDSK on my drive because it's been acting funny and on the fifth step, at about 11% all the power in my house went out....which obviously turned my computer off. i rebooted it (to winxp, installed on my C: drive) and i kept getting the blue screen right when i started it up. so, i booted to vista, which is on my D: drive, and open up computer. C: is completely unaccessible. I have about 190 gigs of very, very valuable information on there. my documents on vista pointed to the C: drive, and basically everything was installed on there. If there is any way someone could help me out, PLEASE!

Thank you, kindly, beforehand.

p.s. I don't have anymore errors in vista, though, which i guess is a slight plus...

Do you have a startup disk? You can get one. I don't have the link handy but I'm sure another member does. Relax.
Chas

This detailed guide shows how to use a Knoppix live CD to recover data from a Windows disk:

http://www.shockfamily.net/cedric/knoppix/

It's not the only solution but, the excellent instructions make it worth bookmarking.

Thanks! I will definitely bookmark that... probably download it too. This was a false alarm. My buddy came over, and I'm not sure how, but he fixed it. I have another problem, and since i'm not sure what it has to do with i'll post it here.


On vista, if I open certain programs, like games or such, the screen will just turn random assortments of colors. Usually one color, though, with lines all over it. It's really an awkward thing. And sometimes it happens when I do random things, like open up Firefox. I'm not really sure what to do. My graphics drivers are up to date, and it happens whether or not certain programs are open. It's basically just a random thing, sometimes, but also has programs that it constantly does it on. For example: I can't play Couter-Strike: Source because it makes all sorts of colors, and no matter what I do it stays until I reboot. I can still hear the in game sounds though, which makes me think it's a graphics problem..

can anyone help?

Do these odd colours only occur in Vista, or do you sometimes get them in XP as well?

You have had a lucky escape with your data. Now you probably realise why we constantly bang on about backing up data ;) A hard drive is a mechanical device and will fail eventually.

Yeah, I believe I've come too close for comfort. I'm actually looking around for a large external hard drive. If you have anyone has any recommendations, throw them my way. Anyways,


Yes, these 'color's' do only occur in vista, and usually when I click on certain things, but sometimes randomly when I click on things... if that makes sense?

What driver are you running? Because I have a 7900GT and a 7950GT on my rigs, and I don't get the slightest problem with the video in Vista. It does sound like a driver issue.

As for the external drives, I prefer to buy the enclosure and dive separately and make my own. I particularly like Akasa or IcyBox enclosures.

Hm. Never thought of doing that, but sounds good. I'm currently running the most up to date nvidia (straight off nvidia.com) vista 32 bit drivers...

ForceWare version: 163.75 (version of driver, right?)
Video Bios: 5.71.22.12.03(not sure if you'd need/like to know)

Hmmm, same driver version as me. The only difference is that I'm running Vista 64-bit, but I find it hard to believe that would make any difference. Most folks are running 32-bit, and we would have heard by now if there was a bug.

Clutching as straws here, but I'd try going into Safe Mode and completely uninstalling the ForceWare drivers. Then reboot into normal Windows and try reinstalling them again. That should sort out any driver corruption.

As your problem originally started with the power in your house going out you might want to seriously consider getting a UPS.

Seriously, you lucked out as I have had C:\ drive scrambled when that happened. As stated, get a UPS.
No, I was unable to recover anything off that partition either and it took a week of rescanning all the graphics to get back what I had lost.

Jeez, I guess I really did luck out. I'll try reinstalling the drivers, and let you know what happens. And I'd like to buy a UPS but I'm really, and I mean really short on cash as of now. But I'll most definitly look into it.

Thanks for all your help, and I'll update you with the driver re-install. I just had to reboot my computer a small while ago after starting up some program, and it gave me the colors again. Oddest thing...

Well, it worked like a charm. Thanks a lot.

I still have a problem with, every couple times I boot up vista, random apps close then explorer does along with it, and you can't restart it, but I guess I'll just look around. It's not to much of an issue. if anyone has a quick fix throw it my way, but otherwise,


Thanks for the help!
you guys are always a pleasure.

*BACKUP ALL YOUR IMPORTANT DATA*

At least everything is pretty much sorted now, but you should of also learned that you need to get all that data onto DVD's at least, better to do it now than learn the hard way, 190gb may take a while, but a hard drive can die at any time, and losing that much data would make me pull my hair out, invest in Acronis True image for backup images of the OS too, you can be back up and running in a matter of minutes if anything goes bellyup like in this case.


Liam

If you decide to backup to another hard drive and at least one of the drives is either a Maxtor or Seagate you can get Acronis free from Seagate at the link below (Seagate Disk Wizard). It's what I use and find it the fastest, easiest and cheapest way to do it. Works great and I backup 50 Gigs in about 23 minutes. Can be a real butt saver.

http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads/
discwizard

Good luck with whatever you do.