Ok I was on my laptop yesterday, (Dell 1520 with Windows Home Premium
32bit. purchased last september) and I had been surfing the web, doing
homework, and watching videos, that sort of thing. Anyway, I closed
everything and then tried to open Windows Media Player. When I did that
everything froze. I could still move the cursor around, but everything
else had stopped. After waiting a few minutes, I had to do a hard reset.
When I tried to start it back up, I got an error message saying "WINDOWS
FAILED TO START. A RECENT HARDWARE OR SOFTWARE CHANGE MIGHT BE THE
CAUSE..."
If I choose to start windoes normally I get taken to a blank screen.
When I tried to run a startup repair it failed, and when I tried to do
a system restore I got a message saying that "No restore points have
been created." At this point my mind had entered the panic phase.
I installed the program MorphVOX Junior 2.7 two days ago and think it
may be the source of the problem, but I'm not sure.
I don't want to wipe my hard drive, I have a lot of important files
that I cannot afford to lose.
PLEASE HELP, I'M A COLLEGE STUDENT!!!


--
metalmatt6

Hi,

Does safe mode work? If so, boot to it by hitting F8 at startup and save
those files that you cannot afford to lose.

Alternately, pull the hard drive and slave it in a friend's machine and copy
off those files you cannot afford to lose.

Now, once the data's safe you can try to fix the problem. Start by booting
the drive to a command prompt and running chkdsk c: /r

You might also download (on another machine) a drive diagnostic tool from
the manufacturer to see if there is a problem with it.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/
Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

"metalmatt6" wrote in message
...

Ok I was on my laptop yesterday, (Dell 1520 with Windows Home Premium
32bit. purchased last september) and I had been surfing the web, doing
homework, and watching videos, that sort of thing. Anyway, I closed
everything and then tried to open Windows Media Player. When I did that
everything froze. I could still move the cursor around, but everything
else had stopped. After waiting a few minutes, I had to do a hard reset.
When I tried to start it back up, I got an error message saying "WINDOWS
FAILED TO START. A RECENT HARDWARE OR SOFTWARE CHANGE MIGHT BE THE
CAUSE..."
If I choose to start windoes normally I get taken to a blank screen.
When I tried to run a startup repair it failed, and when I tried to do
a system restore I got a message saying that "No restore points have
been created." At this point my mind had entered the panic phase.
I installed the program MorphVOX Junior 2.7 two days ago and think it
may be the source of the problem, but I'm not sure.
I don't want to wipe my hard drive, I have a lot of important files
that I cannot afford to lose.
PLEASE HELP, I'M A COLLEGE STUDENT!!!


--
metalmatt6

So if I take the hard drive out of my laptop and put it in another, I
can then save those files to a disc or something? How does the hard
drive change affect my friend's laptop?


--
metalmatt6

Hi,

Yes, it's a common practice amongst those that repair machines. Slaved to
another machine, not replacing the primary drive, the disk can be accessed
and files recovered (provided they are not encrypted). It may require that
you temporarily alter permissions, but that is not difficult.

You should not use your friends laptop, you should use a desktop system
where the drive can just be added as a slave drive. You may need to use a
converter cable for this (see example in link below) as the connectors are
different.

Laptop converter cable:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...29310&CatId=68

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/
Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

"metalmatt6" wrote in message
...

So if I take the hard drive out of my laptop and put it in another, I
can then save those files to a disc or something? How does the hard
drive change affect my friend's laptop?


--
metalmatt6