D
Dudely
Yesterday I wrote:
I've been getting nasty blue screen crashes for awhile now, so I'm
guessing I need some new hardware probably the mamaboard. [I say this
because my mouse is also acting funky. It stops and starts, jumping
backwards, executing random button clicks and drags, and just
generally acting annoying. I cleaned it, that's not the problem.
It's a regular ps/2 mouse.]
However, money has been tight for awhile so I've been living with it.
Unfortunately, last night it crashed particularly badly and almost
nothing works anymore.
I can't bring up Outlook or IE. I can't open any folders, I can't
open Control Panel. They all crash. I can still run cmd though, and
my ancient Windows Commander still works too so I can transfer files
from my Win2000 machine if I need to. It only goes in one direction
though - it would seem that whatever service it uses on XP isn't
running so I can only pull files, not push them (ie. I can run WC on
XP and copy files from Win2000. My Win2000 machine can't find XP on
the LAN.)
I tried reinstalling (upgrade, not fresh install) and for the most
part it seemed to go pretty well, however near the end it tried to
install a bunch of dll files which it claimed it couldn't find. As
best as I remember, there's only one installation disk for XP Pro,
yes? (2002 version "includes service pack 2")
After retrying many times, I finally told it to just continue without
the file. It missed easily a dozen files with the same problem. I
guess my CD went bad???
I checked the event log and there was mention of 3 files - mshtml.dll,
oledlg.dll and ADVPACK.dll. I figured maybe I could just copy those
off the CD and expand them to the system32 directory. That worked,
but it didn't fix my original problem. Everything is still crashing.
So, I tried using expand to copy all of the i386/ dll files to my
system32/ directory and that seemed to work just fine. However, it
doesn't appear to have any effect in terms of fixing my original
problem. I also ran chkdsk.
Any ideas on what the problem really is, and how to fix it?
For the record, I ran ad-aware which found some tracking cookies
which I deleted. I tried to run spyblaster but it needs an upgrade,
and the upgrade/update won't download as it seems to depend on IE,
which crashes. It just doesn't feel like a virus issue anyway.
I got a couple of responses to the above and at someone's suggestion,
I ran SFC /scannow as well as CCleaner. No change.
Since nothing appeared to work and I need to get this fixed, I broke
down and bought a new disk today. I did a fresh XP Pro (SP2) install
on it and booted it. The first thing I noticed is there were no icons
- other than the recycler icon. That's not right is it? There were
no errors finding DLLs or anything else so I guess my CD is ok.
The next thing I noticed is that I can't connect to the Internet - I
have a DSL connection. In fact, I can't see the Win2000 computer on
my LAN either. I can't ping my DSL modem. IPCONFIG shows totally
blank. Network wizard won't do anything since it doesn't seem to find
the NIC. I unplugged the Ethernet cable just as a brief test, and
sure enough the light on my hub went out, I put it back in the hub
light came back on. So clearly it's not the hardware.
Now baffled, I booted XP from the old hard disk with the problem.
Sure enough, the network connection to the Internet works, I can ping
anywhere in the world (except the original problem remains, most
programs crash).
So, clearly it's not a hardware issue but the software isn't doing
what it's supposed to do. I'm at my wits end. If a fresh install on
a new hard drive doesn't work what's a guy supposed to do?
Thanks in advance.
I've been getting nasty blue screen crashes for awhile now, so I'm
guessing I need some new hardware probably the mamaboard. [I say this
because my mouse is also acting funky. It stops and starts, jumping
backwards, executing random button clicks and drags, and just
generally acting annoying. I cleaned it, that's not the problem.
It's a regular ps/2 mouse.]
However, money has been tight for awhile so I've been living with it.
Unfortunately, last night it crashed particularly badly and almost
nothing works anymore.
I can't bring up Outlook or IE. I can't open any folders, I can't
open Control Panel. They all crash. I can still run cmd though, and
my ancient Windows Commander still works too so I can transfer files
from my Win2000 machine if I need to. It only goes in one direction
though - it would seem that whatever service it uses on XP isn't
running so I can only pull files, not push them (ie. I can run WC on
XP and copy files from Win2000. My Win2000 machine can't find XP on
the LAN.)
I tried reinstalling (upgrade, not fresh install) and for the most
part it seemed to go pretty well, however near the end it tried to
install a bunch of dll files which it claimed it couldn't find. As
best as I remember, there's only one installation disk for XP Pro,
yes? (2002 version "includes service pack 2")
After retrying many times, I finally told it to just continue without
the file. It missed easily a dozen files with the same problem. I
guess my CD went bad???
I checked the event log and there was mention of 3 files - mshtml.dll,
oledlg.dll and ADVPACK.dll. I figured maybe I could just copy those
off the CD and expand them to the system32 directory. That worked,
but it didn't fix my original problem. Everything is still crashing.
So, I tried using expand to copy all of the i386/ dll files to my
system32/ directory and that seemed to work just fine. However, it
doesn't appear to have any effect in terms of fixing my original
problem. I also ran chkdsk.
Any ideas on what the problem really is, and how to fix it?
For the record, I ran ad-aware which found some tracking cookies
which I deleted. I tried to run spyblaster but it needs an upgrade,
and the upgrade/update won't download as it seems to depend on IE,
which crashes. It just doesn't feel like a virus issue anyway.
I got a couple of responses to the above and at someone's suggestion,
I ran SFC /scannow as well as CCleaner. No change.
Since nothing appeared to work and I need to get this fixed, I broke
down and bought a new disk today. I did a fresh XP Pro (SP2) install
on it and booted it. The first thing I noticed is there were no icons
- other than the recycler icon. That's not right is it? There were
no errors finding DLLs or anything else so I guess my CD is ok.
The next thing I noticed is that I can't connect to the Internet - I
have a DSL connection. In fact, I can't see the Win2000 computer on
my LAN either. I can't ping my DSL modem. IPCONFIG shows totally
blank. Network wizard won't do anything since it doesn't seem to find
the NIC. I unplugged the Ethernet cable just as a brief test, and
sure enough the light on my hub went out, I put it back in the hub
light came back on. So clearly it's not the hardware.
Now baffled, I booted XP from the old hard disk with the problem.
Sure enough, the network connection to the Internet works, I can ping
anywhere in the world (except the original problem remains, most
programs crash).
So, clearly it's not a hardware issue but the software isn't doing
what it's supposed to do. I'm at my wits end. If a fresh install on
a new hard drive doesn't work what's a guy supposed to do?
Thanks in advance.