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General discussion

vista crash

Oct 30, 2007 12:13PM PDT

Hi,
I'm using, or was using...
Dell vostro 1500 with vista home prem.
I last did a virus scan the afternoon before turning it off for the last time, I try to run a full scan every weekend.
I turned it on last Sunday and nothing, it went straight to the 'startup repair' window. This pc is about 2 months old!
Dell says I need to reinstall vista and it will not get rid of my personal files. Is this true? In past versions all was lost in a reinstall. I need my outlook.pst file!!!
I tried to hook the hard drive up to another pc to get my files back before a reinstall. I can see what seems to be all the files that my pc could want except my personal ones. The directories seem to be grayed out or missing. I almost forgot to say I ran the vista diag tool on the hard drive, it took about 5 hours and told me there wasn't a problem.
I did find a windowsUpdate.log that was dated and timed pretty much the time I had turned my system off the last time it work. Don't those files get written when you actually do an update? My update is turned off and it has been a month since I last used it. Strange... I'm sure there is a good reason for this file.
Can you help me find a way to recover my files?
Thanks for reading this and any help you may offer.

Discussion is locked

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What was that other PC? XP?
Oct 31, 2007 12:15AM PDT
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hi
Oct 31, 2007 1:19AM PDT

Thanks for trying.
The pc I'm using to look at the vista hard drive is an XP.
I tried your suggestion, but most folder didn't give me the security tab at all. I am logged in as admin though.
I appreciate your help.

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The article tells how to...
Oct 31, 2007 1:38AM PDT

Get the security tab to show in your OS. "If you are running Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition, you must start the computer in safe mode, and then log on with an account that has Administrative rights to have access to the Security tab."

Bob