Infinite Reboot Loop. Cannot access Recovery Conso

[GX1_Man]

I am a Crucial kind of guy. (You should have known that!)

[patio]

Getting my warranty honored to replace the memory is the other trick.  I have to send my computer away for three weeks just to replace a module... *sighs*
 

Tell the manufacturer that this is totally un-acceptable.
Have them ship you a new stick of RAM or they can hear from your attorney.
If you do not have one look Rob up !

[Harper]

Nope, never.  

Did you just jinx me?

Yup! I had a ram stick go bad recently it was an OCZ brand, however I stuck with kingston ram till recently
in the future I dont think I will buy a brand outside of kingston

[Raptor]

I am a Crucial kind of guy. (You should have known that!)

I thought Crucial was a website, not a brand?

Hm, I like TWINMOS myself.

[GX1_Man]

Anyone ever have a PC100 stick go bad all by itself?

[bakura82]

Memory giong bad on me has only happened once until this incident.  Now it seems my OTHER stick is bad!!!


In the last week, while my system was working (with half the ram), I was trying to consolidate and clean off my external hard drive so I could ghost/backup my machine and send it off so they can give me new ram.

Guess what?  That's right, my other module seems to have failed.  Is that even possible?  Both in such close proximity?

I have been using Hiren's BootCD 8.6 all day trying to find a way to ghost/backup my machine so i can just send the thing to get repaired.  Guess what?  The memory module seems to be causing crc-failure errors even with these programs!  I can't get any of the ghosting or backing up software to work.  I CAN get file managers to work with my NTFS partition as well as my external USB mass storage.  However, that is painfully slow.  DOS based file managers take 100 times longer than anything to copy information.  Just copying 30 MB took several hours.  I have about 20 GB I want to save!

Anybody have any advice?  I can't avoid the CRC failures.  No ghost/backup software from Hiren's BootCD 8.6 works.  
- I have used the first memory module to see if that one was actually good... it wasn't.
- I switched the memory to different slots and that still didn't work.  I am pretty sure they are both bad (don't know how that's possible) which leaves me in a deep rut.
- I tried three different memory testors and they all showed errors.
- I chkdsk the drive and there are no problems.
- I tried to use recovery console to get data off, but I cannot figure out how to use the SET command because I need to change the policy settings and that doesn't seem possible unless your in windows!
- Also, do to long file name issues, copying in the file managers is proving to be inconsistent...  *sighs*

Thanks for any help!

Esteban


excuse me while i go convince ME to not kill myself...

[GX1_Man]

Get some usable RAM to complete the operation unless you just have LOTS of time and are willing to sacrifice your data.

With bad RAM, anything you copy can not be trusted.  

[bakura82]

Get some usable RAM to complete the operation unless you just have LOTS of time and are willing to sacrifice your data.

With bad RAM, anything you copy can not be trusted.  

this isn't just PC1000 though... anyone know where I can get cheap ram for my hp pavilion dv5000?

Here's the latest update...

I can't leave it copying in the file manager.  It seems I can only get the Volkov Commander 4.99 file manager to work right.  While it is supposed to work with long file names.... it doesn't seem to.  I keep getting errors where I have to hit OK or cancel because a file has too long of a name.  I left it on over night and it got no where because a pop-up came up and I couldn't click OK or cancel.

As for slaving the hdd, I don't know how I could possibly do that  -- I have a laptop (HP Pavilion dv5000/xppro, only a few months old).

I would get more ram, but I don't have the money.  That's why I paid this ridiculous amount of money for the repair plan which apparently cannot be honored in Comp USA until AFTER the manufacturers warranty.  So, I HAVE to send it off now which == KILLING my hdd while their at it.

File managers status:
[Volkov Commander 4.99] - works, but long file names don't seem to work and i can't automate this process at all
**[FastLynx 2.0] - trying now. seems to work wel, however, i worry about long file names... well see.
[Dos Command Center 5.1] - exceptions galore and aborts... doesn't work.
[File Wizard 1.35] - works WITHOUT ntfs therefore useless.
[File Maven 3.5]   - crc-failure

THANKS!

Esteban

Lessoned learned = ghost/backup on a daily/wkly basis!  man, after my move to arizona, everything got out of wack and i haven't backup up in two months... *cries*  never again!

[patio]

[highlight]Lessoned learned = ghost/backup on a daily/wkly basis!  man, after my move to arizona, everything got out of wack and i haven't backup up in two months... *cries*  never again![/highlight]

But even at that 2 months of lost data is far better than starting over completely wouldn't you agree ? ?

patio.  8-)

[bakura82]

[highlight]Lessoned learned = ghost/backup on a daily/wkly basis!  man, after my move to arizona, everything got out of wack and i haven't backup up in two months... *cries*  never again![/highlight]

But even at that 2 months of lost data is far better than starting over completely wouldn't you agree ? ?

patio.  8-)

Of course.  


As of now, the computer is on it's way to replace the RAM and also fix two other common and known issues.  Yippie.  I hate when I invest in something that turns out being a problem child.  All well, at least I was able to back up my info and I still have my wife's PC I can use.

Survey: In your opinion, what's the best and most cost effective backup solution?  Currently, I have an external hard drive that I backup to.  What software do you recommend investing in?

Esteban

[patio]

Acronis True Image is what i use...newegg currently has the best deal on it.

As to my backup strategy it goes as follows:

One clean backup of the brand new install with all drivers installed and checked and all security apps loaded updated and ran.
This is my virgin backup.

Second one is as above but after all programs i use are installed and updated and running as i like.

Then on an ongoing basis i create an image weekly but save it to another partition.

And finally once a month i burn the most recent saved image to DVD and delete the images.

Worst case scenario i am never more than 3 weeks away upon restore.

Works for me...