My computer cannot boot, but I need to obtain ~10gb of data from my hard disk. What should I do?

Question

Computer: Acer

OS: Windows XP

Answer 1

this is one of the acer hardest brands of pc

when you turn it on press F2 or F8 or F10

click on de bug

or safe mode

when your in safe mode and loged in

click start

click run

type CMD

when it shows up

type net user

this will show you all the user accounts on your pc

--------------------------------------...

adminstrator     guest     helpassistant

<Your name>   SUPPORT_388945a0

then type net user adminstrator fred

this will change the password to fred

and you can access more in adminstrator

then run a virus skan

if you need a antivirus download

www.avast.com

or goto start add and remove programs

look for the computer drive and click repire

Answer 2

take out your hard drive, purchase a usb hard drive enclosure, put it in there and use it like an external hard drive.

or take it to a computer repair shop, they could get the data off for you

Answer 3

Is it a laptop or desktop?  laptop i assume

here are you options

1. did you try safe mode (press/tap on F8 at boot)

2 did you try last known good configuration (press/tap on F8 at boot)

3. reseat cable or hardrive in your case in the bay/slot.(use a screwdriver to remove the nuts and then reseat hardrive into the slot)

4 . do you see BIOS, if yes check if Hard dive is seen there,. Restore Bios defaults.

IF you dont see hard drive in bios then its a  connection problem of hardrive has gone bad

5. Use XP CD, boot from it , the point where it says

press Enter to install XP

press R to repair from recovery console

press R , you would enter into recovery console, it will as for password, if you had one,  all done , type this command there

chkdsk /r

hit enter. let it finish

6. Use XP CD , and this time repair/in place reinstall. when it says

press Enter to install XP

press R to repair from recovery console

Hit Enter, it will try and search for previous windows version , after its done that it will ask if you want to repair your previous version , do as prompted.

7. Hard drive still not bootin, physically remove it and take it to maybe you friends place who has a similar hard drive , put it as secondary ,or primary on his laptop or desktop. Check if drive is read.

8. Do you hear a grinding noise when you start your computer from the hardrive, if yes , hard drive is trying to read data, if noise is louder hard drive might have gone bad.

if these dont solve your problem , reply back.

ps data would NOT be lost in any of these method , if done correctly