Computer Troubleshooting/Help Master Thread

[Chaikel]

which phone?

Phone is irrelevant. I'm asking about a computer program

[avrumy22]

how can i take a screen shot on windows 7?

[etech0]

how can i take a screen shot on windows 7?

press the PrntScrn button. Or use the snipping tool (you can find that by pressing start and typing to search for it)

[avrumy22]

press the PrntScrn button. Or use the snipping tool (you can find that by pressing start and typing to search for it)

thanks!!

this is even better bec i can crop right on the page

[etech0]

thanks!!

this is even better bec i can crop right on the page

yup!

[Dr Moose]

I don't know a thing about computers, so I brought it in to a Microsoft store to take care of an issue I was having. the technician was playing around with my computer and I don't know how to change it back.

how to make all those buttons disappear, and become one thing that I press and they all pop up?

[DanH]

Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Notification Area Icons

[Dr Moose]

thanks.

[etech0]

Is there any reason to extend the warranty of my HP computer?

[Dr Moose]

this is not the first time this happened

[shalomh]

this is not the first time this happened

I would start with re-installing the drivers for your wireless card (and Ethernet Port if that's what you are using when getting the blue screen)

Its possible that something in the driver install has gotten corrupted and just hope that its not a hardware issue with the card.

[DanH]

I would start with completely uninstalling the drivers for your wireless card (and Ethernet Port if that's what you are using when getting the blue screen), and then reinstall

Its possible that something in the driver install has gotten corrupted and just hope that its not a hardware issue with the card.

FTFY

[AnonymousUser]

I'm having serious issues, and after spending several hours researching, I'll let the experts chime in.
I bought a refurbished ASUS Vivobook Q301L several weeks ago, and I updated from Windows 8 to 8.1. On Thurday, I put the laptop into sleep. On Friday, I tried waking it up, but it would wake up. I tried rebooting by holding the power button, and that seemed to cause the current problem. When it tries to boot, I get the ASUS logo, then the screen goes blank and just sits.

I tried the following, none of which worked:
System Refresh - gives an error that the drive is locked.
System Reset - gives an error that a required drive partition is missing.
Automatic Repair - error.
System Restore - cannot find a HD
Using bootrec and bcdboot to rebuild the BCD - found 0 Windows installations.

I can boot into Safe Mode, but I can't figure out what, if anything, to do next.
I don't have a DVD drive, or a USB recovery drive. I tried booting from a USB drive into both Ubuntu and Windows 7 recovery, and neither one worked; I got the same blank screen as before, which seems like it tried booting into Windows instead, even though I switched the boot order in the BIOS.
From my research it sounds like the HD was locked since Windows wasn't shut down properly, but I tried everything I could find, and nothing works.
ASUS tech support told me I would have to send it in, but if it's possible for me to fix it, I'd rather do that.
TIA!

[DanH]

I'm having serious issues, and after spending several hours researching, I'll let the experts chime in.
I bought a refurbished ASUS Vivobook Q301L several weeks ago, and I updated from Windows 8 to 8.1. On Thurday, I put the laptop into sleep. On Friday, I tried waking it up, but it would wake up. I tried rebooting by holding the power button, and that seemed to cause the current problem. When it tries to boot, I get the ASUS logo, then the screen goes blank and just sits.

I tried the following, none of which worked:
System Refresh - gives an error that the drive is locked.
System Reset - gives an error that a required drive partition is missing.
Automatic Repair - error.
System Restore - cannot find a HD
Using bootrec and bcdboot to rebuild the BCD - found 0 Windows installations.

I can boot into Safe Mode, but I can't figure out what, if anything, to do next.
I don't have a DVD drive, or a USB recovery drive. I tried booting from a USB drive into both Ubuntu and Windows 7 recovery, and neither one worked; I got the same blank screen as before, which seems like it tried booting into Windows instead, even though I switched the boot order in the BIOS.
From my research it sounds like the HD was locked since Windows wasn't shut down properly, but I tried everything I could find, and nothing works.
ASUS tech support told me I would have to send it in, but if it's possible for me to fix it, I'd rather do that.
TIA!

Upgrading from 8 to 8.1 causes so many issues... oy.
Do you need anything on the drive?
What I would do, is put 8.1 on a USB, wipe the drive clean, and do a fresh-install.
Are you sure you are booting to the USB correctly? You must disable SecureBoot and enable Legacy mode.  You need to change this in the BIOS.  You should be able to access it before Windows loads, if not, run W8 in safe mode, and then look for settings to change UEFI.   It should then restart and show you BIOS settings.

[AnonymousUser]

Upgrading from 8 to 8.1 causes so many issues... oy.
Do you need anything on the drive?
What I would do, is put 8.1 on a USB, wipe the drive clean, and do a fresh-install.
Are you sure you are booting to the USB correctly? You must disable SecureBoot and enable Legacy mode.  You need to change this in the BIOS.  You should be able to access it before Windows loads, if not, run W8 in safe mode, and then look for settings to change UEFI.   It should then restart and show you BIOS settings.

Thanks, I enabled legacy booting, and was able to boot off the USB drive.
I already removed everything that I need, so if a clean install is the way to go, then that's what I'll do. Where can I get an 8.1 image to put on the USB drive?

[DanH]

Thanks, I enabled legacy booting, and was able to boot off the USB drive.
I already removed everything that I need, so if a clean install is the way to go, then that's what I'll do. Where can I get an 8.1 image to put on the USB drive?

check PM.

[churnbabychurn]

Over last two weeks chkdsk ran itself a few times, and also I kept getting C compiler error when running word and excel.
For some reason yesterday word and excel started running fine with no errors.

Does this mean that my hard drive needs replacing?

[DanH]

Over last two weeks chkdsk ran itself a few times, and also I kept getting C compiler error when running word and excel.
For some reason yesterday word and excel started running fine with no errors.

Does this mean that my hard drive needs replacing?

Post chkdsk logs.
Run chkdsk /r as well.

[churnbabychurn]

Post chkdsk logs.
Run chkdsk /r as well.

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7601]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.
 

C:\Windows\system32>chkdsk
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Volume label is OSDisk.
 
WARNING!  F parameter not specified.
Running CHKDSK in read-only mode.
 
CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 3)...
  539648 file records processed.
File verification completed.
  355 large file records processed.
  0 bad file records processed.
  32 EA records processed.
  61 reparse records processed.
CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 3)...
  675924 index entries processed.
Index verification completed.
  0 unindexed files scanned.
  0 unindexed files recovered.
CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors (stage 3 of 3)...
  539648 file SDs/SIDs processed.
Security descriptor verification completed.
  68139 data files processed.
CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
  37758872 USN bytes processed.
Usn Journal verification completed.
Windows has checked the file system and found no problems.
 
499785727 KB total disk space.
  70664548 KB in 459131 files.
    334952 KB in 68140 indexes.
         0 KB in bad sectors.
    659847 KB in use by the system.
     65536 KB occupied by the log file.
428126380 KB available on disk.
 
      4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
124946431 total allocation units on disk.
107031595 allocation units available on disk.
 

[notanonymous]

Over last two weeks chkdsk ran itself a few times, and also I kept getting C compiler error when running word and excel.
For some reason yesterday word and excel started running fine with no errors.

Does this mean that my hard drive needs replacing?

IMO, if the only error message has been the c compiler, then it is unrelated to the chkdsk/possible HD issue.

Whether you have a HD issue...any strange noises?  Other computer issues?  The chkdsk could also be triggered by OS (non hardware) related issues.