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August 3, 2007
Dear CNET members,
Happy Friday! Thanks to you all, this past week we received a lot of great, detailed information and advice to Marlene's question on receiving the message "disk boot failure" when booting up her fairly new PC. As most of you can attest, when these types of issues occur, usually there are many possible contributing factors. And as for disk boot failure--it can range from a BIOS setting issue to a possible failing hard drive, to a loose cable, to many other things. But before I present to you what our members have to recommended, most of our members suggest backing up your important data. I can not express how important this is. So, the next time you are successful in booting up your computer--back it up right then, because you never know if the next time you boot up if that drive will be recoverable. Also, Marlene, because you have a such a young computer from HP, you really should ask them do something about it. I know you are trying to solve an issue by yourself, which is great, but your computer should be under warranty and rather than dealing with this headache yourself, hand it over to them to get it fixed. But if you are the brave one to do it yourself, our members are here to help. So without further delay, here are this week's selected answers to get you started. There is whole lot of additional great advice offered from our members in this week's discussion thread, so please read them all and see if some of these solutions are things you can take on yourself. Good luck, and if all else fails--let HP deal with it under warranty. Take care, everyone and thanks for all your great submissions! Have an awesome weekend!
(Note: I will be taking a week off to spend some quality time with my kids before they head back into the new school year, so there will be no community newsletter next week. However, the CNET forums are always open 24-7 for your perusal. Also, if you want to catch up on some previous community newsletters, we have all of them archived right here. Enjoy, and see you all when I get back!)
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Member Question of the Week
I'm receiving a "disk boot failure" error each day when I try to boot up my desktop. What does this mean exactly? It appears, with rare exceptions, only when the PC is started each morning. Once or twice in the six weeks since I purchased the computer, the error did not appear. If I shut the PC down and restart it, everything appears to run OK. I've run diagnostics on all the hardware, followed the recommendations on the HP site to correct this error, run chkdsk and talked to the HP tech support. The only thing left is to wipe my hard drive and do a system recovery. Before doing that, I need to know if there is anything else I can try. Would appreciate some advice.
Submitted by:
Marlene O.
Vote for the most helpful answer
 Below are the answers we've selected for you to vote on. Click on the title to read the answer by the member.
Here are the selected submissions grouped in one post.
Time to vote! Now that you've read our members' answers, which would you consider the most helpful? Click on the button to weigh in on the decision.
(Note: Below is the section to vote, please read the individual answers above before casting your vote below.)
 Answer by H41N
Answer by Wolfie2k5
Answer by redking44
Answer by qdon
For the member whose answer was voted the
most helpful by our community, we will send
this member some cool CNET branded gear.
 Previous week's Q&AThe votes are in! Below is the answer voted most helpful by our community to last week's question.
First, thank you for this great newsletter and its helpful
members. I was wondering about going through Windows Explorer
and deleting unneeded files. In the past I've done this with
some unfortunate results, creating panic and migraines. So
now I just look at the extensions and figure I'll leave itthem
alone, except many new files are piling up. What is safe to
remove and what isn't? For example, recently I found a folder
"minidump" and extensions .dmp. Is there a list out there so
I know what file types are safe to remove? Others might want
to be guided to removing and lightening up their computers,
too. Is it worth messing with? Any advice on the best
practices of removing unnecessary files would be appreciated.
--Submitted by:
Tom D.
Firstly, what not to delete:
Any file with the following extensions are to be kept: EXE, DLL, DRV, VXD, COM, INI, 386, CPL, INF, OCX, SYS, and some others. There is an exception: INSTALLATION files. Once the program has been installed, the installer may be deleted if you want.
TTF, TTC, FON, and OTF are fonts files and normally in the font folder. Those that are elsewhere are NOT available--delete them or place them in the font folder...
(read more)
Congratulations to the winner!
Community Buzz
 Each week we take a look at topics discussed in the forums.
Have fun and enjoy!
More from the forums
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Check out next week's question:
My wife and I had two laptops stolen from our room in an upscale hotel in Norfolk, Virginia last Saturday night. My question is somewhat open-ended. Is a concern justified for identity theft from the info available on the machine? Having owned the laptops for 1 to 2 years and using them as the primary home/travel computer, it is safe to say that everything was on the hard drive. Not only the 20GB of pictures, nor the finance stuff, or the research database, or all the cookies, etc.; even the money for the cost of the computers is poof--gone. What is the concern that the community would have for such a loss: identity theft, system hijacking, sleepless nights, having to buy new ones, and so on. In the future, in case of another loss, what are some solid security measures I can use to prevent someone from obtaining what I have on my laptops?
Also, is the hotel responsible for replacement? We knowingly closed the door behind us when we went out, only to come back to a door ajar with the laptops/bags gone. We do want the hotel to review the letter that we will be sending to the local newspaper and all the travel magazines, in the event that they deny payment. Any suggestions?
--Submitted by:
Dave of Onancock, Virginia
We feature a new question every Friday, and if you have the answer for our member, you can submit it above. If your submission is picked by our members as the most helpful answer, you'll receive some cool CNET branded gear.
Have a question?
• Multimedia
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How many times have you encountered a computer problem where the only fix was to reformat/restore the hard drive and start over?
(Please click on button to vote) |
Never have
1-2
3-4
5-6
7-8
More than 8 times
| CNET Featured Member |
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User name: hazmike
Location: South Central Missouri
Member since: May 15, 2007
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About me: I have a wife and a baby boy on the way. My home was built in 1904 (dated newspaper as insulation to prove it). I have a boxer/lab mix--110 pounds--and a miniature pinscher--10 pounds. A fat... (read more)
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Simple question, simple answer
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