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Laptop issues, please help!


Kccitystar

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Well, I've had a few troubles with my laptop, and this is probably the one issue where I'm guaranteed to switch to linux.

I have McAfee Antivirus installed, DC++, MS Office and basically all of the default software that came with my laptop. Anyway, I was busy on AIM chatting with my friends and I was in the process of deleting some pictures taken from my digital camera, and my laptop just froze. I restarted my laptop only to find out none of my icons show and my taskbar is GONE. I'm talking about a flat out generic desktop background. I'm talking about the stupid hilltop background when you first install windows XP. (then again I've had that for a while)

I've tried everything from System Restore to manually launching Explorer but nothing launches, and nothing happens.

Any suggestions would gladly be appreciated.

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They should have given you an OEM windows CD that supposed to onl;y work on your machine. My bro has a Dell laptop, He got one with his. Phone Dell, they'll probably mail you one, but that will probably take some time.

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something similar happened to my laptop once. it just froze up, and then no matter what, everytime i rebooted it, it was just the background with no icons, or taskbar...nothing....

it was running windows media center edition (i think), but what i did to fix it was to restore the system with the system restore cd's that came with it...

since you don't have those i'm not sure what you should do.

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ok what u can do...

have you tried Safe Mode?

have you contacted Dell?

for future reference do ensure that the product your getting has an OS Install disc!

my suggestion for the interm is just DL a copy of XP SP2 for now, if your desperite

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You can reinstall windows. You need to either make the CD (they include a CD creator) or use the recovery partition (I believe you punch F11 right after the bios screen).

Could be an HD error that caused the laptop to basically dump explorer, OR a virus. Can you launch internet explorer from task manager? If so type in control panel in the address bar, go to add/remove programs and remove McAfee. Then go to free.grisoft.com and download AVG free and install it. Update it, then perform a full system scan. As for recovering explorer you may need to find that app to create the windows install CD so you can run recovery console in the windows setup and reinstall explorer.

Reason why I'm saying this is McAfee can be crap sometimes. Someone here at school I know had McAfee on her system and she got a virus. It activated, sent copies of itself through the whole school network to everyone on her AIM buddy list and IT shut down her port to stop it (she had to go get it reactivated later). Finally McAfee woke up and said "heeyy.... you got virus! What do you want to do?" Then "Oh, sorry, can't remove it!" - I'm loosely paraphrasing what it did I use AVG free and when the virus came over the network to me it stopped it cold and killed it.

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PC manufacturers are required by law to provide a copy of either the original CD (in your case, a retail version of XP) or a restore disc, like OEM companies usually do. If Dell didn't provide you with a restore disc (make sure it's not lying around with the paperwork they'll have dumped on you), you have a legitimate beef with them.

Sounds like Jay has the one you should have.

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there should be a restore striped on the hard drive. no physical cd but what looks like an extra HD on your laptop thats usually where the restore files are. most companies don't include physical discs anymore- it's all stored like i just mentioned- theoretically it's "safe" but can screw up. if not- try hirens boot see if that helps. google it.

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