My computer blew up

[ewagner]

Last Friday night, we installed a windows "update" and the pc shut down. We lost the whole operating system and when we finally brought it back up we found we lost our ethernet card AND had corrupted the video card.

Ended up ordering a new cpu......lots faster and no Windows ME problems....

just got back up.

I'm suffering DU withdrawals!!!!

[BurtWorm]

1. Welcome back!

That was fast, but I'll bet it didn't seem fast.

:hi:

[ewagner]

2. Got that right!

Had to get my news from cable news sources for five llloooonnnngggg! days....

I think they're trying to turn Americans into freepers.

[ScreamingMeemie]

3. Good to see you back ewagner!!

:hi: Glad your new system is faster.

[MrSoundAndVision]

4. Destroy

Windows ME, click RUN, then type fdisk, remove the partition, then go buy some other operating system like Suse linux, and never see that happen again (doesn't sound like it was your processor, but that's ok, you weren't using a pirated copy of XP and then selected to update I hope...) Welcome back.

[ewagner]

5. Thanks

no...we were running ME without anything wied going on...my wife just clicked on the "update" icon and BAM! the world turned ugly!

btw...I was on the phone for two hours with Microsoft...they said the update wasnt' compatible with Norton anti-virus and the conflict caused the problem......uuummmm....maybe

[LTR]

8. Norton

Well, seeing as how the majority of computer users have Norton on their system, they'd BETTER make something compatible.

Noton, BTW, can be some tricky software to work around. Ever try to unistall it? My advice? Don't.

[Jonnycat26]

6. Suse!

I second that! I just installed Suse 9.0 this weekend, and somehow it's even better than 8.2 :) I've been a Suse user since 7.1, and a linux user since 97. Once you get used to not dealing with viruses, crashes, and crappy browsers, you just can't go back.

[LTR]

7. The same thing happened to me once, a few years ago

I run Win98SE on my other computer (PentiumII). I did the Update, then, like a dumb ass, opted to restart later. Well, the system crashed and shut down, and I couldn't get back up.

I went into safe mode, and no online connection through the ethernet card. So I did the fdisk and reloaded the entire operating system. Worked same as before, but no online connection.

Took it in to the shop, and they said the card was fried. Put in a new one. Video card was fine.

So, if you have anything of value (photos, documents, etc) that you need off the old system, just go in through safe mode, copy to a disc (preferably CD) and fdisk the whole thing. If you want to salvage the unit and keep using it, buy and install the card yourself (thy cost around $20 and are easy to put in). Video cards may be a bit more, but shop around.

This may have been the problem with your unit, but what could have happened with yours is that it taxed too much of your memory cache. To be safe, reboot the system and clean out the temp files BEFORE going to Windows Update. I'll bet it just taxed your system and crashed due to being overworked.

What I learned: ALWAYS be careful when doing Windows Update. And if in doubt, reboot BEFORE and IMMEDIATELY afterward on the prompt. Now I know how my ethernet card got fried. And get the update icon off your desktop. Access either through the startup menu or as a web link in 'Favorites'.