Argh, b0rked my PC

[Xtro]

Hmm...

At home I have 2 PC's on a LAN sharing cable connection. I've had HDD problems with the main PC (which I use for gaming) for a bit now. Space probems on the C (2gb) partition I might add, not with the physical drive itself.

I'm running Win2K on the main PC and have been continously getting "out of virtual memory" error messages, so I check the C partition and I often get 1MB or something stupid free space reported.

I only have the OS and SP2 (iirc) on the C drive, surely this cant be 2gb in itself?

Anyway problems started last night. In 2 minds whether to just reformat C and fed up with having no free space on the HD, I peeked around to see if there was anything I could delete.

Now..I didnt do anything stupid like delete system files or anything but whatever I did has b0rked the PC .

When I rebooted, I immediately noticed something was wrong as the gfx res was 640 etc (looked like I had booted up in safe mode). PC boots up, gets to desktop, all the icons are there, but theres no mouse cursor and the keyboard doesn't work. After a minute or two it locks up completely so its power off time.

Now, I have been wanting to format the HD anyway and I've been slowly transferring stuff over the LAN to the 2nd PC all week so I'm not TOO gutted. I know I can stick the HD in my 2nd PC as a slave of course and grab stuff off there.

What I'd really like to do though is get it working as normal though, as I have lots of e-mails on there with important stuff in there and tbh (n00b alert) I am useless with Outlook so wouldn't know exactly how to get my 2 mail addys working again (if I reformat).

Sorry for long post - whats the best way to get my PC working etc? Reinstall WIN2k over the top? or?

FYI it won't work in Last known config or safe mode.

I'm running Athlon XP 1700mhz with 256mb ddr, ASUS mobo, Win2k with SP2 (iirc).

Fingers crossed.

cheers

 

[Testin da Cable]

I'd firstly run every kind of disk checker against the drive that you can find. some drive manufacturers have specialized proggys that you can dl off their webbys and use to check with.
you'll prolly have to do it from dos...but you can get several different bootdisks from bootdisk.com or some place.

seems that windows is broken sadly, but perhaps you can fix it with the "repair" option from the doze cdrom (after booting with it). personally I'd not chose to do that, fully reinstall. with ms products it's deffo the best way. good luck!!

 

[Testin da Cable]

btw...it wasn't your swapfile was it?

 

[xane]

If you have the Outlook files its a simple case of copying them to wherever your new Outlook has its files.

 

[MYstIC G]

Originally posted by Xtro
What I'd really like to do though is get it working as normal though, as I have lots of e-mails on there with important stuff in there and tbh (n00b alert) I am useless with Outlook so wouldn't know exactly how to get my 2 mail addys working again (if I reformat).

Which version of Outlook mate, I can guide you through backing up your files & mail account settings fairly easily, but it varies with the versions.

 

[Xtro]

Thanks ever so much lads

Its Outlook Express - hope that gives you enough info Meggy.

Xane, yeah I hoped I could do that, cheers.

all advice/help is REALLY APPRECIATED, thanks

 

[Xtro]

Originally posted by Testin da Cable
btw...it wasn't your swapfile was it?

That I deleted or clogging up the HD m8? err n00b alert pt 2...it prob was that getting massive, SOMETHING was taking up more and more space anyway. Am I being thick or is swapfile the same as TEMP dir - as I'd moved the TEMP dir (through Win2k settings, not just cut and paste) to another partition.

 

[Testin da Cable]

nah mate, a swapfile is a thing most OSs use to allow inactive things in memory to be swapped (or paged) out to a harddrive.
in default windows this is a file that grows and shrinks with your memory load. windows nearly always pages memory out, so if you have a couple apps running and then leave them to go play a game then odds are that they will be swapped to disk for the most part. somtimes windows allows your swapfile to become quite large and very "full" too. when your swapfile is full you will get virtual memory popup warnings.

afaik windows won't let you delete it though, but it may be hogging drive space. you can check by looking in the my computer>properties>performance tab under virtual memory iirc. that will tell you how big the swapfile is and what drive it's on.

 

[MYstIC G]

Originally posted by Xtro
Thanks ever so much lads

Its Outlook Express - hope that gives you enough info Meggy.

Righty (I'm doing this on OE6 as its what i've got to hand, but afaik its the same for 5 as well)

Messages
Tools -> Options -> Maintainance

Click "Store Folder"

this gives you a box with a directory like "C:\Documents and Settings\Rob\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\{F07E7733-8A1F-44A2-AF02-CCD363F7590E}\Microsoft\Outlook Express" in it. Go backup that directory somewhere safe as it'll contain all your e-mails in a PST or DBX file(s).

Then on the new PC, or on your other one as i'd recommend you test this to make sure its ok your end before blitzing your PC

File -> Import -> Messages -> Outlook Express 6 -> Import Mail from OE6 store Directory, browse for your folder & follow the rest of the Wizard.

Accounts
To backup your mail news accounts, just got to Tools -> Accounts & click export on the ones you wanna keep. Then Tools -> Accounts -> Import, when you wanna bring em back in on the new box.

Job Done (hopefully)

 

[Mellow-]

Originally posted by Xtro
Space probems on the C (2gb) partition I might add, not with the physical drive itself.

Win2k's minimum hard disk requirement is 2Gb.

 

[Mr. 47]

you could try a fixed swap file size... mines about 2 or 1 gig... can't remember...

i know if Unreal 2 or UT2003 or any other warfare engine based game crashes it eats up all your memory.

 

[Will]

Re: Re: Argh, b0rked my PC

Originally posted by Mellow-


Win2k's minimum hard disk requirement is 2Gb.

So why does it only insist on about 690Mb?

 

[Mellow-]

I don't know, but according to the Micosoft Certification that's the minimum.

 

[Will]

Service packs and stuff I assume...I only know this because I tried to squeeze it on a 500Mb partition and that makes it tell you just how many Mb it wants.

 

[Mellow-]

Yeah probably, plus Win2k probably likes a certain amount of disk space for a swap file as well.

The minimum specs are something like:
Pentium Processor
64MB RAM
2Gb Hard disk
VGA graphics card

... obviously though it would grind to a halt everytime you tried to open something though.