i don't even know where to begin. did i even post this in the right place? i'm so frazzled...
let me preface by saying i lost my desktop hard drive a few months ago. no, i did not back up. it sucks, but i'm finally over it. whatever. it was an old-ish computer and i wanted to get a new one anyway. before it completely crashed, though, i got a blue screen - it mentioned something about hard disk failure, etc. somehow i was able to get it started and get some files off of it.
but now i'm having laptop issues. i bought this dell inspiron 2200 august 2005. i had some shut-down errors that, thanks to this forum, i was able to fix by completely uninstalling norton. but lately it has not been recognizing the cd drive. sometimes when it starts up i get this light gray screen with white writing that says there's a problem with the unit in the modular bay. i haven't done anything to add hardware, etc. to my computer, by the way.
yesterday i got the gray screen and it told me to reseat the device or shut the computer off and turn it back on again. i did that, and it was working fine (although i didn't try the cd drive). i didn't shut it off last night. i got up this morning and tried to play a cd in the cd drive. the auto-run (or whatever it's called when you have to choose what you want to do with the cd) did not start. "my computer" did not show a D drive (which is the cd drive). so i tried to restart.
i got the blue screen that i mentioned above. hard disk problems. it said something about if i just added a program, i should just restart. i didn't add anything, but i restarted anyway. it started in safe desktop mode and said i had a major disk error and asked me to report the error. after i did, a browser window popped up and gave me instructions on how to backup my files and run chkdsk. i ran chkdsk but needed to restart. chkdsk found no errors, and it started up fine, including the cd drive (i was able to play my cd).
what's going on? should i take it somewhere to get it checked out? why doesn't it see that the cd drive is there sometimes? it's so frustrating, especially after having lost almost everything on my desktop machine.
by the way, i have backed the laptop up, just not using the actual backup utility because i'm running windows xp and it doesn't come pre-installed. it instructed me to find the xp cd and install it - which is impossible when it doesn't recognize the drive!!! ACK!!!
please help. thanks in advance. sorry that i'm not fluent in tech-speak when it comes to this stuff. i'm sooo much better with software applications
thanks,
carrie
let me preface by saying i lost my desktop hard drive a few months ago. no, i did not back up. it sucks, but i'm finally over it. whatever. it was an old-ish computer and i wanted to get a new one anyway. before it completely crashed, though, i got a blue screen - it mentioned something about hard disk failure, etc. somehow i was able to get it started and get some files off of it.
but now i'm having laptop issues. i bought this dell inspiron 2200 august 2005. i had some shut-down errors that, thanks to this forum, i was able to fix by completely uninstalling norton. but lately it has not been recognizing the cd drive. sometimes when it starts up i get this light gray screen with white writing that says there's a problem with the unit in the modular bay. i haven't done anything to add hardware, etc. to my computer, by the way.
yesterday i got the gray screen and it told me to reseat the device or shut the computer off and turn it back on again. i did that, and it was working fine (although i didn't try the cd drive). i didn't shut it off last night. i got up this morning and tried to play a cd in the cd drive. the auto-run (or whatever it's called when you have to choose what you want to do with the cd) did not start. "my computer" did not show a D drive (which is the cd drive). so i tried to restart.
i got the blue screen that i mentioned above. hard disk problems. it said something about if i just added a program, i should just restart. i didn't add anything, but i restarted anyway. it started in safe desktop mode and said i had a major disk error and asked me to report the error. after i did, a browser window popped up and gave me instructions on how to backup my files and run chkdsk. i ran chkdsk but needed to restart. chkdsk found no errors, and it started up fine, including the cd drive (i was able to play my cd).
what's going on? should i take it somewhere to get it checked out? why doesn't it see that the cd drive is there sometimes? it's so frustrating, especially after having lost almost everything on my desktop machine.
by the way, i have backed the laptop up, just not using the actual backup utility because i'm running windows xp and it doesn't come pre-installed. it instructed me to find the xp cd and install it - which is impossible when it doesn't recognize the drive!!! ACK!!!
please help. thanks in advance. sorry that i'm not fluent in tech-speak when it comes to this stuff. i'm sooo much better with software applications
thanks,
carrie