What an unbelievable crock

[Paul G]

Having used my Vista pc a few hours ago, I started it tonight to be greeted with a worrying message

Windows Resume Loader

The last attempt to resume the system from its previous location failed. Attempt to resume again?

And two options:

Continue with system restore
Delete restoration data and proceed to system boot menu.

Ok none of these options makes any sense to me so I'll just go with the default and see what happens. Evidently nothing. The keyboard isn't responding. What the fu???

So once again I'm turning to my Macs to help out this garbage. Ah i see an easy solution. Simply plug in your old PS2 keyboard and like magic you will be able to select the option. My what?

Who the **** writes this garbage? Absolutely beyond my imagination I can tell you! And that stupid green thing they insist on giving you with every wired mouse of course even though I must have a billion of those and saw one recently like a few days ago, do you think I can now find any of them?

I read through other posts and one suggestion was to simply restore the BIOS and reformat the hard drive. Excuse me? Ah I see because obviously I'm such a geek that it gives me great pleasure in dumping my entire installations and hundreds of hours of graft, for the pleasure of pee-ing around with a defective OS. If that's the only solution my simulator days ended today!

Any suggestions welcome. But spare me any more sarcasm than I've included here. My sense of humour has taken a short break.

Thank you

Paul

[Michael Carter]

I'll try and spare you the sarcasm.

Do you have a working keyboard plugged into the PS/2 port? You've tested it right? On another system? It works absolutely right?

If it works, now you say the keyboard doesn't respond after the boot option appears? Is that right?

If so, your only option may to re-load Windows.

Before you do that though, do you have a CD of your operating system? Is your BIOS configuration setup to boot from a CD first before it goes to the C: drive?

It is possible to perform a partial restore or a 'fix' if you have this disc without wiping the entire drive and reloading.

[Paul G]

Ok I have it working. I turned my place upside down and found a USB-PS2 adaptor. But then my backlit keyboard didn't work. Figuring that I probably needed a lower power keyboard, I found one literally caked in dust, but one of the first USB ones. I bought it when a motherboard years ago suddenly decided it wasn't recognizing PS2 any more. Ironic to say the least.

Anyway plugged in and hit Return, all seems ok and it's good to know I have a solution to one of Vista's many many issues. Still a crock but so long I can fly I'm vaguely satisfied. Just glad this wasn't one of the more intense soutions that I read.

Paul

[Paul G]

Before you do that though, do you have a CD of your operating system? Is your BIOS configuration setup to boot from a CD first before it goes to the C: drive?

It is possible to perform a partial restore or a 'fix' if you have this disc without wiping the entire drive and reloading.

Thanks for this. I think this is good pro-active thinking. Unfortunately while I think I dedicate enough of my time to forward planning and disaster aversion, there's little similarity between what I prepare for and what goes wrong.

You have reminded me that my BIOS does go straight to HD now, and changing this back would probably be a good idea. Problem on this occasion is that the computer wasn't even allowing me to go into BIOS. My keyboard usually works at that point. Nasty issue but now I'll have to keep my old basic keyboard just in case the movie "Piss Paul Off - 2" is ever released.

Good to know that some people think clearly when others are in complete panic.

Cheers

Paul

[Michael Carter]

Glad everything is stable now.

Don't count the old keyboards out. I'm typing on an 18 year old refurbed Model M IBM 'clicky' keyboard. I wouldn't have it any other way.

You still have to plug the cord into this one and then into the computer. ;)

[AndyT]

I remember way back when.... Hmmm... all the way back to Win 3.3 A friend of mine had just bought his first computer and one day it booted to a black screen with a flashing white dot in the lower left corner. He called me up all freaked out and had no idea of what to do. I told him type 'win' then hit enter. He was suprised and amazed at my level of computer skill. LOL

Needless to say, the more advanced the OS gets, the harder it is to fix it. Windows has its problems, but so does anything. We just have to learn to be calm and not throw the baby out with the bath water when it happens.

[Michael Carter]

But he did have the 5-1/2" floppy in the drive didn't he for the OS?

I remember a Seargent bringing his computer to work one day at the shop on a weekend when 12 hour shifts started. He had some form of FS on it but I'm not sure what it was. The grass was green and the sky was blue and there was a rudementary runway...and I crashed a lot.

The computer still needed to be booted from a big floppy disc, must have been about 1982 or 1983.

[Paul G]

We just have to learn to be calm and not throw the baby out with the bath water when it happens.

Ah yes easy with hindsight LOL. But my frustration is that Windows SHOULD be easier. Flipping Macs are Unix systems, notoriously unfriendly by their nature. But Apple understand that the success of an OS depends on many factors, not just the functionality. There's plenty that drives me nuts with those too but overall they seem to get it right.

One of the biggest frustrations is when things suddenly stop working as in this case. I always used to ask "how the heck do normal people deal with this?" I have no hesitation in using the word 'normal' here knowing that I'm in company of many who don't consider themselves as such LOL.

[warvet]

Sorry for laughing Paul my good mate, but I could just see you sitting in your beautiful little fighter sim all nestled in and reading that on tthe screen. Your face turning red in contrast with the blue joystick and the seat getting stuck and you blowing a fuse LOL :)

Glad its working now mate

Tim

[XOrionFE]

In all seriousnous this could have obviously turned into a nightmare. I am in the infrastructure and security business and for any of our systems there is obviously a lot of setup and configuration as well as keys that in a disaster would take a long time to get back running correctly. In business and at home I use one product that keeps my mind at ease. It is from Symantec and it is call Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery. There is a Server and a Desktop Edition.

http://www.symantec.com/business/products/purchasing.jsp?pcid=pcat_storage&pvid=1601_1

This is really great software that allows you to image your entire drive and in the event of a meltdown you can restore the image to a completely different system if you want. This is also great if you plan to upgrade your system or get a bigger drive and dont want to go through the hastle of reinstalling and configuring everything. I have seen entire servers including servers with Exchange or SQL running on them restored within an hour (depending on amount of data of course). It is not Ghost (for those of you familiar with Ghost). This software is not intend for duplicating computers like Ghost is but instead it is purely a disaster recovery/business continuity product. You image to other media such a networked drive or USB attached storage device. You can then create a bootable rescue cd that together with data can get your system up and running all by itself in no time flat.

There is another similiar product from a company call Acronis.

Take a look. I run a whole datacenter and this has saved my butt many times. I believe there is a trial download available.

Scott

[venenoso]

my way.. is to have another HD and all "important" stuff is placed there and runs from there , in FAT32 so can run vista or better XP. so if I had to recover or delete or format the OS my information is backup.
regards

[yoss]

There is another similiar product from a company call Acronis.

Take a look. I run a whole datacenter and this has saved my butt many times. I believe there is a trial download available.

Scott

Confirm that Acronis is exelent piece of software and saved my instals many times.
I have entire two hdds backuped ,so alway possible in a hour or two to restore the comp to working stage , even if the boot was impossible
Of course you will have to reserve enoght space on additional hdd
No more reinstalls what so ever for me , and i learned that hard way :D