Help- Computers

[C2 RIBS]

I switched on office system today to see a message
"No bootable device press any key to reset"

Pressing any key brings it back to the same and clearly the system is down. Ideas please before I call the engineers at 9am

[EnglishLes]

It probably means that it is not recognising the hard drive.

Do you have a back up systems disk on a CD/DVD? (You should create one of these every time you install new hardware/drivers.)

If so put this in your DVD drive and try again.

It could be just a loose connection inside the box. All the bits are connected by "ribbon" wires and plastic connectors. It might be worthwhile opening the case up and just giving all of these connectors a wiggle and push in.

Good Luck.

[boristhebold]

First thing to check is look to see if anyone has left a cd rom or dvd in the disk drive, some systems on start up look for a bootable drive which may include looking in that location. So make sure none present.

Then reboot, if problem still exists then it could be a number of things;

1. check cmos settings (usually something like F1 for set up when you power up or F10, depends upon what make of computer. Check hard disk is recognised and is set to boot from hard disk

if not recognised

2. check wiring connections to hard disk and check connections from hard disk to power supply and mother board, could be a loose cable

3. If still not working then could be a hard disk failure

[C2 RIBS]

And to really make my day, if a hard disc failure have I lost everything?

[Anchorhandler]

Originally Posted by C2 RIBS

And to really make my day, if a hard disc failure have I lost everything?

Morning Ian...

No not at all, even if the hard drive has suffered a catastrophic failure there are specialist companies out there that can work magic on them....

Simon

[thomas]

Highly unlikely the disk has failed, when you turn it on, apart form the fan spinning, can you hear the drive spool up? most likely to be a Windows or Bios fault.

[chris.moody]

If you accidentally leave a USB memory stick plugged in, some PC's try to boot up from that instead of the hard drive. Worth checking.

If the hard drive is dead I know a forensic data recovery specialist that I have used on a regular basis who is very good.

[Erin]

Depends whether the hard drive has stopped working or whether it has just got a corrupted boot sector. If the drive still spins up you could put it in another pc and just copy your data off it. The boot sector is repairable with the right CD based software.

[James Slatter]

You probably have it sorted now but like others suggest it could be a USB drive / cd / floppy disc left in the pc that's causing that message. if the hard drive is getting on in age they can stop spinning so a firm bang on the side of the pc can get them going again. Data is normally recoverable unless you are very unlucky.

If you still need help then give me a shout.

[C2 RIBS]

Always knew Ribnet had some clever people- Engineer has reset the system as it was trying to open in another field- yep I have no understanding. So reset and backed up again

Cheers all very much appreciated, thought I had lost everything

[EnglishLes]

Glad to hear it is now working and you haven't lost any data.

You need to consider what would happen if you did lose data.

You should be considering backing up your data as a business contingency whether you do this daily, weekly, monthly etc. and whether manual or automatic needs to be considered.

This needs to be based on could we recover all of that periods work from some form of transaction trail (paper records, memory), how long would that take, what would be the affect on the business in the meantime.

This then needs to be balanced against how long/costly the back-up process is.

Another consideration is where is the backup data held? On-site in a drawer or fire proof cabinet. Could someone take DVDs home? Use a commercial on-line service.

Having had a look at your Web site you seem a pretty big business so no doubt had a business contingency plan in case one of your Ribs catches fire, the office is unusable, a key member of staff cannot work for a long period etc. Computer systems and data should be incorporated into this plan and also maybe covered by insurance.

Cheers

(Ex IT guy for a major UK bank - no data meant no business, look what happened with the RBS a few weeks back)

[jezza2011]

go get a 2TB exterlan usb drive.
back up to that monthly and keep weeky DVD backups of data.create recovery CD's


simples

[C2 RIBS]

Originally Posted by jezza2011

go get a 2TB exterlan usb drive.
back up to that monthly and keep weeky DVD backups of data.create recovery CD's


simples

Yep, engineer has one on order should be here tomorrow. This was I can secure the work , mild panic over

[chris.moody]

Good news that you have not lost anything Ian.

The Operating System and applications are generally not worth backing up unless it's a system that is critical that it's operational 24/7, which I very much doubt is the case.

If so you only need to worry about the data (emails, documents, spreadsheets, accounts, etc) as the other stuff can be reloaded from the original DVDs. You can backup to USB memory stick or external hard drive, just depends how much data you have. You can copy the files across manually but automating the process with a backup application makes it simpler (e.g. A double click on an icon to backup, or scheduled to run at a specific time each day) and more foolproof. If you PM me I will suggest a good backup app that is FREE.

Don't just backup to one external drive or memory stick, get three and backup to them in rotation. And don't keep the backup media in the same location as the PC, take them offsite, as otherwise the fire / flood / burglary will destroy your backups as well as the original data.

If all that sounds like too much effort sign up for a reputable online automatic backup system and let that look after your data backups. Don't bother with the free or really cheap ones, they generally don't work properly when you try to restore from them (I have customers that have been there and done that). We are a reseller for Clunk Click backup from RISC Group and although it costs a few pounds a month it works really well' and your business data is stored in the UK, not in another country so you don't have any Data Protection issues. Your own IT provider will be able to recommend a good online backup system if you want to go down that route.

Glad it all worked out OK in the end, I know that thinking you have lost data is a stressful situation.

[SPR]

I would look at online back solutions

sugarsync give you free 5gb of free on storage

back up - static file to hard drive - photos musice etc
backup ever changing to online system


S.

[boristhebold]

Has anyone noticed something odd about some of the comments, some key words related to it systems seem to be being automatically linked to shopping sites. I mentioned then word mother board in my original post on this subject and I did not link it but it showed up hyperlinked. Is some web crawler or robot doing this ?

Here is a test , words below I have not hyperlinked, so let's see if same happens.

Mother board
Processor
Baked beans
Memory
GB intel chip
Smarties

[SPR]

looks like a bot is auto linking to key words in posts, prob a affiliate scheme or pay per click.

s.

[John Kennett]

Originally Posted by boristhebold

Has anyone noticed something odd about some of the comments, some key words related to it systems seem to be being automatically linked to shopping sites. I mentioned then word mother board in my original post on this subject and I did not link it but it showed up hyperlinked. Is some web crawler or robot doing this ?

The links are added by a program called SkimWords which is one of the ways that RIBnet pays the bills. You'll only see these links when you're not logged in as they are turned off for registered members.