Ask A Geek

Q: Ok I have messed up big time. I need help! I was running Windows Vista 64 bit on a Dell studio 1535. I had created a partition off my C drive so I could install Windows 7 64bit. I had set it up to duel boot and everything was fine until I decided to stick with only windows 7.

Not thinking I formatted my C drive and lost my boot files so it wouldn’t load anything. Now all I have to load up is vista 32bit. So when installed runs fine, but cant do any thing really. Can I boot off of my recovery drive some how from 32 bit vista into a 64 bit recovery drive?

Q: Dell xps 400 w/ unmountable_boot_volume however, the disc drive shut off 10 seconds after starting up. I can’t run the disc to fix UBV.

Q: I have been working on this laptop and come to find out that the owner never registered it so now the laptop wont even boot up anymore. When I go to press the F2 or F12 option to try to change the boot sequence the laptop freezes. Now what I did was swap the hard drive because I have the same kind of laptop just an older version of it and the hard drive boots up good in my laptop and my hard drive boots up fine in his laptop. What am I missing? The laptop is a Toshiba Satellite p205 running off of Windows Vista with no updates or service packs.

Q: What is the best way to troubleshoot a PC that won’t turn on? Power Supply is brand new, MB is a year old. I hit the button, hear a small, short whir (it’s not one of the fans) and then silence.

Q: I made a Windows partition on my Mac using Boot Camp. When I restart my computer holding the Alt (option) key to see the partitions so I can select the one I want to boot from I only see my OS X partition. How come the other partition does not show?

A: It sounds like something went wrong while running Boot Camp. I would suggest you rerun Boot Camp to make sure everything is setup correctly. If that does not work then you will want to check out Apple’s Boot Camp support page because it has information on what you should to to make sure you are logged in as the right user and that you have the latest updates.

Q: When turning on my dell desktop dimension 8400 it goes to a black screen after the dell logo page and all there is is a cursor in left corner. I am not able to go to the boot menu or do anything else. I replaced the hard drive thinking that might be the problem but it does the same thing even with new hard drive. Any idea what could be the problem?

Q: I keep getting an error message when I boot up. C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM 32\kglhougi.dll What can I do to fix it?

Q: My computer gave me this error message, however it wont stay on long enough for me to download regcure to run a scan. How do I get it in safe mode or stop the error so I can attempt to fix it? OX0000007B;COXF7868524;0XC0000034;0X00000000;0X00000000

Q: When I turn my computer on I get an error that says “COM plus wizard”. I think it has picked up a virus as the only menu I can access is the ctr, alt, delete menu. How can I restore factory settings and delete all the other stuff that may have caused a problems? I can easily reinstall office and anti virus although a lot of use that has been!

A: The error is probably being caused a program you’ve recently installed.

You can try getting in through safe mode and see if you can do some troubleshooting from there. You can then try to restore from a previous restore point and see if that fixes it. If you’re uncomfortable with any of these steps I would suggest contacting tech support for the computer or if you don’t have any kind of warranty/support to take it to a professional. Read the rest of this entry »

Q: All attempts to remove a serious virus from my computer have failed and I wish to reformat and start from scratch. I would appreciate instruction on how to do this as I have never attempted it before, but at this point I have nothing to loose. Any files I wish to keep have been backed up. I am running Windows XP and have a set of recovery discs if they are required.

I have had no luck with the recovery discs. When I reboot my computer with the recovery discs in Windows just boots up and I am never prompted to start the recovery process. I have not been able to find any  read me files for further info on the discs nor could I find an .exe file to try to run the program.

I would like to just format the hard drive and start from scratch but am not sure how. Also, I wonder if the recovery discs aren’t working for some reason, will I be able to re-install the XP files? These recovery discs were made after I purchased the computer and have never been used before.

A: It sounds like your computer is not even trying to boot from your CD/DVD drive. To fix this you will need to go into your BIOS and change the boot order so that the CD/DVD drive is read before the hard drive. If you do not have it setup this way then it will always boot from your hard drive first and that is why you would end up in Windows instead of in the recovery program.