So I’m pretty sure my laptop is burnt. It keeps saying an error occurred and needs to restart after I sign in. I can restore it to factory settings but what I’m iffy about is… In doing so will that count as deactivating some of my programs so I can reinstall them onto a different computer? And programs such as ZBrush 4R7 and Photoshop Elements.
Laptops have one issue: they love to suck in dust and store inside. Because of that it is good to remove all dust every 2 years or so, else laptop will overheat.
If you do not have mechanical skills and some tools to open laptops, better do not try. Get it to some service place and ask them for cleaning. While they do it
you may ask them for restoring windows to working state, or at least ask them what is going on with windows on that laptop. Restoring to factory settings will
probably wipe all you have on harddrive. If you cannot boot up, you need to make backup, to do so you need to remove hdd and connect it to another PC, then copy files.
Better way is to buy new harddrive, swap it with old in laptop, then instal windows. But all that is guessing, your question indicates that you do not have much knowledge about
how all this works, so better get laptop to technician, or you may lose all data on harddrvie.
Ok. But I have everything on an external hard drive. All I have on my laptop are my programs. And I’m having some friends help me build a pc, and some of the programs I have can only be used on one computer. Which is why I ask if restoring the laptop will deactivate them to reinstall on another. My programs are my main concern because of how much they were. Haha.
“Restore” usually destroys all the important user data!
From my experience it is always best to deactivate or “return” the license BEFORE restoring or wiping, etc. If you wipe your laptop without manually “returning” the license your licenses may be “stuck” as still being registered to the (now wiped) laptop.
So I looked more into what is wrong with my laptop. And what is going on is there was an update of some sort that the driver for it was out of date. Which was giving me the “Blue Screen of Death” is what it is known by. So my laptop isn’t burnt but won’t load.
Then start it (windows) in safe mode (F8 during early loading windows). And there in safe mode update driver.
However it depends on your lan/wifi hardware you may have or may not internet connection in safe mode.
So take laptop to place with desktop PC that has connection, go to producer page and find driver.
Or try restore point in WINDOWS (be sure it is not restore of whole laptop to factory state).
But even windows restore can do dirty uninstall of some software if it was installed after last restore point was created.
I did the safe mode. I still have everything as well. And I changed the update settings from automatic to manual. Hopefully that prevents it from happening again.