Hey guys, yesterday I plugged in my ipod and it awas syncing like usual and all of a sudden my computer restarted. Once it restarted, and I logged into windows nothign happened except the start menu showed but none of my icons on my desktop or anything loaded. So then I restarted my computer again and since then I can't GET past the Windows load screen (where the bar moves across the screen). WHENEVER it gets to that part and it looks like windows is going to load my computer just restarts. Is there ANY possible way of saving anything? I'm so dumb and I didn't back up my beloved photos of when I went to spain and if I lose those I will literally freak out. Also all my college papers were also not backed up, i'm soooo dumb. Anyway.. .. any help would be appreciated, thanks!The hard drive may well still be intact. Before you do ANYTHING to try to fix it, can you backup the data you need? Either have a friend put it in their computer as a slave drive & save the data to a CDR, or boot into safe mode and copy files to a pen drive, or boot with a Live  Linux CD and copy the files to a networked computer that could similarly store them? Several options to consider.

It is more likely that you have a spyyware/adware/virus problem or something OTHER than a hard drive failing, if it boots at all. Trying to fix it before you save your data could result in data loss. Just to be sure.....I don't know much about computers but if I disconnect my hard drive and make it slave on my friends computer, it could potentially save the files? All I care about are the files thats all, its a crappy old computer and I need a new one anyway, but I just want my files. Is it really just that simple? Just unplug and plug? thanks so much for our help! The thing is I can't even get into safemode on my computer  to do anything, it just keeps restarting. when I try safe mode it loads intil "Mup.sys" and restarts. thanks for your help!That's about it, but your hard drive must be jumpered as slave, and the other computer's hard drive must be jumpered as master. He should then check in his (or hers) machine to make sure both drives are showing.

No doubt your operating system may be shot, but the data files (what you are trying to save) should still be intact. Once you get it running in the other machine, just burn them off to a CDR. Your stuff will probably be on the D Drive in My Computer, but it may be assigned a different drive letter. You'll be able to see it because the icon will look exactly like the C Drive.

Feel free to post back if other questions.

Thanks so much for your help! If my windows account is password protected, and also privacy protected from other accounts (aka if you try to view my documents and stuff from another user account then it won't let you ) will that give problems? or should it just show up as a drive that has ALL my files. thanks so much again!It should be a drive that has all the files, though you may have to navigate around to find them, but you will never know until you hook it up. Was this drive formatted as FAT32 or NTFS, if you know?

Do you have the password(s) necessary to retrieve the documents? (I am assuming they are Word files that were encrypted.)i really don't know how they were formatted (fat32 or whatever)0 does that make a difference? the only password protected thing was my user account on the windows startup screen, however I made it so only that user could access those files, i forgot how but i clicked on the folder then folder options, then somehow protected them, would that  make a difference? if possible could you possible walk my friend and I through the master slave thing (with dumby talk) we dont' really know how to do it and there's not one else that can really help. thanks again for all your time.There are three sets of two pins on the END of the drives where the cables plug in. If you are lucky, they will be MARKED MA (master),SL (slave) or CD (cable select).

The drive from your machine should have the jumpers on the 2 pins for SL, your friend's machine must have the 2 pins jumpered on MA.

DO ALL OF THIS WITH THE MACHINE UNPLUGGED!

Turn on your friends computer after connecting the data cable (the flat grey one) to both drives. The red strip along one side goes nearest the 3 prong power plug. It does not matter which of the plugs you use for which drive. You do not need to mount the drive in the case for this procesure, just make sure it is in a  secure spot.
Make sure each drive has a data cable and a power plug in it.

Boot the machine, and go into the BIOS/setup (It should tell you what key to press to get there.) Make sure both drives are recognized, then exit/save from that and restart the machine.

If you wire it wrong it won't hurt anything. It just won't work. Go to My Computer and navigate to your old drive and see what you can access.Hey GX1 Thanks so much for your hlep, I have good news and bad news. the good news is I followed your instructions and got into my hardrive and I can see all my accounts and everything. However, like I said before, I denied access to anyone but the user that's loggged in, for the files I REALLY need. is there anyway I can hack this, or do ANYTHING to retrieve these access denied files, I wish windows would just let me enter a password or something because I'm so close to getting them back! Thanks!I DUNNO, unless you create a user that is exactly like your previous user name and get in that way. If not, and no one has any ideas, you can call a professional service. Expensive, but they could do it. Good luck!