ARG, THAT'S THE THIRD FREAKING COMPUTER THAT'S DIED ON ME! AND THIS ONE'S NOT EVEN A YEAR OLD!

No, seriously, it's royally skrewed. You know those first couple of screens where it momentarily pops up system info and where you can go into system setup if you hold the Delete button? Yeah, it locks up there.

Left for work last night, and had the new episode of "Light in the Sky" uploading to YouTube. Came home from work and found that it locked up somewhere during upload. I got a moment of mouse cursor movement, but otherwise it was completely unresponsive. Forced a reboot, it asked if I wanted to go into safe mode, I figured "eh, I've never had to before". It got as far as that rainbow Windows logo before locking up again. Forced a reboot, got the starup repair thingy, froze during startup repair. Forced another reboot, and you know where I am. If I'm lucky, I can get it to try loading startup repair again. However, at this point, I severely doubt that it has anything to do with startup.

I got this computer last September, so if I'm lucky, it's still under warranty. Also, if the hard drive isn't too damaged, I might be able to recover a few important files. Otherwise, I've lost three LPisodes in which I was co-opping a game with fellow Magonian Lantis, as well as all the special edits (such as text boxes and the opening sequence). Everything else, no big deal if I lose them. I had already uploaded the newest episode of "Light in the Sky" to Viddler, so I can just recover that when I'm back on track.

Needless to say, I won't be recording any new LPs for a while.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, I'm sitting on my grandparents' computer at the moment. They haven't woken up, yet. I can just imagine the reaction my grandpa will have once he hears that I've lost yet another computer.

You really seem to have the worst luck with computers, don't you. I seem to be that way with PS3s (I've been through 2 of them and had taken them apart and repaired them myself), yet my original 360 is still running like a champ... not to mention that I bought it used to begin with. But yeah, I don't understand why you've been having such a hard time... you've always seemed to take proper care of your PC. I've had the same PC for about 5 years now (upgrading it as bigger and better things come out) and it never has given me an issue... and that's even after ripping it clean apart to try and get it all fitted in a fish tank and trying to submerge it in mineral oil.

As for your data, it's fine. Worst case scenario, you can either buy an adapter to get the data off, or you can mail me your drive and I'll pull it off for you and send you the files. But there's a few things you can try. Firstly, if it is hanging up before it even tries to boot the OS, then there's a good chance that there's not a thing wrong with the hard drive at all. First thing I would do is reset the BIOS to default. There are two ways to do this. There's sometimes a jumper on the motherboard you can use to do it. And the easier way is to look for a round disc-shaped battery and just pull that out for a while. The capacitors on the motherboard will still hold a charge for a while, so you may have to leave the battery out for a few minutes. But once you throw it back in, the default settings will be back in effect and that could clear up the problem.

I wouldn't worry about running that repair process as I've truthfully never seen it work. If there's a "last known good configuration" I'd try that... but I don't remember if that's in Windows 7 or not as I've yet to have it crash on me. As for what safe mode is, it's the operating system running on the bare minimum. It loads just what it needs to get to the desktop. And sometimes if something is crashing your computer, you can go into safe mode to delete/uninstall it so you can boot normally again.

So yeah, I'd suggest resetting your BIOS and try just booting normally or if there's a last good configuration option.

I'm going to start off by saying that you should try whatever Lantis is telling you first before you go and make the decision to jump to Mac, and I'll explain why.

While I like Mac computers, there's some things you'll lose with a move to it, but it's pretty good overall and has its advantages and disadvantages over a PC. First of all, make sure you know what you want to do as far as Windows is concerned. Do you want to use a virtual machine or do you want to Boot Camp? If you're going to be a more avid Windows user, go Boot Camp. If you get the current iMac, if you get the cheapest one, you will have a 21.5" screen, 4GB of memory and 500 GB of HDD space. If you go up a bit, you'll have the same screen size, same memory, but 1 TB of HDD space. You can always upgrade your memory if you like. Now, select one based off of how much data you think you're going to save. Get an external hard drive, too.

When you Boot Camp, you will be given an option of how much hard drive space you want to partition and give to Windows. 32GB is the highest you can go to stay in FAT and share information easily between the two operating systems. Anything higher you will have to use NTSC. But that's fine, really. If you have an external, sharing info shouldn't be a problem as it should be able to work on both. I'd say split it more in favor of which OS you will use more, but don't give it all to windows or you might not be able to boot or upgrade your OSX. Once you figure that out, put Windows on your computer. I would tell you to be sure to read instructions on how to use the new Boot Camp as the new OSX does not have a CD in order to install Mac drivers, so I don't know how it works anymore.

As far as everything else goes, I'm going to give you a fair judgment of Apple and tell you some things to get for a Mac that aren't Apple products. First off, find a third party keyboard that will work with Mac. It will cost less and work just the same. If you have a USB keyboard from your old computers, then keep that for use with Windows if you like, but it's not too hard to go between the two with the same keyboard. However, this is only if you want the number pad, as for some odd reason, Apple decided to stop making keyboards with number pads (I believe). Ok, never mind, just checked and they do. However the iMac computers seem to come without the number pad. But if you're fine with that, no skin off your back. Another thing too is that customizing your Mac or getting it fixed will require you to go to an Apple store to get it looked at and fixed. And you'll have to set up an appointment at the "Genius Bar". Another problem (to me) is the damn App Store. Pretty much if want any programs, you will have to go through the App Store to get it, as everything is going digital now, with no buying of the hard copy for back up. Also, there are more applications/programs on Windows than Mac. But they're slowly bringing more to Mac.

However, Macs aren't all bad. I can list some good things about it, but I've kinda droned on. In any case, if you're going to be using Windows more often, then it's no big deal. You can reinstall all the programs you have or had (if any provided a CD/DVD, then you can use those). I don't know some basic things I may have forgot, but if you have questions about Macs you can ask me or Thutmose about them. He would probably know more technical stuff than I do since he plays with them a lot more than I do.

In any case, sorry about your computer. I hate when they die. But do follow Lantis' advice first before you put your money on a Mac. They are expensive. I believe that you can make monthly payments on them, but I'm not entirely sure about it. I would check with Apple about it first, if you want to go that route and can't afford it up front. I had to use some extra loan money to buy mine. So, yeah, check into all of that stuff Lantis talked about and if you need to know anything else about Macs, holla.

I'm about to get in contact with the people who made this computer. I would like opinions/advice on the e-mail I'ma bout to send them.



What I'm concerned about most is whether mentioning that I can't afford a new machine is neccessary, and if I am allowed to ask for an extended warranty. Of course, any other advice is welcome.

I wouldn't change a thing.

Sent. Thanks to here and the chat.

For those who weren't in chat at the time, it turns out that the issue was simply a bad RAM chip. I removed it, and my computer's working just fine. Not enough to work on videos, but I'll be back to that in a week.

Just as well. Turns out that I didn't have any warranty, anyway.

Also, I'm buying an external hard drive for backup.

I'm glad it was something as simple as that. Though it's still weird that it would lock up as such random times... sometimes during bios and sometimes after windows had been running for a while. I've seen bad ram cause a lot of different problems, but not that. Good to know though.

Anyways, you can easily just grab another stick, slam it in and be right back up to where you were before all this. And the best part is that ram is fairly cheap these days.