On 31/10/15 22:50, Charlie Pridham wrote:

"Jeff Layman" wrote in message
...
On 31/10/15 10:48, Nick Maclaren wrote:
On 10/31/15 10:22, Charlie Pridham wrote:


I guess it might be possible to take out the hard drive and put it in a
powered external case with a USB connector, and use another PC to try to
read the disk contents and get anything of value off.

--

Jeff

I have made a note of the other suggestions.

I do have an external hard drive caddy and yes my lap top reads all the
files fine

That's good news.

I have tried my own recovery disk which boots the machine up but it still
wont do a system restore (although I may try again)

Do try the command sfc /scannow (the space between the "c" and the "/"
is essential) at the console (or dos prompt, or whatever it's called in
Vista). If the machine won't boot properly, try booting into Safe Mode
and trying the command. If the system USB drivers are corrupt, sfc
/scannow may be able to fix them.

I expect it may seem perverse to want a machine to run on Vista, which
although I much prefer it to windows 8 or 10 I would I know get used to the
latest version eventually! But Vista runs my Label station printer software
which neither newer version does without modification, i.e. I can run the
printer on newer software but that means redoing 3,500 individual plant
labels.

Not at all perverse - in my opinion Win8 and Win10 are to be avoided. I
won't be downgrading my half-dead Win7 laptop to Win10 anyway. As it
happens, I do everything under Linux now.

I'm surprised that you will have to redo the labels. Can't the
manufacturer of the program/ printer help out with any conversion
necessary? Anyway, redoing 3500 labels shouldn't tax you too much. When
I visited Roseland House earlier this year you seemed to have all the
time in the world, Charlie. ;-)

--

Jeff