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Windows 10 crash

shermans
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Registered: ‎07-09-2007

Windows 10 crash

The "crash" was my computer monitor which fell off its stand while I wa strying to clean around it !  Sadly, it bent the HDMI cable plug and pulled all the connector fingers out of the connector. There was no way I was going to be able to put about 20 fingers back in, and so decided to swallow my pride and go and buy a new HDMI cable for £20 from PC World - the cheak !

When i got back and tried to start the computer, Windows 10 automatically went into some "repair" mode, scanning the hard disk while I bit my finer nails.  It started slowly up to about 5% and then went rapidly from 5% to 50% where it stopped again for a good five minutes; the same happened with 51%-55%, and then it ran reasonably quickly up to 100%.

I waited with trepidation while it started up and eventually all seemed to be o.k. - except the audio which uses external speakers.  I fiddled about for some time and eventually discovered that audio settings had changed from audio out to audio in.  When I changed the settings back to audio out, everything worked o.k. as far as I know.

Anyway, my question is what happened and why ?  Was this all associated with ripping out the HDMI cable and re-inserting a new one ?  Am I likely to have done any permanent damage, especially to the hard disk ?  It is all very strange but it seems to working o.k. again now - it took me a good hour of fiddling and hair going greyer than usual to get there though !

4 REPLIES 4
Baldrick1
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Re: Windows 10 crash

@shermans 

My guess would be that during the drop HDMI pins got shorted together causing the software acrew up. It is very unlikely to have of caused any hardware damage so I wouldn't worry about it. However keeping a regular backup of your hard disk should be a basic and regular data protection precaution. It amazes me how many people don't bother then feel hard done to when they lose all their, for example, photos.

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shermans
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Re: Windows 10 crash

Thanks Baldrick1

That is very helpful.

I am very good about backing up all my data regularly (d:), but not my Windows System (C:)  and I pleade guilty as charged.

What is the easiest way to back up the system using either an extrenal hard disk or even DVDs ?  Can you recommend something even an idiot like me can (and will) do ?

Thanks.

Baldrick1
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Re: Windows 10 crash

To be honest I do not keep a back up of my system disk. I use a free application such as Belarc Advisor to extract the Licence Numbers and Activation Codes for all the applications I have installed, this I print out and keep safely. If my C: drive was to fail I would take the opportunity to do a clean install of Windows, I do this periodically anyway. It's a bit of work but cleans out all the old dross and stuff I no longer use. The only thing is that these days you need a decent broadband connection to download the latest versions of programs.

Hard drives are really cheap these days. Rather than backing up a system disk I would simply use a spare disk and clone it using free cloning software. For a system disk you can get a 128GB SSD for under £20. With this and a USB to SATA interface cable (USB3 preferably) you can clone a system disk in a very short time.

If the system disk fails you can use the cloned disk by simply swapping them over.

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Mook
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Re: Windows 10 crash

@shermans Without a monitor on your PC I assume you just turned off the power? If you did then this would explain why it went in to recovery mode when the power was restored.

As suggested by @Baldrick1 as USB disk is your quickest and cheapest option along with a notepad to record program registration detail.

But please tell me you didn't pay £20 for an HDMI cable, Tesco or the other mainstream stores will sell you one for about £5.