R
Richard in AZ
A customer was downloading email, after an extended vacation, when the computer went black. On
reboot it would only report that windows had shut down to protect itself.
The machine gave the same response in the "start in last know good condition" and "start in safe
mode".
I then used ERD Commander program disk to try a repair, but it reported there was no OS to repair.
It offered to reformat the drive.
I then used ReatogoPE to see if I could rescue his documents and pictures. (Of course he had no
backups of his personal data!) ReatogoRE reported 0 bytes on the C drive and would not access it. I
ran Knoppix and it also reported an empty C drive an could not access it.
I then started Western Digitals diagnostics disk and it reported the C drive was unformatted and
offered to format the drive.
The customer did have a full set of OS, Drivers, Preinstalled programs disks from Dell and I was
able to rebuild his machine without any problems. The computer runs just fine now, but I was
wondering if anyone has any ideas on what might have caused the lost of format during email
down-load. (Norton was on the machine, but had not be updated for the two week they were gone on
vacation.) They had not had a chance to open any of the mail they were downloading, but most likely
the first message was open in the preview plane. Is there a virus that could have done this deed?
reboot it would only report that windows had shut down to protect itself.
The machine gave the same response in the "start in last know good condition" and "start in safe
mode".
I then used ERD Commander program disk to try a repair, but it reported there was no OS to repair.
It offered to reformat the drive.
I then used ReatogoPE to see if I could rescue his documents and pictures. (Of course he had no
backups of his personal data!) ReatogoRE reported 0 bytes on the C drive and would not access it. I
ran Knoppix and it also reported an empty C drive an could not access it.
I then started Western Digitals diagnostics disk and it reported the C drive was unformatted and
offered to format the drive.
The customer did have a full set of OS, Drivers, Preinstalled programs disks from Dell and I was
able to rebuild his machine without any problems. The computer runs just fine now, but I was
wondering if anyone has any ideas on what might have caused the lost of format during email
down-load. (Norton was on the machine, but had not be updated for the two week they were gone on
vacation.) They had not had a chance to open any of the mail they were downloading, but most likely
the first message was open in the preview plane. Is there a virus that could have done this deed?