Solved Windows stuck on logo screen, drive letters Changed so windows cant fx

[cleomountolive]

Hi,

My laptop's monitor was requiring me to move lid slightly to be able to see anything. Yesterday it started to smoke and smelled like it was burning. I immediately shut down computer. When I tried to restart, it was very dim and then stopped. I attached an external monitor and the ACER screen comes up but it gets stuck at the windows logo.

I tried all the automatic windows repairs that would not disturb data. None could get system restarted. Since then I have been able to identify that somehow the windows files ended up in a "D" drive and the "C" drive has no files. I am running chkdsk /f/r/d: at the moment. It would not allow it on "C," said that it was NTFS system and that it was write protected.

Is this the reason that the repair did not work, or did the repair cause the drives to change?

I am downloading Ubuntu to a flash drive in another computer to try to remove my data files. I am a University professor in the middle of finals and need to recover my students' grades and work. Please help!

Any suggestions?

 

[essenbe]

If you have the windows installation disk you can copy paste from the recovery console if windows can read the C drive. You may be able to do it with the linux also. You will just have to have a place to paste them to. With many OEM machines like Dell, Acer and the like the boot files are in the recovery partition which in your case may be the D drive. Wherever the boot files reside is the active partition and windows will consider it the System Partition. You may try to run startup repair. You will need to run it at least 3 times with attempted boots in between. Run it from the Installation or repar Cd/DVD. But, I would be concerned with what was burning in your computer. That may be the cause of all your problems.

 

[cleomountolive]

Thank you Essenbe. I burned recovery disks before I used the laptop, so I will see if that works to get the data. It seems easier than the Ubantu route.

The drives should be readable because I can see the directories on the black screen with dos prompt, can't remember what it is called. However, I am baffled as to how the drives switched letters?

Once I get the data copied and out of the computer, I will arrange for a warranty repair.

Right now I am giving a final exam, so I will try your suggestion as soon as I get home.

 

[essenbe]

If the D partition is a recovery partition, your boot files may reside there. Many OEM's put the boot files on the recovery partition. You can tell if you can see through a command prompt which partition is marked active. As far as Windows is concerned, whichever partition the boot files are located is the system partition. Another thing you may be able to try is take the hard drive out of the laptop and connect it to an external enclosure and see if another computer can read the files.

 

[cleomountolive]

My son suggested doing just that, but he is NY and I am in FL and I was scared of removing the drive. He did it for me on another laptop and gave me a "cradle" that holds the drive so it can be used as an external drive. When I get home I may just gather up my courage and remove the drive. Seems faster than dealing with Recovery disks and Ubuntu!

Thank you so much.

 

[Britton30]

Laptops are generally constructed to allow easy access to the HDD. Go to the Acer site for your model, they should have detailed instructions for removing the drive. Remove the battery from the machine.

 

[essenbe]

Usually it requires removing the cover then 4 screws, unplug it and you have it out. To replace it do the exact same thing in reverse order.

 

[cleomountolive]

Yay!! Windows is working!!!!

Well, I got home filled with courage to remove hard drive from laptop and found that chkdsk had done some repair to bad clusters and everything else was checking ok. So I shut down the computer and restarted it while using F8 to enter is safe mode. Windows came on so I transferred my student's grades. It was taking too long, so I decided against transferring remaining files and shut down the computer. Restarted it again normally and it is now working beautifully. Therefore, now I can backup everything. When finals are over I will deal with the warranty for the fried screen.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ENCOURAGEMENT AND SUGGESTIONS, IT HELPED TO KNOW THAT THERE ARE NICE PEOPLE OUT THERE WHO TAKE TIME TO HELP THOSE OF US WHO DO NOT KNOW VERY MUCH ABOUT COMPUTERS. YOU GUYS ARE AWESOME!!!

 

[essenbe]

Thank you. And you have learned a little more about computers today. That sort of thing happens here. You can't help it. I'm glad you have your problem solved. Hope to see you around some.

 

[Britton30]

You are welcome, I can remember my first foray inside a PC and being afraid I would bollux it up. I was just replacing a CD drive.