Did you see the red furry ball!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Lackey]

yes it is a usb drive f. That is what I thought if it shows drive f and I can open drive f and I can see files in drive f then why does it tell me drive f isnt there when I click on file. with drive hooked to computer and going to add remove programs and trying to uninstall I get "An error occurred while trying to remove Ad-Aware SE Personal. You do not have access to F:PROGRAM 1/LAVASOFT/AD-AWA 1/UNWISE.EXE. You can specify the new uninstall program below." Then there is a line and browse ok and cancel buttons. I did a disk cleanup which removed 930 program files then all the normal stuff it does. I did a search of my computer to delete any files pertaining to Sims2 clean pack installer because that is the one I have been trying to replace right now.
I will try a disk scan now and see what that tells me. I looked at the regedit thing and your right no way I could do that would be much easier to reinstall windows.

[Scotbo]

Ok, good luck and let me know how it goes. 

[angelyne]

Phew.  Nasty.  But it's definitively a hardware problem and not a download that caused this.  All the symptoms are present and accounted for.

You might still be able to get something off it with a file recovery program.  If the drive is still being detected by Windows, there is a chance it might work.

There is a chance it might also be possible to ghost the drive.  I've seen ghost perform miracles with failing drives, that wouldn't even allow the data to be read.

I've also seen drives that are kaput. Dead. Finished.  He's dead Jim, but those are usually in the minority.

One word of caution.  Your drive is failing, there is no doubt about it.  It's going to go kaput very soon.  Try not to work it too much, and also try to recover the info as fast as you can.  Maybe you have a technie friend who can ghost it for you, or maybe a tech shop that could try it for you.

[ElfPuddle]

I just have to say it. It's been on your minds too (you know who you are!)

No, I didn't see the furry ball, but the giant fiery ball was quite (not quiet) visible.

*hey, put down the rotten fruit!!*

[smvb]

It used to be possible to remove these invalid Remove Program entries using TweakUI, but I noticed in the XP version, it doesn't seem to be possible anymore.

Doing a search, I came across a couple of possibilities if you don't want to edit the registry directly. From someone's post in a forum, they said that you can download a trial version of System Mechanic 5 from www.iolo.com. I've seen this tool mentioned in MaximumPC magazine as well, but haven't had any personal experience with it.

Also, there is a freeware tool that is downloadable here: http://www.soft32.com/download_9082.html

Hope that helps. Losing a hard drive to hardware failure is a real bummer. Had it happen to me a number of years ago. Spent a bundle of money sending it to a recovery company, and they didn't find anything of value. Just a month ago we lost our laptop drive. Fortunately, the laptop was backed up regularly, but I still managed to lose our contacts list from Outlook. 

And yet, I still don't regularly back up my main hard drive. Keep meaning to get around to implementing an automatic system....
 

[Lackey]

Actually I went back to reg and attempted it basically just found the files I needed to get rid of did mess with all of them just the ones that was blocking the install of sims2pack clean installer also found the lingering sims 2 and sims 2 uni files in there and stopped at that. Nightlife was already all gone but I dont why that would be but not the others. Gonna try hooking up the new hardware and see if it works.
Oh scan disk was for drive c no errors
Scan disk for drive F couldnt scan.
Will take it to cousin and see if he can fix it.

[Sandilou]

Mrmtman a similar thing happened to me yesterday.  I was using Microsoft Word to type up a document.  I had the Yahoo mail page open - with my name and password saved - something my IT knowitall brother had warned me never to do.  I launched TS2 by accident (my busybody dog nudged the CD tray open, so I closed it).

I used Task Manager to close TS2 and continued typing for about another 45 minutes (very important document). 
Then disaster struck.  I got a message saying that there wasn't enough space on my floppy disk to save the document.  I tried closing Spider Solitaire - and got the no memory space message again.  Then my Norton Security said that it had an internal error and needed to be uninstalled and reinstalled.  It was then that I noticed a huge login line on the Yahoo page that I had left open.  Yucky virus of some kind with lots of strings had worked its way in and was tying up the whole pc.

I tried logging out of that user and got the message that I wasn't authorised to do so, even though I set up the user account and had not put in a password.  Worm!!!!

I switched off my pc with the magic button and relaunched it - something you should never do if you know you've got a virus.  But I have Norton GoBack.  Hurray!!!  It offers you the option to repair and restore your file.  As I was unsure of how long that virus/worm had been lurking on my pc, I opted to restore to 48 hours before.  Norton GoBack allows you to retrieve files made after your chosen time, so I was able to recover my typed document - undamaged - and continue working from where I had left off, on a virus/worm free pc.

I strongly recommend purchasing some sort of retrieval system like this.  I have deleted stuff from Regedit before,  without fear of longterm damage, because I know that I can use Norton GoBack to undo the damage.  It's like tippex for pcs! 

I hope that your cousin can help you out.  Loading an anti spyware or an anti virus disk might override the system and retrieve whatever Trojans you might have.  There is also a brief moment when you can get into MSDos when the pc is launching and attack the system from that angle.  But you really have to know what you're doing - and what to type next.  We have managed to retrieve one of my son's pcs that way - but his dad is the pc expert on doing that and I can't access him for help just yet, as he's out of the country and not logged on at the moment.

[Ambular]

Just from that much alone, I would say your drive is fried, and I don't think it's because of that download. :\  You've got BodyShop, the Internet, an unzip program -- all these programs going at the same time, and there's a very good chance, unless you have one megafully wonderful computer, it just groaned and died under the pressure.  If you had any errors on your drive before you started doing the above, then that could account for some of the strange behaviour you noted.  I hope this isn't a hopeless case, though!

Max 

Hard drive errors could be to blame, but simply having several programs open at once isn't going to kill a hard drive.  I often have the Sims 2 or one of its tools open  at the same time as AOL, Firefox and PhotoShop, plus Zonealarm and some other security software and occasionally iTunes, without suffering more than a bit of lag.  And my computer is decent, but nothing special.

[Wolfee]

This all brings me back to the old days when I had Sims 1. I had downloaded something for my Sims game from a weird source (I forgot where but it wasn't a known Sims site) played the game for a little while, left the game on pause,and came back little while later and found my computer off.
 I knew I had left in on and found it starnge that it was off , so I turned it on again. Guess what I got? Yep the dreaded Blue Screen of death. I lost everything! My harddrive was distroyed beyond repair. The error message I got went something like this" No Drive C detected" or something like that.

 I  called the HP company due to the fact that my computer was  still under warranty( it was barely less then a year old) and they couldn't help me. One guy actually instructed me to take my computer apart ribbons and all and he was going to talk me through it to help me  fix my computer myself. Once he found out I had absolutely no knowledge of computers at all he told me to forget about and just send the now computer with everything takened out of it back to them and they'll try to fix it.
 
Not happy with the responses and lack of help I was receivng from them, I decided it best to wait( I had another computer so it wasn't too much of a hardship) until I saw my brother because he's a computer wiz and fixes computer's for a living.
 
To make a long story short, He had to  get me a new harddrive,reinstall Windows and I'm not sure but I think he also got me a new motherboard too.
 
 I was pretty upset because I had many expensive programs I lost  and unfortunately.I wasn't smart enough to have backups then 
 
I now know alot more about computers through my brother and visiting the Computer tech sites online so I won't let that happen to me again.
  Bottom line is don't try and fix it yourself, get expert advice or pay to have it repaired, Save yourself the heartache

[Scotbo]

Ok, I just reread your post and this part makes me wonder:  " Put all I own on external hard drive did one download NOT FROM HERE corrupted the whole thing."

What exactly did you copy over to that drive? Is it possible that you copied actual programs from C:  drive and moved them to your F: drive? If so that's why they no longer function properly. If this is the case then your drive is likely ok, but you may have messed up the registry beyond repair.  What files did you move?

Oh, and I don't recommend trying System Mechanic. At least be very cautious if you do.  I used to use it until it deleted default Windows fonts. It made my computer completely unusuable because I could no longer read anything. All text was replaced by garbled symbols and I had to reformat to fix it.  The same thing happened to my father-in-law who also used it. 

[Ellatrue]

Yeah that happened to me a couple of weeks ago. I'm sorry about your loss, maybe we can form a support group.

Still, at least there is hope? For me, it's not even recognized by the BIOS. He's dead, Jim!

[angelyne]

people people.  Her (his?) hard drive failed.  It happens.  It's a mechanical device and can fail, just as a car engine can fail.   It's not a virus or a trojan, it's not a bad download, it's not "overuse" from having too many programs open (that can't happen btw).

The only way to protect yourself against loosing data due to disk failure is to have regular backups.

Even so, it's rare that a disk will fail to the point the data is irretrievably lost.  The problem is that you need special software and know-how to recover it, and not everyone has access to that.

ps Ellatrue. Not being recognized by the bios, is pretty much a "he's dead Jim" situation.  One thing you can try, which I have seen work a couple of times is wrap the drive well in plastic and stick it in the freezer for a couple of hours.  Sometimes that will let your drive come back to life.  At which point you back the hell out of it before it dies again.  BTW, for all of you out there, this is a LAST RESORT, and I mean VERY last resort for drives that aren't recognized by your system.  Don't expect to use the drive after that.  If your drive is still recognized by the system, but you can't read the data, don't do this.  It could ruin your chances for recovering the data down the line.

[Lackey]

I am a her. Name is Jeanne. Just have to use screen names I can rmember and this is the easiest for me because it is my husbands email name. Unlike a lot of couples we share our email. I used to have one of my own but it collected some 200 emails because I never read them so I got rid of it. Well this is what I did. I took the hard drive back to where I bought it and said it was crap I want a new because it was not even 6 months old yet. So that finishes that. I still have not hooked up the one I got the other day. I have to  change my graphics card so I just decided to wait.

[Ellatrue]

Yeah, but could doing that void the warranty?

[angelyne]

Yeah, but could doing that void the warranty?

Is it still under warranty?

Let's say I wouldn't tell the company I did this, but I doubt they could find out.  It doesn't visibly damage the drive.  It can create some condensation, which isn't very good for it, but it's dead anyway, so that's moot.

[Ellatrue]

Are you sure? I don't want them to figure it out somehow and decide that they won't replace it after all... it was just barely under the warranty by about 2 or 3 days...

[Lackey]

They took it back no problem. Everythings installed but custon content doesnt show. Havent figured out why yet

[BlueSoup]

Silly question, have you made sure to enable the custom content?  Also, if you're talking about recolours, have you installed CEP?

[angelyne]

I really don't see how they could figure it out, it doesn't visibly damage the drive, in fact it might not damage the drive at all.  I really can't see them looking at you suspiciously and saying...Hey did you put that drive in the freezer??  lol. 

But if you are worried don't do it.

[Lackey]

Had to go find that lonely downloads folder lurking on the system from the old f drive. Found it deleted it and custon content is showing now. I have spent all day trying to fix things I have not even played the game yet. Yes I got ofb. Now I need to replace default skins because I hate theirs so much. Cant remember if you put them in saved sims or downloads Anybody know?

[BlueSoup]

You can put them in downloads.