Oh what did I do? Begging for computer help!!!

[RTTingle]

I honestly have no idea what I did and clearly had no idea what I was doing either.

Make a long story short, I did my computer in good.  I'm assuming a virus started the job - and well.... my stubbornness made it worse.

I have an Emachines box and I still have the recovery disks, and a brand spanking new hard drive to start all over with --- but no clue how to do that.  Silly me assumed I can just format the new HD on my GF's old Dell and just pop it in my computer and use the recovery disks to start anew.

No dice.

So any tech savvy folks out there have an idea on how to get this thing working again?  I have a fresh HD and the recovery disks but clearly thats not all thats needed.

Thanke'!

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

So what exactly went wrong with the computer in the first place?  If it's motherboard damage, then you're really toast.  If it was just the hard drive, I'm afraid I can't be of much help, but more information really is needed.

[crimsonquill]

Well, just follow the bouncing instruction ball....

1. Don't Panic! (Okay, that's primary rule from Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy but it's still handy here)
2. Put your new harddrive into the eMachine and then make sure it's set as the primary drive (usually the default if it's brand new).
3. Insert your Recovery disc that came with your eMachine into the CD-ROM and then reboot the system.
4. Most eMachines are usually set to read the CD-Rom, Then the floppy, and finally the Harddrive for the operating system - so your machine should just find your recovery disc immediately and prompt "Push any key to boot from CD-ROM". Do so.
5. If it does not find an OS then you need to reboot and change your BIOs so that it scans your CD-ROM first not your hard drive. This is usually done by pushing F8 when the BIOs logo screen instally pops up when your PC first boots up.
6. If the above two steps go smoothly then it will give you the standard eMachines recovery prompts which will ask you if you want your drive formatted and then your OS (and other eMachines applications) reinstalled - which should take awhile.
7. Usually you have other recovery discs that come with the eMachine which are just other applications and tools which were installed one by one manually by the manufacturer and tech staff before it was boxed up. You can install them by following the directions on the labels of the discs and the menu screen after you put the discs in the drive when your PC is up and running again.

If you run into any problems... just reply here and I'll get back to you as soon as I'm able...

- CrimsonQuill

[RTTingle]

It lives.

I eventually bit the bullet and reformatted my hard drive as much as I didnt want to.  And?  Same darn tootin' thing.

So I spent a few days trying to figure out what happened because the restore cd would only go so far, and would get hung up on one certain screen.

Eventually I stumbled upon the issue of why the restore wasn't working.  It seems as if Emachines restore disks are hardware specific... in other words, you need to have the machine in as much an original state as possible.

So to make a long story short, my restore kept getting hung up --- because it was looking for a modem that wasn't there anymore, to ask how I wanted to connect to the internet.

Wow.  What a costly lesson.  Tons of music, pictures and some pretty cool programs I'm sure I'll never be able to restore.  Lesson learned.  Now I have an extra drive not only for all my fluff, but I got another drive.... as an emergency backup with settings.

Many thanks to Crimson and Cat for the help.

Now, time to start filling this brand new HD up with some new goodies.

RTT

[randyripoff]

If I may make a suggestion...

* Keep all of your data files elsewhere.  Another drive, or a thumb drive. 
* Make sure you have a good firewall...or any firewall
* Ditto for spyware
* Reinstall Windows regularly...like every six months
* Also, if your hard drive fails again, there are ways to recover it.  PM me if you need more info, or better yet, do a Google search.

[zuludelta]

In addition to what Randy said, here are a couple more tips:

- if you can afford one, buy a standalone Windows installer CD. That way, you aren't tied down to a fixed hardware configuration when you have to repair the Windows install the way you are with the eMachines restore disk.

- Get Knoppix. It's a Linux-based OS that can  be run off of your CD drive. You won't believe how many times I've used it to salvage data from failed Windows installations. I basically use it so that I can still access the data in the drive even if Windows doesn't work anymore. I can then burn the data onto a DVD (Knoppix comes with everything you need to do basic data "rescue"... you can burn CDs/DVDs, access the internet, etc.) so I don't lose anything before I nuke the contents of the drive and do a reformat or clean install of Windows.