AWS

If it has an upgraded card then no you don't need and shouldn't have to install the Dell driver. Graphics drivers for Intel chipsets supplied by Micosoft on the XP cd are the best you can run.

Install the Dell driver. The one installed by XP is proably a newer version that doesn't have support for your adapter.

Sounds like you need to defrag the disks. Also check for not needed services and eliminate them.

Insert a start up disk in the floppy drive. When it boots to the A:\> prompt give this command: Remove the floppy and reboot. If that doesn fix the problem then put the XP disk in the cd drive and restart. After the installer loads choose repair option and run Recovery Console. You'll need your administrators password. If you never set one them just logon without a password. Once in the recover console give this command: Remove the CD and shutdown completely. Restart and see if it fixes the problem. From the sound of things I doubt the problem is caused by a mbr virus. I haven't seen a boot sector virus in years. More than likely you were hit by something else.

I have a tool that plugs into serial port and does diagnostics on the motherboard. I bought it at computer show a couple years ago. It does help to find problems with the motherboard. I don't know of any other diagnostic tools except for the ones that cost 1000 of dollars. Almost everyone that builds computers or tinkers inside a computer has spares of everything. I have processors, memory video cards, motherboards and whole bunch of other hardware. I can swap out parts to find whats broken easily. Unless you spend a ton of money there is no other way to find what's broke unless you swap out parts.

The problem is that any component that has anything to do with booting could be bad. If the memory is bad no video. If the processor is bad no video. It more than like is one of those things or the video card. The only way to know for sure is to change each part with known working parts.

This should help: http://support.microsoft.com/?id=137273 Basicly what you want to do is grab a copy of the dll from you Windows install cd and overwrite the old one with the new one or if the file isn't present then just add it.

It could be any number of thing. Could be bad ram, motherboard, cable. I would add one part at a time until you get a working system.

Please use one of the other forums to get help with your problems. Use this forum to introduce yourself to the community. Most of all Welcome to Fee PC Help Forum.

Hello. Post in the software forum and someone will help you. In fact there is already a thread about formating that will help you.

Clear you temp internet files and see if that clears it up.

Thank you for the kind words Mary. Sometimes it's the little things that we miss. I was scratching my head for a few hours with a similiar problem and it turned out I didn't have the cable on a floppy in all the way causing an invalid boot device error.

Just a shot in the dark here. Have you tried formating the drive in the sata bios or with Maxtor tools? At one time you couldn't use a drive unless you first formatted it using the manufacturer tools. This doesn't happen today since new bios and operating systems can do this for you. It probably will not help, but, it is a shot anyway. Also, there is a possibility that the drive or motherboard is bad. Have you tried using another drive? Maybe try using an IDE drive? The sata channel might be dead. At this point I would start looking at the hardware to see if it is defective.

Maybe the motherboard is using an old bios. There is usually an improved bios released that is different to the one that shipped on the board. Check the manufacturer site for any bios updates and update to the newest.

Shutoff enhanced sata mode and if the bios has the option for setting sata to ide then use that option. Otherwise turn sata mode off all together. I have to do this on 2 Shuttle motherboards to install XP. Do not load any drivers when you install unless you are using a raid config.

This could mean you're disk is ready to die. Try these things to fix it. Boot to recovery console and run chkdsk /r . After that do fixmbr and fixboot.

You might want to a fresh install. Format and start over. Things good rarely happen when you repair an XP install and repairing one that is in another language would seem to be a nightmare. You could grab a new set of system fonts and then replace the current ones. You'll more than likely have to boot into the recover console to delete the old and install the new. Here is a list of the system fonts. I think this is all of them.

All you really need is a screwdriver. Medium sized phillips head will do anything you need to do.

A worm can infect you even if you don't run an excutable. It traverses the internet looking for vulnerable boxes. A virus has to executed on the box to infect you.

This more than likely a phone problem. Do you have a buzz, static or hum on the line? Do you have filters on all the phones except for the one you have dsl hooked up too?

You can't infect your network unless the problem is a worm and one of your pc is vulnerable to the worm. If one was vulnerable it would be infected already.

You gained some knowledge in your quest. I wouldn't give up just yet. Boot to safe mode with networking and go to one of the free online scanner sites. Do a scan and remove what you find. If networking doesn't work then boot in safe mode and run msconfig and disable all the startup items. Then reboot to safe mode with networking again. Keep trying. My bet is that the box is so infected with various spyware and such that it is unrecoverable. Even if it is you can still learn a lot by trying to fix it.

Should be able to. Give it a try.

Never install any virus scanner on an infected system. There must still be something infecting the system. That is why Norton will not install. If you made the Norton boot disks then you should be able to boot with them and clean the box that way.

It can't spread to the other computers on your network if you don't run the executable that he ran. If it a worm that exploits a vulnearbilty in Windows then it can spread to your network if the computers are not patched. First find out what the box is infected with. Use an online virus scanner to find out. Don't trust whatever AV is installed on the system. Once you find out what is infecting the box then you can fix it. More than likely the box is infected with multiple spyware. If that is the case I would reinstall and then give your cousin a lesson in securing his box to keep it from getting infected again.