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Laptop Question
So I accidentally sent my laptop to sleep while it was shutting down, and now it won't boot. According to the Vista support page, this is a known problem with Vista and the solution is to wipe the hard drive and reinstall. I'm more than willing to do this, but first I really, really want to get the data off. Some of it is backed up, a lot of it has been sent back and forth in e-mails and could be reconstructed, but I have files for work, pictures, music, and - to me most important - my current novel work in progress unbacked up. I know a few of you have had similar issues - what companies did you find that could get the data off? Have any of you used these recovery things? How did it go? Was it expensive?
Any help is vastly appreciated. The thought of losing almost 15k of work in progress brings tears to my eyes, not to mention all the other data - at least most of the rest is backed up...
Any help is vastly appreciated. The thought of losing almost 15k of work in progress brings tears to my eyes, not to mention all the other data - at least most of the rest is backed up...
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I suggest find a computer store near you, see if they look at Vista or not, and have them fix the problem. From what my boyfriend said before, they can pull off important files and documents if you ask, so I would do that.
As for getting the company to fix it? Well all they had to do was successfully install a wireless PCI network card onto the computer (that's what screwed up the computer for us) and add in more ram because it was so slow. The amount afterward surprised me. It took about an hour to work on so about $49 for that. And the two pieces of ram cost about $139. We were expecting it to be over three hundred.
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Thanks for the advice! It's good to know that things like this do work out.
Not helpful, but ...
What a stupid error! I think you should bill Microsoft for letting such a stupid bug persist.
Re: Not helpful, but ...
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What exactly happens when you turn the machine on anyway?
I wouldn't recommend those companies, mainly because
(a) they're disproportionately expensive for what you case. Companies I've seen charge 100 bucks or more just to try, and offer no guarantee of success
(b) if they find any data on your hard drive, there's little stopping them from keeping it. I wouldn't want that.
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I agree with ultimabaka. Mostly, those places are a rip off. A network cable might work, or you could try pulling the HD and connecting it to another computer to pull off the data. That's likely all a pc repair place would do anyway. I'm so sorry. I do hope you can get everything back.
When you do get it put back together, I'd recommend disabling the sleep function. It is a PIA in the best of times and with that bug...well, I'd say it is useless.
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Anyway, I think they're about to kick me off this terminal. Thanks for the help, guys!
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Of course, you really want to get the computer working again, although if you can extract the data first, it's easy to do a fresh reinstall of Windows.
Also: yes, Vista sucks. It's really disappointing, since I'm actually a MSFT fan. At least they're moving up the schedule for the new version, which hopefully will be better.
And finally, I highly recommend you do more frequent backups! I didn't actually start doing that until last year, but now I'm much less stressed out about getting my laptop broken/stolen/etc. I don't back up everything, but if I have a work in progress I back it up after every work session -- I have it set up so it's only a mouse click or two and it's not a big deal. I back up to an external server where I host web pages, but you could also back up to your external drive and be fairly safe.
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