As I stated last week, I would write an update about my computer issues. Remember, my desktop trouble finding or using hal.dll? Well, my dear husband is a lifesaver when it comes to computers. He is my techno-geek. He is very good at figuring out things. He determined that the integrated  graphics card was toast. So, Friday he decided to go to the computer store in town to buy a new one.

Apparently, I have a bad habit of leaving my GPS in my truck and the triple digit heat caused the darn thing to not work. Oh my hubby was not a happy camper. I suppose he had every right to get upset with me for leaving it out in the heat. He did get it for me as a gift for Christmas and I just wasn’t taking care of it properly. Anyway, he made me search all over my office for the paperwork to take it back and get it fixed or replaced… Not an easy task…

Anyway, he made it to the store and back again without the GPS. Being task oriented like he is, he went straight to my desktop in the office, plugged in the new video card and began the process of finding or fixing hal.dll.

Next, he finds that the CD-Rom is not working right.. Ugh! something else to go wrong. So he takes that out and replaces it too.

Several hours later (I assume hours… I didn’t look at the time) he calls me into the office to look at what  he had done. I was so pleased to come into my office, see a brand new flatscreen monitor with “Windows” showing on it. He showed me that he now can access my Windows machine from his Linux machine so no more shutting down the computer without logging out. Yeah. So, he says, check out your machine and see what you think.

Ok, I sit in my chair, turn toward my desk to give my computer a whirl while listening to him chatter on about logging in remotely. So I spin my chair toward him to look behind me at his machine. (We work in the same office, back to back.) All of a sudden I hear this very loud crash. I spun around again only to see that I had knocked over my CPU. It was open to expose the hard drives, cd-roms, mother board… Yeah… OH CRAP is right. My system froze. Even his “remote access” froze. All he could do is stare at me and use a few choice words. Talking about feeling like a bull in a china shop… that’s me. I took that as my cue to leave the room and hope that I didn’t just slap the hard drives together creating yet another problem and expense.

Twenty minutes later, my husband found me and told me all was ok. There was no damage to my hard drives. I was so relieved and so was he. He didn’t want to work on my machine anymore. I am sure at this point, he was beginning to feel like I didn’t care about any of my electronics. I do, I think I was just having one of those days!

Oh, the GPS apparently has a reset button on it. I pressed it and now it works. Yah!

I am still left with the decision of which laptop to get next… Windows machine or Mac. But I’ll save that for another day.

– More later!

Technorati Tags: Personal Note

I have issues with my computers.

You see, I have two computers that are mine. My desktop computer is primarily for personal and school use. I do all our home school stuff & checkbook on it. Then I have my laptop that I use for my business.

My Laptop is about 3 years old… the hard drive is filling up fast. Yes, I have an external drive for back ups but still … things are running slowly now. Normally, I would wipe everything and reload Windows, but that seems to be complicated because it’s a Dell Inspiron & it comes with manufacturer disks that seem to be “Dell” proprietary. I don’t have time to sit and sort through all that & I no longer have Dell Support to do it for me.

My desktop has parts that are old and others that aren’t so old. We built it up ourselves. It has been really nice… but I now have critical issues with it, which scare me. The original problem was that I was getting no video feed to the monitor. Sometimes it worked & sometimes it didn’t.  If the machine was shut off for a time & then restarted we could boot up fine. But if the machine was left on for too long, video would go bye-bye & I would be left powering down without Windows help. So, basically doing a cold boot. Not fun!

Anyway, we started thinking maybe we needed a new monitor… So we get one, but now we get the following message:

“Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
<Windows root>\system32\hal.dll.
Please re-install a copy of the above file.”

Great! Yet another issue! Yeah, well this one could be because of the powering down cold… OR it could be a virus…

Well, I do know how to fix this error, if its not a virus. I’ve had to do it before. However, you have to be able to get to a command line prompt. I am not able to boot into Safe Mode either… because hal.dll is either missing or corrupt. Ugh!

The only other thing I can do is load my Windows XP CD to run the Restore/Repair option.

Now, I have to go into my CMOS & changed the boot order so I can boot from CD.  I put my CD in & boot up, but after a very long time of running through all the set up files I finally get to the screen that allows me to hit the “R” to Restore. I get the beginning screen…

… but my command line prompt NEVER showed up. I let it sit, thinking maybe it is just slow… No, it just won’t load. So, I reboot again. Nothing! Not even my CMOS prompt. So, now I am wondering if,

1. Maybe the video card is fried
2. Maybe my machine is overheated
3. Maybe it needs a thorough cleaning
4. Maybe there’s a virus

Well, we’ve cleaned the machine, checked all the fans, everything seems to be o.k. there. I can’t check for viruses until I can get the machine to boot from CD…. So the only other thing I can think of is the video card is toast. So, now we’re off to buy more hardware.

I’ll have to update this story after we find another video card.

– More later.

Technorati Tags: Computers, Windows XP