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Computer Gurus, I need a little help.....
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Posted by: DeckSetter

So my Laptop kinda died.......I think........

I have a Toshiba Satellite that's about 3 1/2 years old.

Once my cat spilled water in it, I let it dry out for a couple of weeks, and it worked fine afterward (for 2 years!) except you had to pop the battery loose before you plugged in the charger if it was turned off.

Then I stepped on it twice (computer say OUCH!!! I'm around 260lbs). The screen was all cracked, but everything else worked as good as ever, so I plugged in a separate monitor and it worked great.

Then one day I tried to log on to the net and it says no modem is detected.

SO, I've tried going in to device manager to check on things, but device manager lists............... NOTHING!!! It doesn't even show there is a computer there, it's just a blank screen below the top bars.

I've tried system restore, but that didn't seem to do anything. Most of the time it says "cannot restore to (insert date here)".

Is there any hope for my computer, or am I going to have to break down and buy another one (eventually...)?

Posted by: ShelbyTurbo2.2

I would pull everything you need off the hard drive and format that biatch. Then re-install windows and you should be good to go...

Posted by: The OLE MAN

Take this from a guy who only knows the ON / OFF switch on a computer.

BUY A NEW ONE

The OLE MAN

Posted by: MikeT

http://www.supload.com/vid/laptop/701139971/wmv/

that should fix er right up.

Posted by: Slow Nova

Quote:

Originally Posted by ShelbyTurbo2.2


	I would pull everything you need off the hard drive and format that biatch. Then re-install windows and you should be good to go...

I agree 100%.

When you get it all back up and running, pick up a copy of Symantec Ghost and an external hard drive, and make at least weekly/monthly backups.

3.5 years is a pretty good run for a laptop. Around here at my work, laptops typically fail between 1 and 2 years old. 90% of the failures are hard drives. the other 10% are clumsy people that spill things and drop them...one user is on her 3rd laptop in the last 12 months...none of the hard drives failed in her case.

Posted by: DeckSetter

Quote:

Originally Posted by ShelbyTurbo2.2


	I would pull everything you need off the hard drive and format that biatch. Then re-install windows and you should be good to go...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Slow Nova


	I agree 100%. When you get it all back up and running, pick up a copy of Symantec Ghost and an external hard drive, and make at least weekly/monthly backups. 3.5 years is a pretty good run for a laptop. Around here at my work, laptops typically fail between 1 and 2 years old. 90% of the failures are hard drives. the other 10% are clumsy people that spill things and drop them...one user is on her 3rd laptop in the last 12 months...none of the hard drives failed in her case.

I thought about it, but I can't find my documentation for the computer that has my windows xp cd or my device drivers. To tell you the truth, I'm not even sure if I ever got a Windows cd when I got the computer.....hmm.........

As far as backing up my files, I don't really have much (if anything) on there I need to save. Maybe some TurboTax stuff, but I think I have a hard copy of that anyway. I don't think I ever used 10gb of my hard drive (probably not even 5...).

I was surprised it lasted that long, especially after the cat spilled water in it and I stepped on it (twice). It just kept coming back for more.

Do you guys know when the next version of Windows is coming out? I heard it might be fairly soon, I might just wait till it comes out and get a new computer then....... If I can find my XP cd I'll probably try formatting and reloading.

Posted by: Slow Nova

Quote:

Originally Posted by DeckSetter


	Do you guys know when the next version of Windows is coming out? I heard it might be fairly soon, I might just wait till it comes out and get a new computer then....... If I can find my XP cd I'll probably try formatting and reloading.

From what I hear - summer/fall of this year...but if it's anything like the jump from Windows 9x/ME to XP, you may want a computer with enough processing power and available RAM and HDD space to handle the new OS. XP uses around 4GB on a typical install, and I wouldn't recommend using it with any less than 512MB RAM and 1Ghz processor. The minimum requirements are much lower than this, but the computer will be slow as mollases. For this new version of windows figure on running at least 2.0Ghz and have at least 1GB RAM, and set aside 7-10 GB of space on your hard drive for the OS alone...IMO nothing less than a 40GB hard drive will do.

Just remember, I don't have (didn't bother to look up) the exact specs, so I'm just pulling #'s out of my ass, from past experience (with Windows - not my own ass).

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