I own an HP Media Center PC M1280N. Earlier today I was attempting to
load a software program for my children. Once loaded, I tried to load
the software and received a message that I needed 3 mgs of free
virtual memory. This is a realitvely new computer with 1 gig of ram.
I couldn't imagine why I was receiving this message. I foolishly went
into my device manager and I increased the virtual memory, which
required that I restart the computer. When the computer restarted, it
went through check disk and then was VERY slow in bringing up my
Windows desk top. I received numerous error messages regarding unable
to read memory, etc. I could not (can not) access any programs and I
can't get back to the device manager to restore the former virtual
memory settings. F10 will start my HP recovery system, but I fear
that I will loose all data. I am thinking I can take care of this
through some safe mode function, but I don't know where to begin. |
Request for Question Clarification by
sublime1-ga
on
18 Feb 2006 19:51 PST
charlotte...
Have you tried accessing Device Manager from Safe Mode?
That would be my first thought.
sublime1-ga
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Clarification of Question by
charlottechicago-ga
on
18 Feb 2006 20:00 PST
I can't even seem to get to safe mode. I can get to the menu, and I
selected last known good configuration, and then I was prompted to
select Windows Media Center edition or a Windows recovery something or
another. I choose Windows Media and it restarted my computer the same
way as it did before. If I just try to start in safe mode, it goes
through Chk Dsk and then it pulls up my desktop minus my icons. I
can't access the start menu/device manager from this screen.
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Request for Question Clarification by
sublime1-ga
on
18 Feb 2006 21:08 PST
Eek! That's not good. So you're saying you have a desktop
(how are you recognizing it...background image?) with no
Start Menu, Taskbar or desktop icons?
If that's true, Explorer, which is the 'shell' for Windows,
is broken, and HP recovery may be your best bet. There's
a nifty program you can use to get to your files without
Windows Explorer, which is a part of the Explorer shell,
called Xplorer2 Lite, which is a free download:
http://zabkat.com/x2lite.htm
Thing is, without access to the Start Menu to use Run,
I don't know how you'd run Xplorer2.
When you start in Safe Mode, do you get any kind of
context menu when you r-click on your empty desktop?
sublime1-ga
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Request for Question Clarification by
sublime1-ga
on
19 Feb 2006 19:45 PST
Oh!...good thought by hardtofindbooks-ga. If you can run
Task Manager, you should be able to download Xplorer2
Lite on another PC, copy it to a floppy or CD, and install
and run it via Run, from Task Manager. That way you could
copy all your necessary files before running HP recovery.
Let me know if that works for you, and what progress you
make...
sublime1-ga
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Clarification of Question by
charlottechicago-ga
on
21 Feb 2006 17:45 PST
Thank you for taking time to provide me with your insights. I was not
successful in my endeavors so I called the HP support center and had
one of their technicians attempt to walk me through the process. Long
story short -- I had to perform a "destructive recovery" and lost all
of the programs and files I had loaded. I did not have a back up and
have learned a valuable, albeit painful lesson. I was told that the
hard drive was turned from a fat 32 into something else because I made
my virtual memory way too large. This compressed my hard drive to a
point that it became, apparently, unrecoverable. Won't do that again.
I do appreciate that you tried to offer me some constructive
alternatives.
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