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Screwed up

Locked

Somehow.

While running midweek updates and light scans — Security Essentials, SpyBot, Malwarebytes in Safe Mode — I thought to check on flash cookies, while I was at it, using the Run Command, with:

dir /s * .sol

and

del /s /p * .sol

I used to do this regularly, like, once a week or so. Then, I got away from it. When, this time, I checked, there were HUNDREDS! of them. Before, there were only a half dozen or so, and I would manually address the, Delete ? with y, and Enter.

As I physically wore out the y key and the Enter key with glazed eyes, I knew there had to be a better way to rope them all (*.* ?) and hit just one key.

Got it done. Got out of Safe Mode, only to be greeted with a black desktop and the cursor. When I call up Start, I get no icons next to my frugal selections. Oh, and while in Safe Mode, when I selected Run Command again, it was not to be had.

System Restore worked, after a fashion. I ran it to get a time some hours earlier; it worked; but still a black desktop, cursor only…no gorgeous picture.

I’m running W7Pro [WinVer 6.1 (Build 7600)] by means of a full-install disc some months ago, on an Intel 3.00GHz dual-core with 80-gig Raptor, and an NVidia card.

What have I screwed up this time?

___________

Edited to add: all my Firefox bookmarks are gone, too. I had to get back to TR the hard way.

___________

Restarted. I have my icons back (Thunderbird, Firefox, Command Prompt, and WordPad). Still a black screen, though.

I’m going to bed.

Topic

Clarifications

In reply to Screwed up

Clarifications

Bad bad bad Santee

In reply to Screwed up

What about a System Rebuild off the Windows 7 Disc?

Col

Yowza!

In reply to Screwed up

What directory were you in when you did that?

rm -rf, baby.

Although I’m not sure why it would delete anything but sol files (ironic extension, just a bit, in this case), if you don’t add the P switch, you shouldn’t have to confirm each delete.

[edit: If you posted the command exactly as you used it, it might have been that Space between (*) and (.).

See also use of CCleaner to remove Flash cookies. Better Privacy FF extension will also ask to do this every time you close the browser (unless you configure it not to ask every time).

If you haven’t been using the machine a lot, you could try Recuva or Recover Files to get you bookmarks.sqlite back if it isn’t overwritten.

Also, in advance of these terrible occasions we suffer, you can back up your FF profile, or parts thereof, with MozBackUp, or with the FEBE FF extension (see also CLEO for additional extensibility).

I did something similar to what you did Santee…

In reply to Screwed up

But that was years ago. It peeved me off no end. Now, i have eight back ups, one full copy of my “C” drive of which i do manually, the other six are for data and pictures.
Now, back to your whoopsie. Your graphic card might be the culprit here. Download the drivers on another computer and install them. Do a repair with your Win7 disk, that should help you out to get you to Safe mode then see if you can install the graphic card drivers there.
Hope you get your system back.
Now, where did i put that back up drive? 🙂

Ohh, one last thing, if you have over clocked your system you might want to go into your BIOS and select “Load system defaults” and then reboot, it might help you out.

Thank you, guys

In reply to Screwed up

Just back from the shop area. Trying to undo and redo somebody’s work on an old Harley frame. I kept thinking as I worked that the next stop for the frame ought to be a landfill.

I think that is what I must do with my W7 installation — cyber landfill, as in, wipe and reload.

No big loss. Of the few bookmarks I keep, I regularly cull them to five or six. Nor is there data to speak of. Nor keepsakes. I keep this thing as near to a pure, empty conduit as I can…because I can. Hence, the small drive, only a third of it used.

I was getting used to the black desktop. It was like a pretty view outside a window. After a while it’s background and you don’t see it anymore. Black is alright.

If the desktop were all, and repopulating bookmarks were all, I’d be fine. Only, now I discover, NoScript and Adblock are gone, too.

You may be right, Seanferd, about that space. I was clicking y/Enter so many times that I was looking away from the screen. When I looked back, I was about five lines into things that decidedly were not sol files.

Everybody look around where you are. No telling what else I caused to happen.

You wiped your FF profile, at least.

In reply to Thank you, guys

And maybe a bit of your Windows user profile.

Good to hear that it won’t be a major rebuild for you, but since Windows seems to work, all you might need to do is replace the settings missing from Windows (e.g., choose wallpaper again, get shortcuts back into the Start menu) and reinstall your FF add-ons and set preferences.

Pick settings or reinstall, whichever works better for you. I hope it goes quickly, either way.

What’s the issue with Old Bike Frames

In reply to Thank you, guys

Those things should last forever unless that are Chrome Molly and cracked spirally down a tube. Don’t ask how I know about that either. :^0

But just thinking about your situation here have you tried creating a new User Account and seeing if it’s still the same. It could just be some settings in your User Account which can be replaced and then deleted. 😉

Col

In the olden days

In reply to What’s the issue with Old Bike Frames

Harley-Davidson used brazing extensively. Tube junctures, forged appendages — you name it — were joined by flame and brass. Many chrome-plated steel wheelchair assemblies nowadays are joined that way, too. In the case of the wheelchair, the plating hides it. In the case of the Harley, the paint hides it.

Steel (iron/carbon) and brass (copper and zinc) are incompatible at the heat of fusion for iron, i.e., 3000F+, when zinc vaporizes. You can watch the crack following you as you [i]try[/i] to weld. Every molecule of brass has to be removed if you wish to succeed.

This customer, and a previous owner of the frame, both of whom “attempted” welding repairs, were, um, unaware of what is involved. Not the first time I’ve seen this.

No user accounts involved, Col. I just create one big C-drive and let Windows have its way with it, while I run in Administrator mode. Then I guard like a junkyard dog against outside evil.

The dumbass evil in this case, though, was me.

Well to be perfectly honest

In reply to In the olden days

I avoid Harley type things way to arguricial for my liking. So I’ve personally never seen one of those Brazed things in my life. Probably this happens because I had to rebuild a 42 WLA Bottom End once and it just wasn’t my cup of tea.

Anyway if I was looking at some arguricial V Twin it would be one of the old BSA V Twins of the 1930 era. Far more advanced in design that any Harley ever has been to the current day too I might add. [i]That will upset the Harley owners here and probably make Taminkins delete this post as well.[/i] :^0

But every install of 7 has a User Account. It’;s just a matter of making a new one from the User Accounts in the Control Panel and seeing if that makes a difference.

I’ve lost count of the number of times that I’ve seen corrupt Windows User Accounts cause nasty problems like the one you are describing and the simple fix of creating a new user account makes the owner think you are magic. 😀

Col

This is a new word for me.

In reply to Well to be perfectly honest

Arguricial. Can I get a definition? It isn’t supposed to be agricultural, is it? :0

Maybe it’s a new word

In reply to This is a new word for me.

But it’s meant to imply distaste and much worse than [i] agricultural[/i]

:0

Col

Redneck?

In reply to Maybe it’s a new word

Or is that awe+agricultural these days… you know, like bad used to be good.

Take him at his word, Seanferd

In reply to This is a new word for me.

It comes from a Phud in Care and Feeding of the Platypus. Anything would therefore be possible.

Oh, I got the implication, gentlemen.

In reply to This is a new word for me.

But I was looking for something a bit more specific. But no worries. 😉

So, is this what Pharonics Deep Freeze is for?

In reply to In the olden days

User Error, that is? Among others?

Rice Rocket

In reply to In the olden days

Back in the ’70’s, I frequently used to ride past the Cady boys on the side of the road, with their toolkits out, tinkering with their Harleys, trying to get them started after they quit in the middle of the highway.

Their motto was “I’d rather push my Harley than ride a Honda.”

I just keep riding my old Kow, and she just keeps running.

I got a bike to ride, not play roadside mechanic on the freeway…

Up and online

In reply to Screwed up

Except for Thunderbird server settings and port numbers. They always give me fits.

Nice to know you are back online…….NT

In reply to Up and online

..

Coolness.

In reply to Up and online

Here’s the thing with email clients:

Once you have the server settings from your ISP, enter them. After you enter them, check them again! Sometimes the client wants to pick a default port when the default port (for, say, SSL secure connection on SMTP) is non-standard. Also, check your User Name for POP/SMTP/IMAP or whatever after entering you Account Name, because this will change your necessary User Name sometimes. (What do you mean username and password invalid!?!)

Also, I’ve never figured why in some clients the SMTP settings are off as a separate entry, buried somewhere, away from individual account settings where the POP3, etc., config is located.

PS – you can back up your T-Bird config with TEBE, which is like FEBE, and you can get that at the developers site, as it is still in beta, but seems to work just fine.

Server settings

In reply to Coolness.

They are like the clocks I have. Too dangerous here to wear a wristwatch (or anything on my wrists or fingers), so I have battery clocks strategically located all over the place. Turn one corner, and another comes into view. They only need attending once or twice a year. Comes that I can never remember what’s what, so I keep a paper file dedicated to nothing but clock owner manuals, including the whiz-bang gizmo on my bicycle that needs attention once in a while.

Like the paid version of MalwareBytes I just now re-registered — paper file of the ID and Key.

I write all this down with a goose-quill.

I, also

In reply to Server settings

do it that way. Anything else is just gravy.

I’m not so much into reinstalling my own systems so much, these days, but I still keep ink and paper notes.

Atomic Clocks

In reply to Server settings

reset themselves.

Toss the manuals and look it up online if you can’t figure it out when you change the batteries every 3-5 years.

🙂

Insert your Acronis boot disk.

In reply to Screwed up

Navigate to your backup on your secondary drive and restore to your C drive, including the boot sector. It should take roughly 10-15 minutes if all you have is a bare minimum on your computer.

:0

I was, like

In reply to Insert your Acronis boot disk.

Eighteen or nineteen when I delved — big-time delved — into the meaning of, “administrate”.

This was before computers.

You don’t know

In reply to I was, like

how close I’ve come to sending a new copy of Acronis to you. It saves SO much aggravation. What’s stopped me is that old ‘lead a horse to water’ thing.
As it is now, I had to snicker, just a little.
Cuss me all you want.

Cussing you

In reply to You don’t know

Would be to cuss a warrior.

Don’t cuss me, neither.

You’re part of the solution, you ask me. (Edited)

In reply to Cussing you

Not part of the problem.
Sometimes I do have ‘pet names’ for you, none of which I’d be afraid to say to your face, no matter how you were kitted out. I can be creative too.
http://tinyurl.com/35rs265 😀

Edit: I have noticed that my creativity and admonishments become much more friendly when my friends are carrying multiple deadly weapons. Weird how that happens.

Creative, huh?

In reply to You’re part of the solution, you ask me. (Edited)

My wife, when she was in the states on exchange, took dumbf-uck and wed it to god-damn.
She says she got a lot of stunned silences with that one.

Ron; that same psychological mechanic, working in reverse, explains why people talk so much shilt on the interweb – thinking themselves out of range.

Yeah, I’ve heard it said the we aren’t people behind our screen names.

In reply to Creative, huh?

We are, with all of the emotions that we exhibit in real life. The biggest difference here is that we can pause before hitting ‘Submit Post’, creating an online persona that may or may not be what we are IRL.

The pause is like having brain in gear before talking. Sometimes we do. Other times we don’t GAF. Sometimes we don’t GAF what we post either. At least sometimes I don’t.
I have a longish motto that I’ve chosen as my own.
You don’t know me.
You don’t know who I am.
You don’t know the pain that I’ve been through.
So don’t judge me,
until you stand where I stand.
I don’t need you or anyone else to approve,
because the blood in these veins is tried and true.-Montgomery Gentry
I generally always have an attitude. We all do. I express mine as I see fit.

The thing about people on line

In reply to Creative, huh?

there are a lot of people that are not pleased with themselves or who they are, so they pretend to be something they are not when hiding behind the computer screen. I recognize that happens a lot. I also recognize that someone can’t pretend forever, and if they regularly come to a community such as this, people will see through them.

Some are more abusive, some pretend to know more than everyone else, some are both.

Then there are others that use the computer in place of a phone to communicate with people they have come to know over the years and have grown to consider friends.

And then some just show up here, briefly.

In reply to Creative, huh?

They explain how their computer screwed up and they’re without backups for their ‘irreplaceable’ files. There will be one along any moment now.

We’ll never get to executing the master plan when we keep getting disrupted

In reply to Creative, huh?

…like that.
I say we push for an OS with an undo-button for all actions. Including power-on and file system changes.
So what if it needs a 100Tb HD, storage is cheap!

Ron you forgot the ones

In reply to Creative, huh?

Who have forgotten their Passwords.

Lots of them and they appear far more often than those who have screwed up their computers. 😀

Col

Computers do

In reply to Screwed up

exactly what they are TOLD to do.

This may or may not be what you WANTED them to do…

😉

[Author]

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