pearnone

I'm not sure if this is the right spot for my question... my husband ran Norton Systemworks on our XP Pro PC with partitioned drive... it ran for 10 hours and did not seem to be making any progress... so my husband clicked on the cute little "Stop Optimizing" button, thinking it would safely shut off what it was doing... but it did not. Now our PC does not appear to know where the operating system files are or how to boot up.

To make matters a bit worse, it doesn't appear to be able to even run the CD drives. We created a boot up disk from MS website at the office, but it we get a "disk error" when trying to read it. It just may be a formatting issue with the CD, but we can't tell.

We can get to the Bios setup screens, but that is really about it.

Is there any hope for repair or at least just getting the data off? I haven't backed up our pictures and data files in a few months and would hate to lose what we have there.

I would certainly appreciate any advice or recommendations that you all may have about our problem --and please do let me know if I should have started this thread under a different topic.

Thank you! -Peggy

eneles

Welcome to TSF.

What brand/model is the computer?

Clear CMOS (assuming it's a desktop):

Get rid of static electricity by touching a radiator or bare metal on the computer case.
Then unplug the computer from the wall outlet and open the case.
Remove the little "coin-like" battery on the motherboard.
Move the "clear CMOS" jumper on the motherboard from pins 1&2 to pins 2&3.
Wait 30 minutes.
Replace the jumper to pins 1&2.
Put the battery back.
Close the case and start the computer.
Enter BIOS and choose "Load setup defaults" (or something similar) - save and exit BIOS.

__________________

pearnone

We have a Sony Vaio desktop... I can't remember the model.

Does clearing the "CMOS" reset or clear some memory spot that Norton's took over? If so, we really need to try that when we get home!

If we are careful, it sure doesn't look like it could hurt.

Thank you for your advice --we appreciate it!

-Peggy

eneles

No, it won't undo what Norton did - but we need to get the computer to start from an XP disc.

Clearing CMOS on a laptop is a different procedure. It should be mentioned in the manual.
Otherwise we need the model name/number.

__________________

pearnone

Thank you for your help!

After getting your replies, my husband decided we better take it in for repair. It took some digging, but we found a place that would work with our PC and had great success. It cost about $125 (which I believe is reasonable for the amount of work they had to do) and they were able to back up our drive somehow, then they defragged, re-partitioned, and then repaired our operating system... I don't know what tools they used or how in the world they accessed the hard drive, but we are up and running again.

Some things are now running as if they were new (lost settings, profiles, running intial set ups, etc.), so they may have had to re-install some of our applications... we were trying to update IE and some other XP aps to get them to their latest revs, but these seem to be aborting... Most things, though, they were able to keep our settings and passwords intact. Just the MS operating and networking pieces need a little work.

We are not completely out of the woods just yet, but our data (pix) are safe and sound and we can probably fumble our way to getting these update/installers fixed.

Thank you again for your quick support and helpful advice!

eneles

I'm glad you got it fixed.

__________________