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General discussion

Help with recovery

Jan 30, 2005 9:26AM PST

I recently downloaded digital software for a new camera, after doing so I ran into several error msg's and was unable to download the photo's. I uninstalled the software, this is where my problems began. I lost my earthlink dial up and was forced to call earthlink and re-set the configuration with them, this has been fine, however, my windowsme began prompting me for passwords and showing me what mode I wanted to run in each time I logged on, safe, normal, etc......this hadn't occcured before. I have done several diskscans for errors, telling me errors were found and repaired, I've defraged, cleaned-up, etc.....my issue since the installation/uninstall of the digital software among the others listed is that the picture, background, desktop, web page's etc, have all taken on a distorted look, almost like I made some sort of pattern on everything to do with the viewing of my comp. I have enabled and tried to do a system restore to restore the comp to a time prior to when it become corrupt, however, even after freeing up disk space, this option only went back to January 19th, my problems began Jan.2, 2005. I cannot even manually set this to Jan. 2. My main objective at this time is to at the least, back up all of my files to a disk in my CD RW so I can launch a HP full recovery and return my computer to the state it was when I bought it, unfortunately I'm unsure how to back up my files.
If anyone has any suggestions or how-to for me, I'd greatly appreciate it. I've spent the last 3 weeks, fruitlessly reading HP,and MS sites, using every HELP option available to reverse this problem or at least how-to's on backing up my files. I have purchased floppy disks for start up copying and blank CD's, I just can't figure out anything else.
Thanks again.......riotgrrrl

Discussion is locked

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Help with recovery
Jan 30, 2005 10:36AM PST

Have you tried to run System Restore? It sounds like some driver conflict or bad install. I would run System Restore back to a date when it worked.
Best of Luck

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Restore problem
Jan 30, 2005 2:36PM PST

Before you go to the drastic measures of backing up files check the System Volume Information file. This holds a list of all the restore points available on your computer. You might be lucky and find an earlier restore point listed.

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saving data
Jan 30, 2005 7:13PM PST

Have you made CDs? Saving your information is easy using a CD burner. Floppies are really too small to be of any use. Open your CD burning software, create a data CD and pick what folders or files you want. And before you do the complete restore, download, install and run Belarc. It will locate everything on your computer including the product key numbers required to reinstall many of your programs.

When you are sure you have everything saved, performed the complete restore. Using the restore CD set makes it easy for a novice. Make sure you have all of the installation CDs for the programs you have and want to reinstall. The restore set will only replace the factory installed software.