Emergency measures

Posted on 2 Mar 2006 at 16:27

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Windows unstable? From making sense of error messages to coping with lost passwords, corrupted Registry files and badly installed drivers, we've a wealth of advice to get your PC back on its feet again.

One of the inevitabilities of owning a computer is that one day, usually at the most inconvenient moment possible, Windows will either refuse to load at all or will exhibit such a range of problems as to be unusable. This can be caused by all kinds of problems - including failed software installations, wrongly installed drivers, accidentally deleted system files and virus infection.

But if you're locked out of Windows completely, how do you set about the task of returning everything to a properly working state? This is the problem we set out to solve in this feature. There are a variety of techniques you can use, and you should find that one of them will work for you in the majority of cases. As your hard drive no doubt contains files you don't want to lose, we're going to look at the way in which you can restore Windows without having to resort to going back to a fresh installation.

The focus of this article is purely on problem solving, not prevention. We will assume that you have a computer which does not start up properly for whatever reason or is exhibiting serious problems. How to avoid the same thing happening again will be the focus of another feature in an upcoming issue of Computer Buyer.

Problems

The range of problems that can plague Windows is very wide indeed. A poorly written software installation or uninstallation routine can have a number of undesirable effects on your computer. Stray files and rogue Registry entries can lead to system slow down and in more extreme cases, prevent Windows from loading at all.

Similar problems can be experienced after installing a new piece of hardware or after updating an existing driver with a newer version. If the effect of the new installation is to lock you out of Windows, there is no obvious way to remove the offending item in the hope of solving the problem.

*Beeping* problems

Some problems, such as a hard drive that has reached the end of its life or is plagued with bad sectors, are less easily solved. If you believe that your hard drive may fail, it's important that you create backups of your files as quickly as possible. With a new hard drive installed, you can then reinstall Windows and restore your files to furnish yourself with a fully working computer again. Other hardware related problems can be indicated by a series of beeps at startup. Decoding these beep codes will determine what action should be taken next.

Take a look in the manual for your motherboard and you should find a list of what the various combinations of beeps indicate. Alternatively, pay a visit to BIOS Central (www.bioscentral.com) where you can browse through the beep codes for different brands of BIOS. Beeps on startup are usually an indication of some sort of hardware related problem, but this does not necessarily mean that the fix will be expensive. BIOS beep can certainly indicate the presence of defective memory and other components, but they can also mean that an expansion card is not inserted properly.

Error messages

In this feature, we're interested in those problems which, although they can seem very serious at the time, can be solved with a little tinkering. Error messages complaining about missing files or a missing operating system are usually caused by the deletion of files or changes to the Registry. This can be caused by user error or through infection by malicious software such as viruses.