Just hardboot your system man... then when it starts up you should get some options to selected... just go in like you did... finish coping and then install... it all gui so you shouldn't have much problems... the system can update itself and generally you shouldn't have to many problems with rebuilding your kernals :p I personally would download a copy of Windows XP and install it fresh then install unbunta as an alternative... you still have your XP code right?

I got this computer in 2004 and I've moved 2 times since then. I have no idea if I can find my XP code at all.


I looked up my problem online, and found somebody with the same problem. They said they just rebooted a couple times and then it magically worked. It worked for me too. Now I'm grabbing my last folder and starting this bitch over.

For now I'm just partitioning my disk into one big fatty since I can't reinstall Windows now anyway. If I ever find my Windows disc and I want to dual boot with Windows later on should I partition it differently?

yep. I like to have a WINDOWS partition of 5 gigs or so and then a CRAP partition where I keep all my music, movies, and other random crap. That way if WINDOWS bombs, then I can just reformat windows and all my media and music and crap remains intact.

sound advice already here. Did you try using the Windows Restore tool yet? If it set a date previous to when your problem started, you can just roll back to that.
Also, best anti malware too is Malwarebyte's AntiMalware. Free to use forever, and does a great job.

I tried to install Ubuntu a few times in a row, and each time it gave me an error and told me I should find out if my CD/DVD is dirty, my CD/DVD drive is faulty or needs professional cleaning, or if my hard drive is dead and needs replacing.

So I tore apart my apartment and found my Gateway Restore DVD for Windows XP from 2004. I restored my shit to 2004 style. I couldn't for the life of me get it to connect to the internet. I found my install CD for my wireless card and installed the drivers, and Windows could detect my router and told me it had 64% signal strength, but it still claimed the wireless card was somehow not connected. I uninstalled and reinstalled and tried every configuration I could think of, to no avail.

So I plugged in an ethernet cable and got online. I went to Windows Update and instead of updating directly to Service Pack 2 I installed some other crap first. As soon as the updates finished my computer rebooted over and over and over again. As soon as the Windows startup sound ended, it would go black, go to bluescreen of death, and reboot, all super fast before I could read anything, and it did this repeatedly until I unplugged it.

I waited a minute, plugged it back in, and it immediately booted itself up like a zombie computer, and got back into the reboot loop. I put the Ubuntu disc back in but it still wouldn't load Ubuntu. I put the Windows disc back in, reformatted/restored the entire thing again, and installed Windows Service Pack 2 and then Windows Service Pack 3.

I haven't had any problems and I'm copying all my badass files back onto here. I just gotta find out how to get online without this annoying ethernet cable across the living room.

Thanks everybody for your kind words and encouragement during these hard times.



tldr; My computer is back. BQQYAH.

        Congrats on getting everything back up. Is everything working good now? Hey, wait! I though Mac were suppose to be "virus proof". I guess nothing can help you, when you're looking at short-haired pagan gaming porn! Out of curiosity, where were you in Japan and why?

My PC was the one that died on me. I was just using my wife's Mac until I could get the PC back up and running. Now that she'll get her Mac back to herself I gotta delete all the pagans I left on there.

In August 2007, I bought a new Leica D-Lux 3 camera and then I spent 3 weeks traveling around Tokyo, Hiroshima (for the anniversary of the bomb), Miyajima Island, Kyoto, Mishima, Mt. Fuji, Osaka, Matsushima, and back to Tokyo to go to Puroland. I was working 2 jobs while I was at community college and I saved up money for years, then in the summer before I went back to a university to finish up a degree, I bought myself a plane ticket and one night in a capsule inn in Shinjuku, Tokyo, and just went alone with no plans and no maps. Every day I hopped online, found somewhere interesting to go, ate the weirdest stuff I could find (and photographed everything I ate for all 3 weeks), got on a train, met people, took pictures, and tried to find a place to sleep. I crashed in capsules, trains, ryokans, hotels, hostels, and internet cafes across the country, met some friends who let me crash in the living room of their house in Kyoto, and slept one night in the airport. It was the best 3 weeks of my life and I brought back 10 gigs of photos and videos, and a sexxee gold pouch for my DS. And I ate fugu and it was delicious.

no plans and no maps!!! That's crazy cool. Makes me think of the movie Into The Wild, in the way that Chris McCandless knew that it was trip he had to make and just when and did it. I thought it might have been for a job. I've had to travel a lot for jobs in the past. I always find it interesting how there's stuff to do that locals just seem to take for granted. Do you at least speak fluent Japanese? You would think, you would need to, to be on your own and get around like you did. I mean you really went all over the place.

There might be some bad sectors on your HDD. Could be that's the reason why your windows got killed and whatever filed involved.

Once you're used to ubuntu, you'll hate booting up windows, which takes way longer to boot up.