please help! computer!!!

[shoeluvr]

CAN ANYONE HELP ME COMPUTER QUESTION!!!I'm am so upset, my computer is busted.(i'm on my sons right now). i sooo dont know about computers at all. i did something aweful. i was having trouble getting online, (i have a 3 years ole e machine laptop, and optonline) so i kept fooling aroung with it, pressing things, and i erased everything! i dont even care about :cryin_smilie: my stuff, my i "restored" it and lost all my daughters collge work. she was doing one class online and thanks to me there is no was she can catch up and pass this later in the semester. i also lost 5 college papers, and all her ioline applications for college in the fall. in addition, she has been preparing a portfolio for F.I.T., (shes aspiring photographer) and needless to say thats all gone too. she has been putting it together for a year. i feel like the worst mother ever! does anyone know is there any hope? should i take it to best buy? when i turn it on, i just get a blank screen with a flashing slash. i tried to put the discs in and nothing....what should i do????

[love2sing]

I hate to say this, but you REALLY ****ed that up!

Buy your daughter a flash drive, pen drive, etc. and tell her to start saving her work, photos and all that stuff to any one of these devices. She can carry it around with her at all times and plug it into any computer to view it and also print it anywhere there is a printer available. All my school work is on my flash drive as well as my computer. She can also e-mail an attachment of her work to herself and it will also be readily available to her in that way as well.
As for restoring it, it is there in your computer, you probably did not delete it completely.

Go to your desktop and click on the recycle bin icon and see if you can restore it from there.

[STIX]

Shoeluvr, There may be hope. Just don't do anything more with the computer. Get it to a decent computer technician, they may be able to salvage your files.

[shoeluvr]

really? you think i have a shot in hell??? i dont know why she didnt save her stuff on a thing. everyone says that to me, i gotta ask around for a computer person, l2s, no chance on the recycle, i have no icons at all!!!

[love2sing]

Sorry I really didn't read thoroughly. Didn't realize you have a blank screen. I agree with STIX, get thee to a good comp tech, (not Best Buy Geek Squad) You must have pressed some load of keys. Stick to shoe buying, Okay?

[sarcastic1]

Before u do anything, unplug everything. all power and all cables from EVERY thing, speakers, printer, monitor etc. leave it off for a few minutes. then start from scratch like it was new. get original manual if u have it. plug in and try again. mine wouldn't start up. a friend came over and did that and it started up fine. said it was some software/hardware issue. Might be worth a try !

[SHOELUVRSIS]

cant hurt, might help.
she needs her own computer youshould not be sharing!
call my man timmy - if he cant fix it it cant be fixed - what r u waiting for santa?

[shoeluvr]

Before u do anything, unplug everything. all power and all cables from EVERY thing, speakers, printer, monitor etc. leave it off for a few minutes. then start from scratch like it was new. get original manual if u have it. plug in and try again. mine wouldn't start up. a friend came over and did that and it started up fine. said it was some software/hardware issue. Might be worth a try !

tried it, no dice!

[shoeluvr]

Sorry I really didn't read thoroughly. Didn't realize you have a blank screen. I agree with STIX, get thee to a good comp tech, (not Best Buy Geek Squad) You must have pressed some load of keys. Stick to shoe buying, Okay?

thing is, it has totally jammed up my shoe shopping, big time....

[love2sing]

thing is, it has totally jammed up my shoe shopping, big time....

Oh my, this IS serious!!!:1zhelp:

[rushtrader]

If by "restored" you mean that you loaded the restore CDs that came with it, you can pretty much forget it. You have probably overwritten too much to get anything back.

If that is not what happened, and you used something like GoBack there may be hope. Just be aware that taking it to a computer tech to have it worked on will likely cost you between $100 and $150 per hour. Expect it to take 4-8 hours to do even a minimal recovery.

If the hard drive somehow got damaged and you need to send it to drivedavers, that will be thousands of dollars.

I have done many drive recoveries in the past and they always take a long time to do. The last one I did managed to save 100% of the data, but it took me 10 hours to do it.

RT

[love2sing]

So it's lookin' like shoeluvr should cut her losses and buy a new laptop for herself. Unfortunately, that will not help your daughter with all the data she lost. Buy her a flash drive for Christmas, they're cheap and they are a life saver.

[SHOELUVRSIS]

so your still down & out - even after doorbusters?

[GuitarPLYR]

What OS are you running? I have successfully ran a repair on a Windows 2000 laptop without losing any data. I just used the original 2000 disk and booted the computer from the CD. Instead of reformatting, I ran the windows repair utility. Unfortunately, it fails more times than it works but with all that you have on that laptop, it would be worth a try.

[mark]

I'm getting my stepson an offline backup drive for XMAS, hopefully he'll use to avoid such a problem.

My laptop for work is protected. I just bring up 'My Computer' C drive, click and drag to a personal folder P drive NT server network. May take a few minutes but I'm safe with any changes I made. Then they also back up those servers.

You can never offline backup enough.

[shoeluvr]

I'm getting my stepson an offline backup drive for XMAS, hopefully he'll use to avoid such a problem.

My laptop for work is protected. I just bring up 'My Computer' C drive, click and drag to a personal folder P drive NT server network. May take a few minutes but I'm safe with any changes I made. Then they also back up those servers.

You can never offline backup enough.

SHOWOFF!

[yleekiyote]

The only way I would recommend is that if you have someone who can pull the drive out of the laptop and possibly set it up as an alternative drive on a pc. They sell the cables to do this, and there may be a way of seeing your directories and pull the info directly off the drive. It's tricky, but it can be done.

The one we use is a SOHOUSB Easy IDE Connector. It plugs into any IDE drive and connects using a USB Connection. It cost's about $50.00 dollars or so. We got it from www.tigerdirect.com

i would say to give that a try first, and see if you can find the files. If you are getting a blank screen, your registry is FUBAR and I wouldn't try to recover as this may wipe everything clean. You may actually be better off then you know.

Hope this helps!!!!! Let us know!!!!!:geek:

[yleekiyote]

Here is a link to the one we have. Tigerdirect doesn't have it anymore.



http://www.cyberguys.com/templates/searchdetail.asp?productID=9301&return=11854

[mark]

After the hell I went through piecing together our midrange systems after 911 due to piece meal backups, its good security. If used once it pays itself off.



SHOWOFF!

[shoeluvr]

im trying anything i can at this point, thanks for all your help. at this point its ready for the garbage, and i figured the files are gone forever ans i have nothing to lose. i have been fooling around with it. im gonna try what u said, but yes im getting a blank screen with just this symbol / flashing in upper left corner. if i put the disc in it gives me a choice to restore windows xp or reboot system. when i restore it goes to a symantic screen the gets stuck at sonething called ghosterr if i try and reboot i ger this symbol A:|> or R:\> and i tried ebery word under the sun it understands nothing...any suggestions????

[shoeluvr]

bump....i need your help guys! please....

[love2sing]

I could help you with shoes, but the computer? I have gotten pretty good with the computer, but yours needs major help

[SHOELUVRSIS]

call Timmy or chuck it - you'll never fix it!