"LaDonna" <LaDonna@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:43BB7ED4-6886-46ED-829C-902BFF73FF9A@microsoft.com...
> My pc screen keeps freezing. It wont respond to anything. I have to turn
> it
> off and back on again. It also restarts itself sometimes. I had advice to
> uninstall my video device and reinstall. That didnt help. I haven't added
> any
> new hardware or software and system restore doesn't resolve the problem.
LaDonna:
If you haven't as yet found a solution to your problem and none of the
suggestions offered have helped resolve the problem, why not try this...
First of all, It's possible that you may be dealing with a defective HDD. So
it probably would be wise at this point to check out the HDD with a HDD
diagnostic utility you can (usually) download from the website of the disk's
manufacturer. It's very easy to use - either as a bootable floppy disk or
bootable CD.
Of course, knowing whether your HDD is defective or not is not going to
solve your immediate problem at this point. Probably the wisest course at
this point would be to undertake a Repair install of the XP operating system
for which you will need the XP installation CD.
We're assuming that your XP installation CD is a "full" CD, not an
OEM-branded recovery disk, and as such hopefully you'll be able to run a
Repair install from that XP installation CD. Unfortunately many users who
have a OEM-branded PC do not have this "full" XP installation CD and
therefore cannot run the Repair install that I'm going to describe.
The process of undertaking a Repair install of the OS is relatively
straightforward. It would be roughly akin to making a fresh install of the
OS, but in nearly every case your existing programs & user-created data
would be retained. While it would be a rather rare situation where data
would be lost or corrupted as a result of the
Repair install (even if such was unsuccessful), and as unlikely as it may
be, it *could* happen. I mention this because if there is any data on the
HDD that is absolutely crucial to you and which you could not tolerate its
loss, then you should *not* undertake the Repair install at this point, but
rather first attempt to access the data through other means, for example, by
installing the disk in another machine as a secondary drive.
There are a number of websites that contain step-by-step instructions for
undertaking a Repair install. As I previously indicated the process is not
at all difficult and not terribly time-consuming. If you do a Google search
on "XP repair install", you'll be pointed to many of these sites. Here are a
few...
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm#RI
http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/repair_xp.htm
http://www.geekstogo.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=138
Assuming the Repair install is successful, you should use your anti-virus
and/or any other anti-malware program that you use to immediately check out
your PC for any virus infestation. Also, you will need to
download/install *all* the MS critical updates since SP2. (I'm assuming that
if you do undertake the Repair install, you will be doing so with a XP CD
that contains SP2). One of the (unavoidable) downsides re undertaking a
Repair install is that it's usually an onerous task to download all the
Critical Updates from MS especially if you're using a dialup phone
connection rather than broadband.
Needless to say, there's no guarantee that the Repair install will be
successful since there may be problems present - hardware or software -
other than a mildly-corrupted OS that a Repair install will generally
correct. But I thought I would mention this possible option for your
consideration since it seems to me that based upon your description of the
problem it's certainly worth a try at this point.
Anna