System 32

[Loonytoon2]

Hi to all
This is only my second time on digital kaos, so be kind.

Recently my PC crashed , losing a lot of info, photos , music etc i have reinstalled a lot of info that i had saved but the man in the shop said the PC had a system 32 failure?
Can anyone tell me what a system 32 failure is, in laymans terms please. Also how i can prevent this happening again?
I had recently installed 1mg bit memory card from PC world, could this have caused the cash?

Any advise will be gratefully recieved

[shady77]

comp bloke sounds like he's making sound scarier than it actually is mate.
system 32 error is a bit vague to be honest.
can you boot to windows? if so grab all your data you need and do a clean install

[Loonytoon2]

Cheers SHADY
The PC is up and running now, but it sounds like i've been taken for a ride by the repair man. Oh well we live an learn

[shady77]

well you've got DK now mate, we'll fix most probs for free

[Loonytoon2]

Cheers Mate

DK is like having a big Bro

[Bobiskey]

System32 problems often come from a file on your harddrive called "System" which is located in "X:\windows\system32\config" folder. A bad block on the harddrive or just file corruption can render a system unable to boot. System restore or any other back up of system state should be enougth to cure this ploblem. Tho thats not a promise, sometimes it isn't.

Prevention.

If you don't have the room to do a full system backup, I would recomend data back up over system state back ups. Think of your data (photos, music, docs and such like) as important data and your system as something replacable. Back up data to CD's/DVD's or to another harddrive or even better, both. Use something like the "Use State Migration Tool" to back up your desktop settings and folders including your "home" folder (X:\Documents and settings\(user name)<-- home folder) and sub folders.
Install recovery console (XP, 2k, 2k3), pop windows CD in drive, go to start/run and type "X:\i386\winnt32.exe /cmdcons" this will give you a new menu option on boot up that can aid in recovery at a later date. For vista just boot from disc and select repair. Both have good command line interfaces to help with system repairs.
Finally, think of what you could lose. If its a picture you storing, print it out(can scan it back in later). Burn MP3 DVD's for music recovery. Have paper copies of important documents, can scan or retype them in if they are lost. These are general rules for disaster recovery, in short they saying "1 copy of something is important is asking for trouble"

X = drive location, change X to drive letter.