Oct
9
Liquid laptop damage
Filed Under Stupid | Leave a Comment
Why do people think it's okay to turn on a laptop immediately after dousing it with a full glass of some liquid? We've seen wine, Gatorade®, water, tea, and coffee. They always try to turn the laptop (back) on while it's still wet. Why not at least let it dry for a few days, or bring it to a shop where it can be disassembled and cleaned? Once you turn it on right after spilling something on it, it's all downhill from there. After turning it on and letting all of the blue smoke out of the chips, they decide to bring it in and are befuddled as to why we are not able to repair the motherboard.
Pro-tip: leave it the fuck alone.
Aug
30
Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\*
Filed Under Data recovery, Microsoft, Technical, Windows 2000, XP | 2 Comments
Perform a registry hive recovery using the information in my System Volume Information article for the hive mentioned after CONFIG\ (typically SYSTEM).
Sorry, Windows 2000 users, Microsoft hath cursed thee without an enabled-by-default automatic registry hive backup facility. Try ERUNT, though, and perform similar steps to roll back your failed SYSTEM hive when it inevitably fails.