-=PCTechTalk=- Re: Compaq Problem
- From: "Steve Aiello" <deacondeamon@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: pctechtalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2009 15:55:50 -0500
Hi G an update on this Compaq problem.
started fresh about 12:30 eastern. Still hit the set-up screen. Tried to
install a rescue of a Acer Vista. It just laughed at me.
Didn't think that would work but had to try it.
Next tried the HO XP MCE rescue. That did not work ether.
Before I started to pull apart the machine in the day room I decided to try
the down arrow step. By God that worked. That caused the dual boot screen
to show.
I run some of the tests from there and got Vista to boot up. problem was
it was a black background, with his icons showing. Shut it down and turned
it back on and right back to the set-up screen.
Back to the down arrow. This time I took the time to read not just push
keys. He had a Dual boot system there. The first one was Windows set-up and
the 2nd was Vista. Clicked on vista and everything loaded properly.
Including his background. Only thing at this point was the icons had gone to
the large setting. no big thing.
I did some other minor changes and got the unit to load straight to Vista.
I looked into the my computer area and he has a partitioned hard drive,
with D being the recovery. When I first looked there it was appox 9 Gigs
with 500Megs free. we kept getting a low space warning on the D drive.
There was more than the recovery on this drive, so I deleted everything but
the recovery folder, and it dropped down to 20 Megs free.
There are some programs on it that won't work. Tried to make a set of
rescue disk. would not even try to run. Tried to get defrag to run, no go
there ether.
Any ideas on what would cause the free space on D to drop?
The programs he uses all open and work so he's happy right now, I'm not.
Need to figure out way defrag won't work, why I could not make a rescue disk
and what's eating the free space on D.
Thanks for the help
Steve
On Wed, Jan 7, 2009 at 7:22 PM, Gman <gman.pctt@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hi Steve,
> Check his upgrade disk to see if it includes Vista SP1. If it doesn't,
> this may simply be part of SP1's install routine (assuming his system is
> just now getting around to finally installing it). I've gone through SP1's
> install before and it treats things as though it's installing Vista from
> scratch.
>
> Second, that dual-boot screen that only blinks at you can still be
> prevented from moving forward. The trick is all in the timing and the key
> you press. If you have a good idea of when it's going to come up, start
> pressing the down arrow key just prior. You have approximately a 2 second
> window in order to press the key and prevent the boot menu from choosing
> the
> install routing, but most of that time goes by before the screen actually
> shows you the menu. This is likely your best bet for getting into Vista
> Proper and figuring out what's really going on there. Again, I suspect
> it's
> an install of SP1.
>
> Yes, you CAN physically install another drive, disconnect the original,
> install Windows (any NT variety will do) and then shut down, re-add the
> original drive, ensure that the BIOS is set to boot to the new OS drive and
> then use that to see what's going on in the original drive. However, you
> will not have easy access to the affected OS itself since it will be sound
> asleep. Even access to that OS's registry becomes difficult at best.
>
> Keep us appraised of how you're coming along and perhaps you'll spark
> some additional ideas from me and the rest of the group as they're needed.
>
> Happy Holidays,
> Gman
>
> "The only dumb questions are the ones we fail to ask"
>
>
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