Computer Help Needed ASAP.

afzoomie67 · #1 12-19-2011, 08:23 PM

Okay, so I really need my computer to work again and I've Googled help and can't find it. But for any TB Guru's, I need you now more than ever.

I just (today) reinstalled Windows 7 on my Dell Inspiron computer, and now when I go to my computer, it comes up with 2 drives. A Recovery (C

and OS (D

. That's how they're labelled. The Recovery drive is full, too, but only has a few folders. Please help me ASAP.

MJ5150 · #2 12-19-2011, 08:29 PM

What is the problem?

-Mike

TheEndIsNYE · #3 12-19-2011, 08:40 PM

Did you set it to Wumbo?

L-A · #4 12-19-2011, 08:44 PM

I'm pretty sure you reinstalled Windows and somehow had it make a recovery partition of your previous installation. However, I don't see the issue in there, apart you possibly flying over something you agreed with too fast, and discovering the result later.

What can we help you with – did something stop working?

afzoomie67 · #5 12-19-2011, 08:47 PM

I just have no free space on my C: drive, so I can't download anything. And the D drive is like..useless. Also, when I did it and finally got my computer, I had no internet browser by default.

afzoomie67 · #6 12-19-2011, 08:57 PM

It says when I tried to download Adobe flash "this is not a valid win32 application" what's that mean? I have 64 bit Windows 7.

fdeck · #7 12-19-2011, 09:12 PM

AFAIK the recovery drive is a way to re-install the OS if something goes wrong with the stuff on your main drive.

**bassybill** · #8 12-19-2011, 10:53 PM

There's a lot of knowledgeable people on TB, but they'd need much more information to be able to help here.

Why did you need to do a reinstall?
What medium did you use to reinstall from? DVD? Or the recovery sector of your HDD?
What backups do you have saved?
Is Win7 the original OS or is it an upgrade to an earlier version of Windows that was originally on your machine?

And so on...

afzoomie67 · #9 12-20-2011, 04:11 AM

I reinstalled because it was slow and constantly freezing. I used the CD it came with. Win7 is the original OS.

i_got_a_mohawk · #10 12-20-2011, 04:31 AM

If you have everything you need, already backed up.

Just do a fresh install.

When you have your hard drives showing up, delete all the partitions and format them (quick should be fine). Reinstall on the single big partition. See what happens.

Without knowing any more, I have to agree with L-A, sounds like you rushed through this without realising quite what you were doing.

jady · #11 12-20-2011, 09:39 AM

Here is your problem, the default boot drive is C:

Somehow you have gotten them reversed, the D: drive should be your recovery partition and will be quite small. If you tryed to re-install Win 7 on the D: drive you would have very little if any space left on it.

Start over, if you have the Win7 DvD the put it in, boot from the DvD and them reformat the drive. Delete both the C: and D: partitions (no need for the recovery partition if you have a physical disk) and create 1 large partition on the newly wiped HD. Install win7 to this new partition (which should be C

and you ahould be good to go.

You will have to visit the manufacturers website to download drivers for the chipset, audio, video, sound,, LAN, etc.........

Good Luck!!!

afzoomie67 · #12 12-20-2011, 06:23 PM

Okay, so here's an update:
When I turn my computer on (from when it's completely off), it loads, and it goes past the Windows logo (the red, green, yellow, blue thing) and than it stops and goes to a separate screen. This screen is black with white writing, and it has 'management' at the top. Than, underneath it, it has "Windows 7" written twice. The bottom one is the previous version I've been using (the one I tried to uninstall, cause it was freezing) and the top one is the one that got installed. It has the two drives C: and D:, and it's essentially useless to me. I don't want the top one, the one I made last night. How do I fix this?

Turock · #13 12-20-2011, 07:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jady

Start over, if you have the Win7 DvD the put it in, boot from the DvD and them reformat the drive. Delete both the C: and D: partitions (no need for the recovery partition if you have a physical disk) and create 1 large partition on the newly wiped HD. Install win7 to this new partition (which should be C

and you ahould be good to go.

You will have to visit the manufacturers website to download drivers for the chipset, audio, video, sound,, LAN, etc.........

Good Luck!!!

There you go. This is what you need to do.

mmbongo · #14 12-20-2011, 07:05 PM

As was mentioned, reinstall. Format all drives when it asks you what you want to do. Sounds like you reinstalled it on top of itself without formatting the drive and now you have two installs.

fdeck · #15 12-20-2011, 07:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by afzoomie67

I reinstalled because it was slow and constantly freezing. I used the CD it came with. Win7 is the original OS.

Some of the earliest computers to ship with Win7 had insufficient RAM, and you might be seeing a symptom of this.

afzoomie67 · #16 12-20-2011, 07:14 PM

I'm going to ask a really stupid question: how do you format and do all that stuff? And my computer is only like..2 years old, I think. Win7 came out awhile ago, I thought?

Selta · #17 12-20-2011, 07:19 PM

Yeah... it sounds like people are giving you sound advice, but advice that is beyond you.
Go through a re-install again. At one point you'll get to a screen that has at the top "Where do you want to install Windows?", and it'll have your drives in a list under that.
Click the "Drive options (advanced)", to get more options on the bottom. Once there, use the delete option to delete all of the partitions there now. After that, it should say Disk 0 Unallocated space. It'll look something like this:

Use the "New" option now, and just select the default options. It may prompt you then that it has to create additional partitions - say OK (perhaps "yes") to this prompt. After that, just click next through to the end and let it do its thing.

Strohsx · #18 12-21-2011, 06:58 AM

You forgot to repartition the drive, make on 30% of yout drive to house the OS and programs and the other 70% for all your data.

Any questions.

Selta · #19 12-21-2011, 09:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Strohsx

You forgot to repartition the drive, make on 30% of yout drive to house the OS and programs and the other 70% for all your data.

Any questions.

Without knowing the actual size of the disk, we cannot say how large to make the partitions. There's really no "need" to make two partitions, either. There are benefits from doing so, yes, but in this case it's just easier to have OP make one large drive to get things working again.

MJ5150 · #20 12-21-2011, 09:22 AM

All partitions need full control, pickles, and DNSPROMO.

-Mike