Computer Crashed...big time...Please help!

[Ian Van Houten]

Hello,

I am hoping that someone might be able to help me understand what just happened to my laptop. One moment it was working wonderfully, the next it started keying the letter "O" by itself...and wouldn't stop. I blew out the keyboard, (thought something might have gotten down there and was the cause of this) but still no change. I tried to restart my Vista Ultimate x64, but because it was keying that letter it just kept trying to search. So I had to hit the power button...

This is where it gets weird.

Upon restart, it goes to some sort of recovery wizard. No log-in screen, just this wizard. If I cancelled it, my system would reboot. So, after 6 different cancels / restarts, I tried it. It did a recovery that set up two partitions on my HD, but ERASED EVERYTHING. Anything that was not installed originally on the computer was erased. There are no system restore points (Deleted as well) Don't worry, I back-up fairly often. But I'd like to know what the hell happen.

I have gone through my Event Log, there are somethings that didn't look right, I've googled my little heart out, but still no answers. I just want to prevent it from happening again...

Thank you for your help in advance!

IVH

 

[AstaLaVista]

That's a new one for me too, I'll let the Gurus help you on this one since I have no clue.

 

[bruce2]

Hi Ian Van Houten, welcome to the board.
I am not gurus or expert, but I would guess that you had a stuck key and then you ran the system recovery which restored your computer to the original manufacture state. Is it close enough?

 

[Seelig]

Sounds like you ran the restore image option (the restore image is on a small partition) rather than booting from the Vista CD and running repair and then system restore. It sounds like the system (or you) may have gotten confused and booted from the wrong drive.

 

[Chappy]

Yep...the wizard was asking to perform a system recovery, and now you have the results.
I've seen systems freeze when typing is going on and whatever the last key hit was, it acted as if it were stuck and a hard reboot was required. Usually tho, you get a black window with different startup options and normally the " Start Windows Normally" option would be all that's needed.
Obviously...this didn't happen here.

The wizard may have had the option to "Repair Startup" and you missed it or didn't understand it, but if it was there it would have been the option to use. Good thing you backup...