well, i had no warning on this one and i'll spare you all the details, but another drive crashed windows.....HARD! basically, i ended up re-installing windows again! rebooting would not bring windows back. repair console wouldnt bring it back. running windows install as a repair action wouldnt work. i'd get a blue screen of death about no windows config and no alternate or log to back up from and then it would reboot in a loop.

i'm sure it's the drive. if i connect the drive the machine runs like tree sap. if i physically disconnect the drive, it's fine. so, it seems pretty clear. the drive still works. the data is still there and i can still retrieve it, but the drive now has an expected shelf life of zip.

and since i've re-installed this version of windows xp several times, including all the new hardware on this new machine, microsoft activation got pissy with me and forced me to call rather than activate over the net. cute.

so, xp is up, is activated, but about all i've got running again is zone alarm so i could connect. no service packs or anything else yet. but, at least it's working again.

the only bright note in all this, for those that have been following, is windows is now back on C: rather than K: lol. that just always seemed wrong :)

anyways, i'll be somewhat tied up the next few days getting service packs and re-installing stuff and saving stuff off the bad drive.

oh, and just because this has been relevant in a couple of recent threads, it was a maxtor drive that went bad. roughly two years old or so. DRIVES NEED TO LAST LONGER! can i get an amen, please!

Here in Florida we are flying our flags at half-mass and are observing a moment of silence at 9:00 am in your drives honor. Sorry for your lose.
Seriously, that bites!

Good luck,
Lasa

I think accepting the default installation and using C: as your main drive was wise, and should improve your chances of a problem free install.

Although there should be no good reason not to use separate partitions/drives, I've noticed that these are always the installs that give most problems. Often re-directs get lost/deleted/corrupted by updates and patches, and can cause all sorts of unwarranted problems.

The euphemism KISS (Keep it simple stupid) is definitely one I recommend when setting up Windows, as most "Help" documentation is based on default installs, making future Troubleshooting much simpler if that is what you have.

Good luck Craig, have fun.

...oh, and just because this has been relevant in a couple of recent threads, it was a maxtor drive that went bad. roughly two years old or so. DRIVES NEED TO LAST LONGER! can i get an amen, please!

AMEN!

I had a Maxtor external drive die just after the warranty died. I've been using a Western Digital for almost a year and so far, so good.

Sorry to hear of your problems. I hope it's smooth sailing from here out.

I haven't had any problems with Maxtor drives and I've been using them for ages. I usually end up replacing the old ones because the capacity is too small rather than any other reason. I'm using an over 8-year-old one as a dedicated scratch drive right now. The drives use S.M.A.R.T (Self Monitoring Analysis & Reporting Technology) and the computer bios can warn you if the drive goes out of spec if you haven't disabled it. There are also free for personal use utilities (http://www.passmark.com/products/diskcheckup.htm, for one) that let you examine the S.M.A.R.T data stored on the drive. You can sometimes spot problems before it's too late.

Maxtor is now owned by Seagate. I understand that Seagate will continue the brand for lower capacity drives, but they will be manufactured using Seagate facilities and subcontractors. Don't know how that will play out, but I have noticed that they have increased the warrenty period to 3 years from 1 recently.

I recently (two weeks ago) had to replace a motherboard that failed with no warning and had to go through a similar OS reinstallation song and dance process because the old motherboard chipset drivers were incompatible with the new motherboard and Windows couldn't boot. It's no fun.

Good luck!

http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/tech-gadget/5-things-you-can-do-with-old-hard-drives

Sorry to hear of your troubles.

thanks guys :)

well, the beat goes on. i've got directx 9.0c installed, all critical updates, most of the other updates, service pack 1, service pack 2, all but one driver for my devices and i cant seem to quite figure out what that device is yet. it's simply labeled as a 'mass storage device' and that can be anything from a diskdrive to cd rom to a dvd rom to a flash card slot to a pci expansion card. lol. i'm currently leaning towards the pci expansion card. but havent found that driver yet.

i had trouble getting my internet connection back, but my isp provider helped me sort that out.

i may have also made one very fatal error in this whole mess. windows is back on as C: and that's good, but it's on a partition with only 10 gigs. i thought, how could windows possibly use up 10 gigs! hah! when i first tried to get service pack two, i actually got rejected for 'insufficient disk space'. i had to go delete a bunch of stuff off the c: drive or move it. i'm afraid i may have created a new problem having windows on such a small partition. if nothing else, it will force me to keep a pretty clean install. but it's amazing all the junk that windows puts on your machine and then all the junk other programs throw into 'documents and settings' and then there's the windows swap file and the temp files and internet cache files and..... good lord!

and i hear vista is even worse! by far!

so, i may be in here some time down the road whining and complaining about THAT mistake ;)

i'm posting most all of my embarrassing mistakes so that maybe others can avoid these same pitfalls.

i was also amazed at how badly microsoft has made the repair facilities of xp. you almost cannot get a command prompt now and you cannot copy or delete files from what is now the replacement for DOS. you can only work within c: and cant access other drives. you can view the directories, but you cant alter them! this just makes things much more difficult.

i also found out you cant alter system or root partition sizes like you could in win98. you can on logicals under certain circumstances, but not the system partition! that kinda sucks too. i used to use partition magic on win98 and you could basically change all of it. on xp, IF you have unallocated space, you can add that to a logical, under certain circumstances. i do like NTFS, but this part of it is worse that FAT 32.

oh, and part of the problem with disk space on c: was that i had windows install OVER the old windows installation. that left some junk that wasnt necessary, like my old user account and temp files and internet files and other junk in 'docs and settings'. so, that might not have been the wisest thing either. still, i just wanted to get up and running and i purposely wanted to have windows not wipe out some things in the hopes of being able to recover outlook express settings, i.e. favorites and that sort of thing. so far, i'm not sure i have saved those things and may have lost it all anyways. havent really tried yet. but soon.

microsoft also informed me over the phone when getting the activation key that i would NOT ever be able to activate this online again. i would ALWAYS have to phone them on a new install, at least with this copy of XP. pheh! i think they went a bit paranoid and far on this stuff.

still have a lot of stuff to do.... outlook express, try to recover old favorites for i.e, re-install Paint Shop Pro 11, which requires psp 10, which requires psp 9 (lol). gotta find that one missing driver or remove that expansion card, transfer all data off the harddrive that's going bad, install filter forge and get a new key for that also... frankly, i'm tempted to go back to win98 as my main machine. it crashed fairly often, but this current hassle is just outrageous. i'd also be tempted to go linux if it werent for psp and some other things, but not yet.

oh, i also physically moved my harddrives in their bays. they were all stacked next to each other and i noticed during the crash period that things were QUITE HOT. this may have been due to the drive going bad and it may be that the drive went bad due to heat. so, i've separated the drives by one empty bay between each. 3 drives, 11 bays (2 hold cd rom and dvd burners and one for the floppy with 2 empties there) (yeah, i like cases with LOTS of expansion room).

so, anyone got a Mac they want to sell me? :)

Craig,
Been there - suffered that, but never again.
Symantec Ghost 10 is your solution!! Crash your system and your back up and running 100% in 5 or 10 minutes. Wipe out your hard drive, you just need to drop any new drive in and your back up 100% restored in 5 or 10 minutes. It's the best $69 you could ever have spent.
Good luck rebuilding.
Regards, Murray

murray,

thanks. yes, i have ghost 10. just not installed yet. it wouldnt work before because i went from one set of older hardware to a completely new set and the hardware layer wouldnt have recognized things.... or at least that was my understanding. in this particular case, i hadnt installed ghost yet and hadnt backed things up yet, so i couldnt do it this time either... my mistake there.

now, here's an interesting bit of addition to this whole mess. my old windows account is still there, but not active. so, my old browser stuff is there along with a number of other things and this is part of the reason i dont have a lot of room on the c: drive right now. i've been clearing things out of there and gotten a bit more space on c: now and will continue.

this just goes to show that i know less than i think i do and that if i knew more i'd still probably know less than i did when i thought i knew more about something i knew almost nothing about while believing i knew it all .... and if any of that made sense to you, then you're in as bad a shape as i am :)

edit: oh, and one last little oddity is that i cant currently set retouchpro as my home page because apparently my old account stuff is being read somehow somewhere in documents and settings, so when i said that old stuff wasnt active, apparently that's not quite the case. so again, i dont particularly recommend this method of re-installing windows. you'd think microsoft, being that they offer this option of doing things this way, would have deleted those old files or at least not made them semi-active in the new installation. just another oddity of windows.

People considering buying Ghost 10 should review the comments by users found on www.amazon.com.

I have never used it but after reading the reviews I very much doubt if I ever will.

gary, or anyone else that might know,

i one little thing i'm having trouble with. it's minor. i cannot keep retouchpro as my home page. it seems to be locked into microsoft.com. i can set it to something else, but it reverts back to ms.com as soon as i use the browser.

i suspect it's one of two things, either something in documents and settings or something in the registry. and this would most likely be due to having installed windows OVER the existing windows. i dont know which it is and i've been erasing the stuff under the old account name in documents and settings, but so far, no luck. when i set up windows this time i picked the same account name, but it didnt overwrite what was there. it named it the name i picked plus it added .windows. so, the old account is named X and the new account is named X.windows, with xp having added that second part so as NOT to overwrite the old account data.

the browser seems to be seeing parts or all of both accounts and thus when i try to change the home page, it lets me enter the data and apply it, but it wont keep it because it seems to be drawing on the other account to actually use the browser home page. kind of goofy and i need to sort this out.

i'm beginning to think it's in the registry at this point, because i've been deleting things out of the old doc and settings stuff and still cant effect a permanent change to the home page. if anyone knows how to fix this, i'd appreciate it.

Craig, send me a HJT log.

Not because I believe you have any Malware, but because it'll show me your homepage settings etc, and then I can tell you what to change.

Feeling very chilled out at the mo, Pink Floyd is on the TV (re-run of the "Dark Side of the Moon" concert) so I'm typing away with "Money" playing in the background.

hi gary,

here's the log:

Logfile of HijackThis v1.99.1
Scan saved at 9:05:08 PM, on 12/15/2006
Platform: Windows XP SP2 (WinNT 5.01.2600)
MSIE: Internet Explorer v6.00 SP2 (6.00.2900.2180)

Running processes:
C:\WINDOWS\System32\smss.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\winlogon.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\services.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\lsass.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\svchost.exe
C:\WINDOWS\System32\svchost.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\ZoneLabs\vsmon.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\spoolsv.exe
C:\WINDOWS\Explorer.EXE
E:\Program Files\Zone Labs\ZoneAlarm\zlclient.exe
C:\WINDOWS\SOUNDMAN.EXE
C:\WINDOWS\System32\spool\drivers\w32x86\3\hpztsb09.exe
C:\WINDOWS\System32\hphmon05.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\RUNDLL32.EXE
D:\PROGRA~1\Grisoft\AVGFRE~1\avgcc.exe
D:\PROGRA~1\Grisoft\AVGFRE~1\avgamsvr.exe
D:\PROGRA~1\Grisoft\AVGFRE~1\avgupsvc.exe
D:\PROGRA~1\Grisoft\AVGFRE~1\avgemc.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\nvsvc32.exe
C:\WINDOWS\System32\svchost.exe
C:\WINDOWS\System32\HPZipm12.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\wscntfy.exe
F:\HijackThis-1-99-1\HijackThis.exe

O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [Zone Labs Client] "E:\Program Files\Zone Labs\ZoneAlarm\zlclient.exe"
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [SoundMan] SOUNDMAN.EXE
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [HPDJ Taskbar Utility] C:\WINDOWS\System32\spool\drivers\w32x86\3\hpztsb09.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [HPHmon05] C:\WINDOWS\System32\hphmon05.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [NvCplDaemon] RUNDLL32.EXE C:\WINDOWS\system32\NvCpl.dll,NvStartup
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [nwiz] nwiz.exe /install
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [NvMediaCenter] RUNDLL32.EXE C:\WINDOWS\system32\NvMcTray.dll,NvTaskbarInit
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [AVG7_CC] D:\PROGRA~1\Grisoft\AVGFRE~1\avgcc.exe /STARTUP
O4 - HKCU\..\Run: [MSMSGS] "C:\Program Files\Messenger\msmsgs.exe" /background
O9 - Extra button: Messenger - {FB5F1910-F110-11d2-BB9E-00C04F795683} - C:\Program Files\Messenger\msmsgs.exe
O9 - Extra 'Tools' menuitem: Windows Messenger - {FB5F1910-F110-11d2-BB9E-00C04F795683} - C:\Program Files\Messenger\msmsgs.exe
O12 - Plugin for .pdf: C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\PLUGINS\nppdf32.dll
O16 - DPF: {6414512B-B978-451D-A0D8-FCFDF33E833C} (WUWebControl Class) - http://update.microsoft.com/windowsupdate/v6/V5Controls/en/x86/client/wuweb_site.cab?1166121953431
O16 - DPF: {6E32070A-766D-4EE6-879C-DC1FA91D2FC3} (MUWebControl Class) - http://update.microsoft.com/microsoftupdate/v6/V5Controls/en/x86/client/muweb_site.cab?1166124000390
O23 - Service: AVG7 Alert Manager Server (Avg7Alrt) - GRISOFT, s.r.o. - D:\PROGRA~1\Grisoft\AVGFRE~1\avgamsvr.exe
O23 - Service: AVG7 Update Service (Avg7UpdSvc) - GRISOFT, s.r.o. - D:\PROGRA~1\Grisoft\AVGFRE~1\avgupsvc.exe
O23 - Service: AVG E-mail Scanner (AVGEMS) - GRISOFT, s.r.o. - D:\PROGRA~1\Grisoft\AVGFRE~1\avgemc.exe
O23 - Service: NVIDIA Display Driver Service (NVSvc) - NVIDIA Corporation - C:\WINDOWS\system32\nvsvc32.exe
O23 - Service: Pml Driver HPZ12 - HP - C:\WINDOWS\System32\HPZipm12.exe
O23 - Service: TrueVector Internet Monitor (vsmon) - Zone Labs, LLC - C:\WINDOWS\system32\ZoneLabs\vsmon.exe

as a side note to this, i'm beginning to wonder if the suspect drive is bad or going bad. it may have been heat. when i had the 3 drives in close proximity, i was getting a large amount of heat buildup from one or more of the drives, but with them now separated, i'm not getting the same heat buildup.

Craig, you know I feel for you!! Oh, and AMEN!!!

Hope you get it all sorted out. I wish I could offer you the same help you offered me, but I am just not that good.

Good luck with it!
Dawn

dawn,

thanks :)

and yes, it is getting sorted out. i've had the drive on now for some hours and it seems fairly stable at this point. so, hopefully it was just heat and a printer printing problem that i ran into that killed windows.

and, if nothing else, i've got windows back on c: :)

the browser thing is minor, annoying, but minor.

and i just finished putting Paint Shop Pro xi back on the machine and played with it a bit, so that's a good thing.

how is your system going now?

Hi Craig,

Sorry to be a bit slow getting back to you.

Strange, the Reg settings for your home page, search engine etc. are missing from your HJT log.

They usually show as a set of R entries (R0, R1 etc).

As they are not shown, could be 2 reasons, A: the registry settings are not present, B: HJT is not running properly on your setup.

OK, to check your home page settings manually.

Click Start > Run type Regedit then click OK.
This will open your Resistry Editor.
Navigate to this key.

HKey_Current_User\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main

Click the Main folder in the left pane, to show the entries in the right pane.
Scan down the right hand pane to find Start Page.
Double click on it to open the Edit String window. Your current start page will be in the Value data field. If nothing is there, then add the url for Retouch Pro http://www.retouchpro.com click OK.
Exit from Registry Editor.


Note: if you're not happy working in the registry let me know. Be cautious when in there, altering things you're not absolutely certain about can have unforeseen consequences. You will not be asked if you are certain when working in the Registry, it assumes you know what you're doing.

If in any doubt do nothing. Probably best to do a back up before making any alterations, easiest way to do this is to create a System Restore point.

gary,

ok, this is really odd. i did EXACTLY what you said. i found everything exactly as you said it would be. i double clicked on the entry and it gave me exactly what you said it would. and i typed in exactly what you said under the 'start page' entry and hit ok. it returned an error popup saying: "Cannot edit start page. Error writing the value's new contents." . i tried it again and got the same thing. i also looked at the permissions and i seem to have 'full control'. mind you, i said 'seem'. obviously something is goofed up, though. and my current guess would be having installed windows over windows and inputting the same user account name. somehow, that seems to have messed something up... again, just a guess, though.

and just to clarify this business of the account name, let's say i had a windows account name of 'john' before. when i re-installed windows this time, i also used 'john'. but, when windows installed, i now had two user accounts in documents and settings, the old one named 'john' and a new one named 'john.machinename', where 'machine name' is the name of the computer. i also have two 'all users' entries; "all users" and "all users.windows". and, i have two default users, "default users" and "default users.windows".

so all this makes me wonder if i might also have two registries going or something, or at least something that is crossfeeding the registry or browser entries. it's really quite odd and was totally unexpected. i thought windows would simply overwrite the old account stuff. it never gave me any indication that it would do otherwise during the installation and seemed quite happy with everythng i did to set things up. but i've got to believe this all has something to do with the current problem.

also, i have installed other software since the new installation and i didnt have any problems with writing to the registry there at all, or at least that i can tell. but the problem might just be limited to the c: drive and windows type stuff.

also, i do have that old program that is supposed to re-write permissions that i used to fix my system once before on the old machine when i couldnt access some of the system stuff like system information. i could try that if you think it might straighten things up.

i'll check the microsoft site and see what i can come up with on this. and if you've any suggestions, i'd love to hear them :)

gary,

i got the homepage set finally. i tried a couple things on the microsoft site, but that didnt seem to do anything on restarting the browser (not the computer). how i got it to take ok was to go into safe mode with networking and log in as administrator. i changed the home page there and it took just fine. so i rebooted and again went into safe mode with netowrking but logged in with my normal account name (which is named by my OLD user account name, NOT the new one, by the way) and started i.e. and reset the home page as you normally would and it worked just fine. i rebooted again and let windows come up naturally and my home page is now set to RetouchPRO.

i havent tried resetting it again in normal windows but i'll try that shortly.

so, it looks like it might have been a permissions thing.

ah, how interesting. i just tried resetting the home page in normal windows and it wont allow the change to take. i can set it and apply it, but it simply reverts back to whatever it was. so, i cant reset the home page in normal windows mode, only safe mode... so far :)

maybe i shld just run in safe mode as administrator from here on out :)

i'm still almost completely confused by these double account entries as well. i've been deleting those that are obvious duplicates (from the old account name, not the new).

maybe i'll try to log off windows (rather than reboot) and log in as administrator and see if i can reset the home page that way. might be good to look at that anyways and see just how many user accounts windows thinks i have.

ok, this is cute. there is no administrator account available to me in normal windows. there is only one user account named the same as the old account name.

i'm now thinking that this account may not have admin permissions for some reason or that they got messed up during the re-install somehow.... maybe confused by the same user name thing i did.

at this point i'm not even sure how serious all this is. it's certainly not optimal and it's certainly screwy.

OK, lot to go through here.

First of all, not a good idea to go online with Safe Mode with Networking, because all your defensive programmes will be switched off (most do not run in safe mode), leaving you wide open to all the Bots trawling the web.

Permissions can be a really problematic thing to deal with in Windows, because registry keys can "inherit" permissions from up the line, by which I mean from keys further down the hive structure.

This could be why you can set your home page in safe mode but not in Normal mode. The programme from which permissions is being inherited is not running in SM therefore no problem setting your HP, whereas it is in Normal mode and therefore you can't.

As regards administrator priviledges, Windows accounts are by default administrator. To check whether the account you're using is, do the following.

Go to Control Panel and click on User Accounts underneath your account icon it will tell you.

If it's not an Administrator account, click Change an Account, click on your Icon, click on Change my account type, check the Computer Administrator button then click Change account type.

Administrator is an account only found in Safe Mode, as it is a different account to your own, Windows will not allow you to set things for other accounts. Any alterations to your account must be done within your account.

The term Administrator is a bit confusing I know, it is NOT an account that allows you to Administer to other accounts.


You could try setting your home page for all accounts as RetouchPro.


Click Start > Run type Regedit then click OK.
This will open your Resistry Editor.
Navigate to this key.

HKey_Local_Machine\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main

Click the Main folder in the left pane, to show the entries in the right pane.
Scan down the right hand pane to find Start Page.
Double click on it to open the Edit String window. Your current start page will be in the Value data field. If nothing is there, then add the url for Retouch Pro http://www.retouchpro.com click OK.
Exit from Registry Editor.


Note: HKey_Current_User which is the hive branch for the logged on account, has been replaced by HKey_Local_Machine which is a hive branch which deals with Computer Wide settings (ie settings for all accounts).

thanks, gary.

yes, this account is labeled as administrator. i checked control panel like you suggested and it says it's admin.

and so far, the only place i can edit reg keys is in safe mode. so, again i'm thinking this page may be my solution: http://www.s2services.com/cmd-single-windows-tables.htm , especially the 'xp reset permissions.rar'. that's the one that helped me out a couple years ago with things that i couldnt access in xp because i didnt have permissions after some bad crashes.

i'm taking my time with this, you may notice. it's fairly minor so far and i've not found anything else that doesnt work... just the browser home page and editing the reg. so, anything you've got, i'm open :)

Hi Craig,

The repair permissions script is OK far as I know, so I'd give that a go first, if you find further problems with IE, then IE Fix may resolve them.

Download IE Fix (http://windowsxp.mvps.org/utils/IEFix.zip)
Follow the instructions on this webpage here (http://windowsxp.mvps.org/IEFIX.htm)

Craig, seriously, this is really weird. lol Hope you get it all straightened out.

Still working on my problem, and finding new symptoms as well.

Look, if you are up for it, I will go to the bank tomorrow (or paypal) and set up the C&D Mac Fund.... ? :lol:

Good luck getting that worked out. Did either of the last two things work?

Dawn

hehehe, dawn :) i think microsoft shld set that fund up ;)

and yes, i've got my home page back as RetouchPRO now. it's just that the only way i have of changing it, so far, is thru safe mode. i havent applied the permissions thing yet or the new one that gary just posted. still trying to understand what it is microsoft did (thru me) to my machine before i go screwing it up even worse.

the machine does work; it's just not quite how it shld work. and i can always just wipe the c: drive and start from scratch if push comes to shove. but i'm rather curious about this whole thing and i've also found over the years that it's rather like retouching an image, if you never attempt the hard ones, you never learn how to retouch the hard ones. i'm somewhat the same way with my computers; i want to know how to fix them, not replace them. in the long run it tends to pay off. in the short run it can be aggravating as hell :)

and dawn, if you need any help, shout it out. and even if you dont, i'm curious as to how things are progressing with your system. did you buy the new external and get it set up? and what symptoms are you still having?

gary,

thanks! i havent tried the repair permissions yet. and that fixit looks somewhat similar to something i saw on the MS site yesterday about re-registering .dll's. the .inf part is new though. interesting notion there. you would think microsoft would have a repair web site or something. log in to it, hit 'go' and microsoft would check your system for you and fix anything that was wrong with windows or its other products. yeah, that aint gonna happen :)

i'm attaching a screenshot of my documents and settings folder in windows explorer to show you just what i've got now. notice the duplicate folder names with an added extension. this is quite puzzling. all of the ones with a .windows added on are the new ones. it's also quite odd that in some places my account name is simply 'Craig' where in other places it will show as 'Craig.Walt'. 'Walt' is the machine name and those are all new to the new install as well.

so, i've got all the old user account info (except for a bunch i've now deleted because they were obviously of no use any more) and all the new user account stuff. and it's this part of the system i'm wondering about if it is somehow affecting the registry and the browser. can i just wipe the old stuff completely out or is the new stuff drawing from the old stuff?

and i'm also curious if i had named the new user account something other than the same name as before, if it would have come up after the install with both the old and the new account info like this, being that i installed OVER the old install without re-formatting the drive. i would have thought it would be like when you re-install an old program over itself, your save files remain intact but the program files get re-written. that's how i first approached the windows re-install, but now i'm wondering and not sure.

you mentioned the inheriting properties of the registry. could i have inherited some things from the old? are those old things still there? do i have something like a dual-registry or something going on here? or maybe just duplicate entries somewhere that are screwing things up? and since the new user account is an administrator account, why cant i edit reg keys? i do recall during the re-install, watching things running and seeing an info line mention deleting some files and then replacing them with new. i dont know what those were, but i did notice it.

hehe... now, i dont expect you to know all this. and if you're tired of fooling with it, i'd certainly understand. so, dont worry about it. the machine is working. if you happen to have any answers, i'd love to hear them, but i certainly dont expect you, or anyone else, to be the 'microsoft technical support' here. it's nice having someone with an understanding of these thngs around, but i certainly dont expect you to feel obliged to help or to go out of your way. and let's face it, i tried to take some shortcuts to save the stuff i have on this machine. the proper thing would have been to have everything backed up and to wipe the partition and start over and then restore from the backups.

oh, and by the way, the drive i thought was going bad seems, so far, to be functioning just fine. the original thing that caused all this seems to have been two-fold. one, a print process failed, got reset the wrong way and i had to reboot the machine to try to fix the stuck printer. when i rebooted i got the original 'no config file' error message and windows was lost. and two, apparently the 3 harddrives didnt like to be physically that close to each other and were generating too much heat. the two things in combination made me think the harddrive was going bad and screwing with windows. it may still be going bad, but so far it's not showing any more symptoms.

so, gary, thanks for all your help! continue to do so at your leisure and whim. i do appreciate it!

I've no real idea why your computer has created a new User Account for you, doesn't seem to be any reason for it to do so, but it certainly looks like that's what its done.

To check look in Control Panel > User Accounts, there should be a new user there as well.

All user account settings are seperate in the registry, and are not transferable, by which I mean they don't affect each other. They are contained in seperate keys under the main registry Key HKey_Users, and the relevant one is loaded into the key HKey_Current_User when you log onto your computer. This will contain all the user specific settings for whichever user is logged in.

As far as I know (and I'm reasonably sure about this), Windows cannot create a second Registry (the registry is not really one place, but a series of files called hives, and they are stored in very specific locations).

When I said a key could "inherit" permissions, I did not mean inherit from older versions, but "passed down the chain" from other keys further up the "Tree" (some system files can set priviledges). There is a way to unlock them, but it is quite complex and may cause unforeseen complications even if done correctly. Working in the Registry is a bit like dancing in a minefield, you've got to constantly look where you're putting your feet, and even then you sometimes step on a mine.

Probably the safest thing to do is to run the Reset Permissions tool, I'd make a System Restore point before you do that, just in case.

If I were stood next to you, I'd be confident enough to explore the registry problems a little deeper, but working in the registry by post is the easy way to disaster.

Normally when dealing with registry matters at distance, I write scripts to rectify things, and usually have them checked by one of the experts at MRU or SWW, but in this case it requires permissions to be changed and inheritance settings changing, and I don't know how to script that.

Sorry for my inadequacy. :D


EDIT:Did a bit of research, seems its normal for Windows to create the Extra folders in Documents and Settings when creating a new install over an existing install. As for the Extra account, because you already had an account named Craig, it could not create one of the same name.

Now you'll see six or more folders, among which will likely be ones named All Users, All Users.WINDOWS, Default User, Default User.WINDOWS, and 'fake'. There will also be a folder for each of the old installation's log-in names. (ignore the "fake", that was a ruse by the installer to avoid the "same name" problem.)

Have a read of this, may be of interest to you. http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,119266-page,3/article.html

gary,

the only thing i can think is that windows apparently did a sort of alias thing and combined the data from the old into the new but left the old inactive.... or something.

well, it's moot now. i gave in and reformatted the c: partition and re-installed windows. natually, i goofed this up and then had to do a quick re-format and install again.... dont ask. then the driver installs got a bit pissy on me but seem ok now.

basically, before this new install, the double account install crashed again, bad, and wouldnt boot up again. the 'comctl32.dll was corrupted. i did manage to repair it through the repair features of the install disk, but it was pretty bad off. so, it was just time to re-format. in doing the repair i did manage to save off my email, favorites and other stuff like that.

so, i've a nice clean c: partition with over 6 gigs free now. that shld be good for a month or two :)

sometimes being stubborn just isnt worth it. so, the old junk is gone and good riddance. i still dont really know what really caused all this, a drive going bad, too much heat from the drives being too close to each other, the bad printer error, or some odd virus/trojan/root kit. i really dont know. i've removed the one drive for the time being and removed a pci card that is no longer being used either, just to eliminate all possible problems.

the system boots up nicely and i had almost no problem restoring my internet this time. some of the system drivers got a little pissy on me and hung the machine once during when they needed to restart the machine, and i had to reinstall one of those as well, but other than that, things look ok. device manager seems happy, other than my printer drivers which i'll install later.

so, lots of stuff to install now. i'll catch up everything you said in your last post tomorrow. it's been a loooong day. i'd forgotten how dreadfully long a full reformat can take. so, whatever it was you posted, thank you :)

oh wow! you actually found something about the double accounts thing. amazing! i'm impressed! glad to know this wasnt quite as weird as i had thought.

and you're not going to believe this, but i cant set RetouchPRO as my home page still. unbelievable! i mean, i can set it and hit apply but it doesnt remain as soon as i quit out of 'internet options'. i just cant believe this. a total reformat and reinstall and i cant set the home page? what in the world is with this pc? is there any way for a root kit to survive a reformat? i noticed when i reformatted that xp no longer allows the /U arguement to 'format'. the /U meant unconditional and wiped anything and everything. i've just got to wonder how much xp or something else is hiding something from even the format command and allowing data to migrate over to a new install. or is this just some sort of weird bug in xp and i.e.? i've got no service packs or updates installed yet. very strange.

well, i've got to go to work. i'll get back to this later.

To my knowledge there's nothing to date in the malware line that survives a complete re-format and install. There are theoretical scenarios for a bios level rootkit, but that's all it is so far, theoretical.

There's only ever been one bios level virus, and that was really basic and only managed to &*%^$ the bios not infect it with any kind of "purposeful" programme.

How many accounts do you have on the new install? Can you set Homepage in any of these accounts?

I really don't know what's happening here, but I do have access to a lot of smart arses over at MRU and SWW etc. and they usually know the answer to most problems (or know someone who does), so once you've finished your install/set up I'll ask over there if you like.

gary,

i only set up one account on the new install. so, it would be just that and the admin account in safe mode. the folders look fine as far as i can tell... all users, CraigW, and default users. just three this time :) and the only thing that's giving me any problem at all is the home page thing. everything else seems fairly smooth and norma.

and thank you for the data on rootkits. i was told once, by a tech support person over the phone, that windows (and this was windows98) kept a tiny little area of the harddrive that would NOT be reformatted in a reformating operation. that it kept this tiny little bit to send a tiny bit of data to the new install. for what reason, i dont know. and i dont know if it was true or not. he also told me that the /U arguement in 'format' would wipe that tiny area so as not to migrate it over. again, i dont know if that's true, but i do know there used to be a /U arguement to 'format' and i always used it; again, in windows 98.

xp didnt recognize the /U arguement at all. just called it an invalid arguement. so, apparently, microsoft removed this arguement from xp. the only options i had were 'format' /q' and 'format /fs:ntfs', which is what i used the first time and then later used the /q. i did this all from the repair console, not safe mode with command prompt.

also, whereas it seems to work, is there any reason i shld not use a sata ii drive for the boot drive? that's what i've got it on. all my ide drives are currently disconnected till i get things running smoothly again.

and, would there anything in bios that would have or could have caused the browser to not take the home page change? some write-ahead thing or other silliness? or maybe in the browser itself? something about cookies or security? or maybe it wants service pack 1 at least? or maybe some windows update thing?

and again, this is a fairly minor issue, i know, but it just nags at me when things dont work the way they shld.

Browser settings are solely the concern of Internet Explorer, or whatever browser you're using, the fact that you can't set it would tend to suggest that perhaps IE hasn't installed correctly. Which version of IE are you using (6 or 7)?

As I said earlier it is possible for the registry settings to "inherit" permissions, but that is not the default condition for the "Homepage" key, and I can't see how a clean install would leave things this way.

As an experiment try downloading Firefox and see if you can set the Homepage in that to RetouchPro, at least that way we'll know whether its just an IE problem or something more fundamental.

Can't think of any reason not to use your sata drive as a boot drive.

This is the command instructions for Format (XP) (as you can see /U is no longer present)

FORMAT

Formats a disk for use with Windows XP.

FORMAT volume [/FS:file-system] [/V:label] [/Q] [/A:size] [/C] [/X]
FORMAT volume [/V:label] [/Q] [/F:size]
FORMAT volume [/V:label] [/Q] [/T:tracks /N:sectors]
FORMAT volume [/V:label] [/Q]
FORMAT volume [/Q]

volume Specifies the drive letter (followed by a colon),
mount point, or volume name.
/FS:filesystem Specifies the type of the file system (FAT, FAT32, or NTFS).
/V:label Specifies the volume label.
/Q Performs a quick format.
/C NTFS only: Files created on the new volume will be compressed
by default.
/X Forces the volume to dismount first if necessary. All opened
handles to the volume would no longer be valid.
/A:size Overrides the default allocation unit size. Default settings
are strongly recommended for general use.
NTFS supports 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, 16K, 32K, 64K.
FAT supports 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, 16K, 32K, 64K,
(128K, 256K for sector size > 512 bytes).
FAT32 supports 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, 16K, 32K, 64K,
(128K, 256K for sector size > 512 bytes).

Note that the FAT and FAT32 files systems impose the
following restrictions on the number of clusters on a volume:

FAT: Number of clusters <= 65526
FAT32: 65526 < Number of clusters < 4177918

Format will immediately stop processing if it decides that
the above requirements cannot be met using the specified
cluster size.

NTFS compression is not supported for allocation unit sizes
above 4096.

/F:size Specifies the size of the floppy disk to format (1.44)
/T:tracks Specifies the number of tracks per disk side.
/N:sectors Specifies the number of sectors per track.



Bios really doesn't have anything to do with things after your Operating System is loaded. It is merely there to boot things far enough for the OS to take over. It's mostly a sort of self check that activates the various hardware components and checks to make sure they are loaded and working properly, it's final act is to point to the memory location for the OS, after that the OS takes over and runs everything.

gary,

i'm using 6. you think upgrading to 7 would fix it?

also, i still cant edit the start page in the registry. it wont let me modify it. quite odd; i've always been able to edit the registry. i dont quite understand why i'm getting the same problems as i had when things were obviously screwed up... but a new install?

here's one thought; this is an upgrade version of windows home, not a full version. when i install it asks me for a copy of my win98 cd, which i have and insert in the drive and the install sees this and oks things and moves on. but, what if part of the install process is somewhat depending on an actual version of the old win98 and old i.e? i know the upgrade version is supposed to have all the files and all, but what if it really needs to inherit some things from a real win98 install, including from the browser?

then again, what if the cd just has a smudge on it? ;)

but there's definitely something odd about this machine or the drivers or something. i'm still getting blue screens of death with a couple game programs. Paint Shop Pro xi seems ok, the browser is working...mostly, the machine boots quickly (and that's good), but there's certainly something odd somewhere. i'll try drivers off the nvidia site rather than the cd. that often fixes some quirks.

oh, and this surprised me, i had to once again activate windows. i was told over the phone the last time, that i'd have to phone in EVERY time from here on out. so, on this install, i ignored that and tried the online, automatic process and it worked fine! lol. windows is an odd beast.

as for trying firefox, that's a good idea, but i'll probably amend that to installing mozilla. i had that before and always liked it and i think i've still got the install file for that. i'll let you know how that goes.

so, i've put a few things back, including critical updates and directx 9.0c, Paint Shop Pro xi and a one game, civ 4. civ 4 is the one that's crashing, but again, i suspect that might fix with new vid drivers. i've still got to tweak windows and trim services. naturally, i also have anti-virus and zone alarm.

anyways, thanks again, gary :)

Craig,

You might take a look at ZoneAlarm in regards to your problem setting the home page. I seem to recall that version 6 releases have the ability to lock the home page. It could cause the behavior you describe.

The /U parameter for Format was a dummy in Win98. In Win98, all Formats were unconditional whether you used the parameter or not. The parameter was later removed. Format only affects the contents of the specific partition you format.

Hi Craig, Jim here. Just checking up on you from your old stomping grounds at tw.org. :)

Sounds like you've found yourself flummoxed by IE. Is it still Microsoft.com's homepage that is persistent? Or is it msn.com? The reason I ask is: some of the spyware/malware detectors. and some AV products have that nasty/annoying side effect (usually changeable in their preferences menu's). I also read an article once from Fred Langa, about how Messenger sometimes pre-empts/insists on msn.com for homepage. I try to dig up Fred's take on that.

All the same, glad your rig is up and running. And good to see you're thriving here. Merry Christmas, Old Buddy. And also Happy Holidays to all here!

bob,

i'm running 6-5-722 of zone alarm and i wouldnt doubt that i've got something set wrong or need to set something. i've had problems with za before like this. i look at it and it seems to be ok but i'm getting times when i.e. just refuses to do anything, go anywhere and that comes usually after i've been sitting idle for a while or after using other programs for a while. so, not sure what's going on there either.

and thanks for that note about /U, bob. i always used to use it in win98. never knew they were all unconditional.

Kurkri! you old dog :) how ya been? boy, what a surprise! good to see you!

seems i've been away from tech support for too long ;) yes, it's set to msn.com. well, i've only got zone alarm and avg anti-virus installed for protection right now and still running service pack 1. i do know avg has gone to version 7.5, which is a big change, apparently, but the browser wouldnt allow the home page change BEFORE i had that installed, so that doesnt seem to be it. but, MESSENGER might be the one doing it. it is on this machine and one of the updates windows dealt with messenger too. in fact, while i was getting updates messenger actually poped up. i hate that annoying thing. nobody uses it. it's persistent. you cant turn it off in outlook express or rather you can turn it off but the switch doesnt work. lol. just one very persistent, worthless program. i remember the only true way to get rid of it completely dealt with editing reg keys and then deleting it, but that might have been in win 98.

basically, the only thing i really had on when i first got on the internet after the reinstall was zone alarm. i always put that on before even turning on the modem. and i almost immediately tried to set retouchpro as my home page.

so, how's tosa and the gang? i tried installing icq again a while back but seems my version was just about too old to use and then everything crashed on my old windows rig and i've been jumping through the microsoft hoops ever since. tell him hi for me and eventually, i'll get back over there and say hi properly.

and merry christmas to you too! by the way, i've still got your 'bald' pics somewhere ;) VERY good to hear from you!

"i'm running 6-5-722 of zone alarm "

Craig, I just went over to the zonealarm forum and that release of zone alarm does have a bug that prevents changing the home page. There are several long threads that talk about the problem. It's supposed to be fixed in the current version, 6.5.731.

The bug was in both the free and the Pro version.

bob,

sorry, i have to chuckle a bit. i was told 731 was bugged. that's why i got the earlier version. lol. i'll go look at the forum. thank you! :)

Never done an Upgrade, I always do a clean install with any new OS, so I'm not much help here with what's usual.

But it's definitely strange that you can't edit the registry.

AAGH! (he says hitting head against keyboard) Just a thought (and one that should have occured to me ages ago), what defensive systems have you installed, because it's quite possible one of them is preventing you from altering your start page.

Let me know and I should be able to tell you how to get round it.

Note: It's not down to ZA or AVG (which were in the HJT log you posted) they don't have that ability (unless you're using the pay version of ZA in which case I'm not sure), but if you've installed anything else eg. Spybot S&D, then that certainly has the ability to "lock" your Homepage.

Craig,

I know what you mean about the buggy versions :-) I've been a big fan of Zone Alarm ever since it first came out, but I've had problems of one sort or another with every release since 6.0 -- most were minor, but some were pretty severe. Kind of makes you gun-shy about updating. At least this problem has a workaround.

Really should have read all this thread before posting my last offering.

Forgot all about the buggy ZA. That was a few months back, and the problem's now been fixed, but if you're using an older version it's almost certainly the cause of your problem.

Update to latest ZA and let me know if it resolves the problem.

only got a couple minutes here but wanted you all to know that updating zone alarm did the trick!!! i can now set my home page and it sticks!!!

thank you, all!

lol. i shld have known that the date-coincident event was installing zone alarm, but never even thought about it being that, since it's almost a reflex action to install a firewall immediately after windows. god, ya gotta love software.

again, thanks!

Well done Bob!

Forgot all about the ZA problem, should have remembered it as we had a lot of users through the forum at SWW with problems setting their home page.

As it coincided with your drive and re-install problems, looking for a more mundane reason never occurred to me until too late. :blush:

Glad your homepage problem is resolved Craig.

yup, thank you, bob!

and thank you, gary! you've been a staunch trooper throughout all my windows/internet woes these past few months! hopefully, windows is now fully installed and functioning as it shld.

oh, and just in case, i set a restore point before updating za :)

but i think i better install Ghost and get a backup ready too.

Sounds like a good idea to me. Ghost is the only Norton programme I still like (their AV products used to be OK before they got too bloated, now they're a PITA for a whole lot of reasons, wouldn't touch them with a bargepole).

gary,

i'm the same way. ever since norton became symantec, things started going downhill. i used to love 'disk edit' and 'disk doctor'. those are both gone now. 'system works' and 'crash guard' were horrible. and the last time i had their AV, i kept it for a year till the time limit ran out and that was it. no more. and, their basic AV used to be free! so, yeah, ghost is the only one i use too.

ok, moving on from bashing symantec... i've got one little oddity with ZA. it does its thing on two 'zones', 'trusted' and 'internet'. ok, i get that. and it has security settings for both of these in the form of a slider switch going from low to high, one for each zone. when i set the internet zone to high it says i'm in stealth mode and that other computers cant see me. ok, that's fine too. but what happens is that it tends to block my computer from my modem in the win32 generic host process (internet explorer in this case) when in the high setting. i get a message saying it has blocked the win32 generic host process and no particular way to unblock it. now, the really odd part is that this normally only occurs when the machine has been idle for a while or when using other programs for a bit. when i first boot up the machine i get no such message and even if i get such a message it will go ahead and load the proper page anyways. and when i do get this message, and it does go thru, it lags pretty badly. the ip address it says it blocks is my modem address, not a web site.

now, i just had this happen when trying to get here just now and the only way to get it to work was to turn the internet zone security down to medium. it worked just fine then. i can then set it back to high and it still works. quite odd.

now, dont go searching the entire internet for an answer on this. i can go to the zone labs forum and see if there's anything similar or known about this. but, if you just happen to know off-hand, then fine :)

and merry christmas!

oh, and i downloaded and installed the new vid drivers and they seem to have solved the problem with Civ 4. didnt crash on me once.

Sorry, the ZA problem is a new one on me.

I actually use a V.Old version 6.0.667, because like Norton the newer programmes suck.

They really haven't added much in the way of protection to the newer versions, just bloated it and made it buggy. Version I use has run without a problem for quite some time now, and I've never been infected once, despite visiting some decidedly seedy sites (OK I've got a lot of other things tying my system down, and getting an unwanted programme to run on my box is as hard as getting Tony Blair to admit he's wrong, but it still means there wasn't too much wrong with the old ZA).

You might try Comodo for your Firewall instead, it's supposed to be quite good, thinking of giving it a try myself.

Comodo (http://www.personalfirewall.comodo.com/)

Glad the Vid problems seem to have been solved.

thanks, gary.

i looked at the Comodo site. they talk a good story, but then most salesman talk a good story. they say pc magazine gave them high marks. so, i might check it out further. but i'd want to see some first hand testimonials or chat with folks that use it or something before switching. they do make some interesting claims.

and as for bloat-ware, i'm with you there. i've seen a definite trend that way and i dont know if it's everyone gearing up for the vista release and adding in new stuff for that or if they just think they have to re-invent the wheel in order to make sales. but not a good trend in my estimation.

at any rate, things seem fairly stable all the way around now (knock on wood) so, i suppose we shld let this thread die a kindly old death :)

Seems like a good idea. :bigthmb:

you're not even going to believe this, gary. it crashed again and took out windows again! if it werent so annoying it would be funny.

this time it crashed when using filter forge. i do NOT think it was filter forge's fault. frankly, i dont quite know what to blame. i'm about ready to take this piece of trash down the river and dump it. i got the same blue screen of death i've been getting, only this time it took out the HAL.dll.

on trying to recover it, i went into the repair console and it wouldnt even come up in c:\windows. it came up in only c: . it wouldnt even look at the windows dir. it simply said 'access denied.

so, i've removed the sata ii drive and installed my ide 120 gig drive, which was previously removed to minimize problems on the other installs. this time i've got lots of space on c: and i'm getting quite proficient at installing windows. lol/groan.

so, no real help required here. i'll simply keep trying drives till i run out and if need be, i may go buy a new power supply just in case that's what's doing all this.

i did find out one thing i wasnt sure of before; i do seem to have one other spare drive that's going bad. i was going to install on that one and during the initial process of loading all the windows stuff to get ready to install, the system rebooted by itself. never a good sign. i called it back up again and i was getting a regular clicking noise. and as best i could tell, it was coming from that drive. so, that one seems suspect also. it's also an older ide drive.

so, i dont really know if the sata ii drive is any good or not. it's currently suspect at this point and is currently disconnected physically from the system. i may check it later.

i'm not even going to activate windows for a couple of weeks just in case this thing goes haywire on me again. i'll give it that time to test run stuff.

i have never, ever had so much trouble with a system before. i suppose there are Edsels no matter what you buy and i seem to have found one with this rig.

anyways, seems this thread just isnt going to die. if you have any advice i'm all ears. but mostly i'm just posting this as info.

hope you, and everyone had a merry christmas and will have a happy new year!

p.s. i set the home page this time before installing zone alarm :)

Hi Craig

I’ve been following your problems with interest. But I have not had anything to contribute so far.

However I’ve also known someone who had HAL problems.

HAL is the Windows Hardware Abstraction Layer. It is responsible for configuring your machine’s hardware.

Try running your PC in Safemode. You will probably find that everything is OK.

This problem can be caused by incorrect drivers. Try going to System > Device Manager and check that all drivers are Signed by Microsoft. If any are not then look for an update, or disable the device.

This should get the PC stable again.

You may have a faulty Motherboard or I/O controller, but it would be worth checking the drivers first. I would be surprised if all your hard drives were faulty from what I have read here. (Are you using VIA I/O?)

Hope this Helps

Ken

Don't know if I've posted this before, but this is a useful set of instructions for re-formatting and re-installing.

http://spyware-free.us/tutorials/reformat/

It was written with infected computers in mind, but will work fine with a re-install for other reasons.

The batch file is useful for listing all the drivers you'll need.

ken,

one of the problems with these crashes has been that i cant get to safe mode or any other mode. the crashes have been wiping out critical system files and such that would allow safe mode to work. when i F8 during a boot i normally get the menu list that would allow me to go to safe mode or another function, but they dont work. it tries, but there's not enough of windows left to get there and the machine will give me the same error message when trying to load up windows. this is really quite odd since xp is actually pretty robust about recoveries.

the only thing i've been able to do is to load the windows install cd and either do the recovery console or the re-install route. and on this last one, i couldnt even get the repair console to work right. that thing is almost worthless anyways. you cant copy to other partitions and they've limited your other options as well. i MUCH prefer the old DOS system.

also, the option of 'boot with last known working configuration (restore point) doesnt work either. it just comes up with the same error message.

now, one thing i've done differently this time is, on previous installs i'd always have a number of devices in device manager that now needed drivers. i have two disks that handle these, one for video and one for the other nvidia drivers (this motherboard uses the nvidia chipset). in previous attempts i've always loaded everything that nvidia had on the driver cd. this time, i only loaded those that had the yellow exclamation point next to the device in device manager. so, i may have had driver conflicts from loading drivers i didnt need before, like the usb drivers. so, you may be right about incorrrect drivers.

as for the harddrives, i know, without question, that one is bad, the old c: drive. and i suspect that one other, an 80 gig, is going also. i'm quite surprised about the 200 gig sata ii, though. that's brand new and probably still under warranty. i'll be testing that out later to see. the drive i'm using now seems ok. it's a 120 gig maxtor and isnt more than a year or so old. i had plenty of space on it so i just put windows on one of the partitions. and i only have the one drive hooked up. i only had the one sata drive hooked up too on the last install and it seemed fine also...then.

but, i never rule out operator error. i may be doing something quite daft and not even know it. but i also dont rule out multiple hardware problems or driver problems or software problems. silly things like a fingerprint on a cd can result in goofy installs sometimes. and i've certainly seen bad power supplys and bad motherboards. i've also had oddball bios's which had to be tweaked rather severely to get things running smoothly.

so, part of the problem is finding the real problem. i know drives have been part of it, but just not sure if that's all of it. drivers are always suspect, especially video drivers and i thought i'd handled that part and the problem with the last install and getting new drivers from the nvidia site. heh... seems that wasnt the only thing going on here.

but the really odd part of all this is, i've had crashes with xp before, but never one that completely took out windows and safe mode and system restore and basically all functionality of windows. and it's done it with a different error each time. if it was all the same error each time, i'd highly suspect some sort of virus or trojan horse. but these have all been showing different parts of the system being corrupted. and whereas i dont rule the possibility of a trojan horse being present somewhere, since i'm carrying over some data from old drives, no anti-virus or hijackthis or anything else has found anything. and in most of these re-installs i havent even had time to put java back on the machine, so it's not one of those slippery java things either.

and gary tells me that a rootkit cant survive a reformat, so it's unlikely it was that either.

i do know, from previous experience and study after a bad crash once, that windows will attempt to correct itself on rebooting. it will attempt to rebuild the registry and if it cant do that, will actually wipe errant files out to try to keep functionality. that seems to be what's going on, except that it's just not able to recover enough. why, i dont know. but apparently these crashes are taking out large chunks of windows and it's just too much to rebuild. even safe mode wont function or boot up.

and that, more than anything else, is why i suspect a hardware problem more than a software one. bad drives, bad ram, funky power supplies, bad motherboards and incorrect bios settings tend to cause more severe crashes than software problems. and these have been severe. but, never say never. :)

so, i'm going to do this a little differently this time. i did change the driver installs this time. i'm also going to backup a bunch of stuff on dvd's before putting a lot of software back on the machine. in previous installs i'd not gotten around to backups because i wanted to set the machine up fully and then back up. heh... i never reached that 'fully' mark, so never backed up to external sources after the reinstalls. no service pack 2 till things settle down and maybe not even any critical updates for a bit yet either. i dont even currently know what version of directx i've got on here. i've also been erasing a lot of old junk that is no longer tied to an active registry, just to clean up the drive a bit. heck, i may even just go out and buy a cheap off-the-rack machine for doing my daily stuff and play around with this one on the side (or toss it in a dumpster :) ).

for all i know currently, i may have a power supply that's pushing twice the voltage or current to the drives and eating them up, so it might be time to dig out the old, trusty volt-ohm meter and do some testing. i had a machine years ago that was pushing 190 volts to the drives. that's back in the 8 bit days when drives were using 120 volts normally. so, 190 wasnt quite as severe as it sounds now :)

and yes, getting back to drivers; it may well be that i shld check the nvidia site for updated system drivers or maybe even a bios flash update. it certainly wouldnt be the first time i've had to flash a bios.

and gary, thanks for that site. and thanks to everyone who's helped or tried to help out here. just be careful, this machine is evil and will suck you into its jaws and eat you alive ;)

Heat will do weird things.
Cold also.

Hi Craig

HAL is part of the Registry. It sounds like you are loosing different parts of the registry when XP crashes.
Here is a little program that is excellent for registry recovery when XP can’t recover.
You can backup the registry from windows and then restore the registry from a floppy (or CD) when XP won’t start.

Hope this Helps

Ken

Canned

Backup Your Registry with ERUNT
Please use the following link and scroll down to ERUNT and download it.
http://aumha.org/freeware/freeware.php
For version with the Installer:
Use the setup program to install ERUNT on your computer
For the zipped version:
Unzip all the files into a folder of your choice.
Click Erunt.exe to backup your registry to the folder of your choice.

Note: to restore your registry, go to the folder and start ERDNT.exe

charles, yup. suspected heat for a while, but not now. but thanks :)

ken,

yeah, i'm making backups of lots of things. a startup disk would be a good idea. i'll probably also make an iso (image file) of the drive and save it to cd or dvd. i've been burning things all day and that one's on my list.

i've also got something that came with this gigabyte board. it's some sort of base level backup. you hit F9 near the start of a boot up, much like you'd hit F8 to get the dos options menu, and it takes you to a small little built-in app that has something to do with backing up something. not sure what yet... maybe bios itself or maybe the master boot record or maybe even critical windows stuff. gotta find out more about that one.

i'm putting very little on the machine right now until i get more of this stuff backed up on cd's and dvd's. i'm using Nero Express for the burns and will use the same for the iso's. i've used this before and it seems to do a good job.

ideally, i'd just have a dvd burn of an iso of the entire drive and if things go haywire again, i'd just start over with a nice iso of the entire system all set up. my dvd burner is a dual layer type, so i could burn about 7 gigs onto one dual layer dvd.

i've also got Ghost and a nice 120 gig external drive that i can use either for iso's or straight files or compressed files in the ghost format.

i think when i get all this stuff backed up and image files done, i'm going to put some nice, heavy graphics-intensive stuff back on the machine and try to crash it on purpose just to see if i can isolate what's really going on here. i just cant live with a machine that is going to crash every other day or every other week.

so, thanks for the link. i may well use it.

Craig,

Life is too short for this OS BS! Here's what I would do (seriously):

Get an Intel Mac (any one). Install Windows XP or Vista via Boot Camp (where you reboot into it) or Parallels (where you run it at the same time as OS-X). I have both options running on this low-end MacBook, and both approaches work great. That way you can avoid Windows hell except for when you need it (Filter Forge, Paint Shop Pro--both of which I run).

You can make a disk image backup of your Mac installation for future use. And get this--you can quickly and easily copy (I said simply COPY) either your Parallels or Boot Camp Windows files straight across to another machine fast, and have Windows running on the new machine in the time it takes to boot it up!

I am an IT Consultant in higher ed, managing about 100 Macs (half of which are Intel iMacs) and I have done these very things in a lab setting. I set up one partitioned Mac with everything on it, and copy the files to all others using a disk image of OS-X (to restore onto the target Mac via Disk Utility) and simply drag and drop the bare Windows files to the next Mac). It works!

The Intel Macs kick butt in terms of speed, so no loss there. And the MacBooks are just under a grand. You don't need to go on like you're doing!

plugs,

i actually did look at the macs when my last machine lost the motherboard. it was tempting then and it's tempting now and that's certainly still an option. but, i've spent about $800 on this *#$@$$ rig and i'm not going to simply scrap it at this point... he said stubbornly :)

what i've got going now is a new thing for me. this gigabyte motherboard has a small little app built into the bios. it's a backup utility you access BEFORE windows loads during the boot sequence. this means no matter how bad windows gets corrupted, i can just hit F9 during a bootup and windows and the entire partition it's sitting on will be restored. so, it's like a restore point or an image file, except it's 5 gigabytes large and sits at the end of the primary partition. i had to move some things around on c: and then defrag it so that the image file could be placed there. so, i've got the current windows install with service pack 1, directx 9.0c and all the drivers loaded onto this thing. if the rig fails again, at least it shldnt be too difficult to restore a clean install.

it also bugs me that i've not been able to diagnose the problem here. i've had difficult times with computers and windows before, but never this bad. and i'd really like to know what's going on rather than just throwing everything out the window. so far, it looks like a combination of bad drives and wrongly installed drivers, a combination that's sure to cause havoc to any installation.

since this new install, i've had only one crash but it was only a crash back to the desktop and that's actually encouraging. in prior installs that may well have wiped out windows. so, hopefully, i'm on the right track here.

but getting back to the macs, yes, i think apple has a winner with the boot camp and parallels stuff. i've also looked into vmware as a possibility. you can actually run vmware 'o/s modules' of different flavors and mac is one they are working on. you could hypothetically run a module of mac, windows, linux, sun and all the others on the same rig in a kind of 'shell' environment and in a similar way to what you're saying about transporting from rig to rig, vmware modules would or could do the same thing.

but for now, it's ok. i'll just continue debugging this rig as best i can. in a way it's almost fun, albeit a very strange way. and i am learning new things and getting quite familiar with how to install windows :) and with the new gigabyte backup in place, i'm now attempting to put the rig under heavier loads to try to force a crash. might as well find out if it's going to hold up or not or if i need to dig deeper on the root problem. and with the last crash only being one of crashing back to the desktop, i'm encouraged.

so, i appreciate the advice/suggestion and please feel free to offer anything else. the one thing i've really learned here is that i know far less than i thought i knew about windows and pc's. consequently, i'm quite open at the moment to any help i can get :)

Craig, you know I wish like hell that i could help you. :bawling: :bawling: I truly feel for you!! Good luck, and thanks for keeping up updated on your progress.

dawn,

yes, i know and i appreciate it :) and since you're going through your own hell on this matter, i guess we can cry on each other's shoulder and curse BILL when we're not crying :)

but, as my oldest brother would say, 'it wouldnt be any fun if it all worked right' :)

This is such a TERRIBLE FEELING. I had a similar one; got sick to my stomach! And MicroSloth does not make it easy to reinstall a legit XP Home.