Packard Bell ixtreme 6073 problems

[threelions00]

Hi all, my brother has a Packard Bell ixtreme 6073 and it will not load up. He can't boot it into safe mode, last know good configuration etc, nothing. He can get into the BIOS and we have made sure that it is trying to boot from the hard drive and not a floppy disk or CD-ROM.

I have gone to this website. (http://support.packardbell.com/uk/item/index.php?i=6945490100&ppn=P852006001)

Under the utility tab below the picture of the PC, you can select recovery.

It states: Technical Note: This Setup will create a bootable Recovery CD automatically.
The bootdisk that will be created can be used on all Packard Bell systems shipped since July 1999.

Am I right in thinking that I could use this to repair the boot up sequence? I know that there could be a whole load of other issues it could be but would this be a good place to begin?

If that was to fail, could I use a fresh copy of Windows XP and do just a repair without losing all files or would it need to be a full reformat?

Any help at all would be much appreciated!

Many thanks.

[clocker]

Does the PC have it's own pre-installed recovery image?

Seems like you should be able to use their recovery disk...worth a try anyway.

[threelions00]

i really don't know clocker. how would i find out? he doesn't have the original disks any longer either. I have looked for a recovery disk on the net but no luck. The size of that boot disk is about 2.57 mb as well. Is that about right? Would the XP disk be any good as a last resort? Thanks.

[clocker]

If your PC has a recovery partition you'll see a message somewhere on the POST screens...something like "Hit F10 for recovery options".
This is NOT the same as F8 to access the Windows option list.

If available, the recovery usually offers two options; a full (or "destructive") recovery which overwrites everything and a restore which leaves your files/apps intact.

Failing discovery of a recovery partition, using the PB online disk is probably your next best option.

After that, a repair using a regular Windows disk is all that's left.

[threelions00]

ok clocker, nice one, I will get him to give that a go...I'll have a look to see if there is a built in PC recovery option. Thanks.

Edit: Just looked, seems that could be possible...but it is F11.

Thanks once again.

[peat moss]

F11 is like a recovery partition you enter on start up , its for wimps . It adds a lot of shit you'll never use . But hey you get back to "store bought" example no S/P updates and everything is lost but you can still function . Clocker posted a program many moons ago that deletes a lot of the crap from Dell etc, can't remember what its called but a good option .

Not sure if it's this one .


http://www.yorkspace.com/pc-de-crapifier/


Disconnect from the net (unplug your modem ) while you format or use the f11 function , and make sure you have at least a 30 day Anti Virus trial or the like on start up . Save yourself some grief , the partion should have a trial at least but not sure .

[clocker]

F11 is like a recovery partition you enter on start up , its for wimps . It adds a lot of shit you'll never use .
Maybe.
Most recovery partitions do have the option to just repair Windows- like the Windows disk itself- without going back to the OOTB state.
If that fails- and I'd wager it's about 50-50 that it will- the full restore will indeed bring back all the loverly trialware that was originally installed.

After the PC is back up and running, I'd clean it up and Ghost it- preferably to a disk.
The problem with recovery partitions in general is that they assume the hard drive is fine when in fact, HDD failure is pretty common.
HDD fails> recovery partition missing> no restore disks= doorstop.

[scrambler]

I'm just thinking, if the pc doesnt boot into safe mode or anything look at the boot.ini file as it maybe corrupt. Download hirens cd to view and edit the boot.ini. Anything after the line of fast detect you can delete. Just an idea as maybe your boot.ini file is corrupt and wills ave you from reinstalling windows.

_http://support.microsoft.com/kb/289022 will show an example of what the file should look like.