Gone missing

[Anona.Mouse]

Just in case anybody has been missing me - I'm having huge computer problems at the moment, and I'm having to re-establish my presence at an awful lot of regular haunts (because this stand-in computer doesn't recognise all my fingerprints and things).

Anyway, I haven't deliberately abandoned the place - don't worry! But I may not be able to do the quiz for a bit, so don't let You-Know-Who wipe the floor every day, will you?

[Anona.Mouse]

Spent most of the day re-installing, repairing, updating . . . all (eventually) was fine. Did a bit of backing-up, switched off to have me tea.

Switched on again after tea . . . to find exactly the same problem as before I started!

So I regret to inform you all that although I can get in to the Forum, I still can't get in to do the Quiz. Sorry!

It's all rather depressing, to be honest. But we struggle on - and I'll keep at it until I get this thing sorted out.

I hope.

[spry]

Damned computers! It was never like this in the auld days!

[Anona.Mouse]

Too right it wasn't! The worst bit is that these technomological disasters never happen singly, at last in my household.

As I mentioned, I spent much of yesterday afternoon mending my computer, only to have the error sneak back when I wasn't looking. I might have had another go overnight - but the washing machine decided to come out in sympathy, and poured water out all over the kitchen floor.

After I'd spent three hours - yes, three hours - on my knees mopping, standing up to wring out, down again on me knees - well, I didn't seem to have enough energy left to battle with the computer again. And today I'm still pretty wiped out.

Tomorrow - if I can summon up the willpower! - I shall have another go, and then (if I can get it going again) I'll have to copy every single document, photo and cookie from the wobbly laptop, just in case I can't get back in.

Apparently there's a bug in Windows at the moment which causes a driver file to be corrupted or deleted if you put your box into Hibernation. Not that I ever do - but a couple of days ago the cat (yes, the burglar one) jumped on the keyboard - and I saw it going into hibernation. It was all right when I resurrected it that time, but the next time it wouldn't play.

And when all you have is a black screen, it's rather difficult to do anything about re-installing a file, because touching any key results in it going back to booting-up again.

I hate computers.

[silvers]

good luck ...... if you can read this!

[Anona.Mouse]

Progress is infernally slow! I did another re-install today, in an attempt to salvage some files and passwords from the ill computer. It was going all right until the blasted thing suddenly announced that "updates" were about to be installed, and my box was going to be restarted in a couple of seconds. And I wasn't quite quick enough off the mark . . .

When it restarted, of course, the error was back.



I know what it is, and I know there's a fix for it - if I can only stay online for long enough to download the patch and install it before the thing goes back into dreamland!

I really, really hate computers.

[mentalbovine]

that is spooky- reason i have been quiet (and i am sure you probablky enjoyed that!!) is my VISTA piece'o'cack installed updates then dies- i amnow using my antique laptop to access the internet on windows 2000 (stop sniggering you lot at the back)

my main pc is at the PC hospital and luckily i backed up my photos as i went on a grand tour of the midlothian and east coast (Peaston, preston hall, humbie, east fortune- i recommend the garden centre-braw cakes, Spott and its witches stone, st abbs, which is so pretty! and ended up watching the seals at eyemouth)


i intend to bore you all to tears with my photos when my real pc gets home!


damn this technology- maybe we should set up a darkside fanzine on this weird stuff called paper- mind you...the royal mail would just lose it......

[Anona.Mouse]

One of the reasons mine is taking so long to mend is that I want to be absolutely certain that I've got all my vital files saved somewhere else before I do the fix - there are warnings that when you do it, your "settings, programmes and My Documents folder may be lost".

I like that "may be" - but I don't trust it! So I've been going through the Install procedure every couple of days, rescuing some photos and documents, and trying to keep up with the Internet on my spare laptop (the Vista one) in between.

I thought I'd spotted a way of booting up while missing out the dodgy bit (it's a driver called Hal) but I tried it yesterday, and it doesn't work after all. So it's back to the tried and tested - but awfy slow! - way for now.

I'm hoping to get up and running at my normal speed soon - cross your fingers!

P.S. The most annoying thing about all this is that the Help pages at Microsoft are dated a year and a half ago - you really would think they'd have got it sorted by now!

[Soup]

Anona won't safe mode allow you to update drivers whilst leaving the rest of the system alone? I think it is F8 during boot up to enter safe mode. Backing up is a V V V V good idea whenever you are 'altering' anything

[Anona.Mouse]

It only offers me F2 or F12 when I'm booting up, and I can choose which disc drive to boot from, but that's about all. (Well, there's more in F2 - set-up - but nothing relevant.) Once the error message has come up, touching anything at all results in the boot sequence starting again from scratch.

If you're curious, here's the Help page - there's a lot of it, and even more if you follow the links!

Apparently there are three reasons why it might happen, and each has at least one possible fix. But it doesn't tell you how to work out which one you need. Which might make things just a shade easier!

I keep reading it all over, and I'm working up to trying it - and yes, I do back up twice a week. That first time the disaster happened was my normal scheduled back-up time, so I do have a copy of everything from a few days earlier. But there are some things (programmes, ancient ones) that don't get backed up, so I'm trying not to lose them in the repair process.

For now I'm working on making sure I can get to all my usual haunts on this machine, just in case.

P.S. I didn't actually alter anything . . . it did whatever it did all by itself!