Posts by gerbil

What's happening there with those PXE errors, lexlap, is that you have Network Boot in your boot order [beneath your HDD and other options]. The Intel chipset has determined that there was no boot device [you removed the hdd] before it and that there is no actual network boot server available, so it pops those messages and shuts down. No problem.
Typically, you would use network booting if you plug your lappy into a corporate network; booting would be automatic, upon demand.

Ah... well, you are in luck, cos Corsair memory modules have a lifetime warranty; take it back for a replacement.. the store should just hand you another one at your word.
Next step is to discover the reason behind the failure to load Windows fully; it could be physical hdd failure, system file corruption or reg file corruption. Sys file corruption tends to result in a Windows Repair because you can replace files manually until the cows come home. Disk damage.... well, you can download and boot with a diagnostic software tool from the maker of the disk drive itself... and that is always worth doing if you suspect a problem. Or you can jump in and create free space, then in that a new partition on which to load a temporary test installation of Windows.
You choose.
Oh, to save you burning cds all the time you can load that bootable iso onto a USB flash drive [UFD] and boot with that. The tool you need is here:
http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/
- it should find your UFD; select Diskimage, point it at your iso and Create...; then boot from the UFD.

Sorry, lexlap, I'm not being very forensic with this, asking you questions when the answers are before me etc...
Is that the 512KB of pre-installed memory that runs Memtest? It should run XP happily....
Hard to believe that there is a memory [Corsair stick] and a hdd problem, although bad RAM can do bad disk writes.
I would remove the original [working with Memtest] stick and replace it with the Corsair 1GB module, then test with Memtest again.
And if it runs, try with the hdd to both run memtest and boot. Tt is always possible that the system has decided that its memory is mutually incompatible.
If the hdd won't load Windows fully, then there are a couple of simple options :
-A Windows Repair - you keep your data intact, but have to upgrade the installation with all Security and Windows updates.
-Use this software [free] to burn a bootable cd; use that to create say 30GB of free space on your hdd, create a partition in it, and then install Windows with that XP cd onto that [Setup will see the new partition, and give you the option to use it. Just bypass the Activation part [do not enter your code!!!]. Then you can access your data, and also try to fix what may be wrong with the original OS in C:.
Sounds complicated, but it's not, that pgm is good.
http://www.partitionwizard.com/download.html
-The third is to …

Hi, Gina,
There are cases of Mcafee and Defender not sitting well together; because you have MBAM [a better thing] as a service you should remove Defender completely.
Having said that, i have not heard of a malware actually uninstalling a protection service, and i wonder if the problem is not something to do with your shadowing service?
These four files intrigue me; a search does not show what they could be related to, and in any event I am not sure the SysWow64 folder is the place for temp files...
C:\windows\SysWow64\sho7905.tmp, shoF1F1.tmp, sho2AFC.tmp, sho145F.tmp
You could submit some or all to http://virusscan.jotti.org/, click Choose and submit the file for examination [the Choose button browses to the file]
If they exist still, check their properties/owner. Being temp files, it should be safe to delete them. Are there now any other similarly named .tmp files?

No problems here with your taking some time away, Lexlap. At this stage, the problem appears to be hardware related, and I'd be tempted now to plump for a memory failure. You could exclude the hard drive from being suspected by unplugging it. Memtest doesn't look at the hdd, but BIOS notes it, and it just could somehow be interfering with the system bus. While you are into the innards, replug the memory stick, then rerun Memtest. Try the other mem slot. Say how it goes. If Memtest fails again then testing with a replacement [1GB] stick would be next. A friendly tech might lend you one...
1GB? I always think 512MB is really too small for windows.

Okay. Pity. So it could be system file damage, or registry file damage. Or a hardware problem... As a point, at what stage does Safe Mode loading jam - what driver file is the last loaded?
Can your machine run Memtest86+ for, say, half an hour with zero errors now?
Think hard... about how much free space do you have on your hard disk? 8 or 10 GB, say?
I ask because you have a Toshiba that came with an OEM installation. You don't have the Tosh disks, but you have an XP cd and the code - have you used this disk to reinstall the OS with that code? Thing is, we cn try to copy over the original registry files with the Recovery Console, but on just a few OEM installations that can cause another problem...

Mmm. that is not a typical memory error message. i'd say something else crashed the CPU. Anyway, chkdsk is at least running now, and that's a start. It should be reasonably quick, dep on hdd size and errors.

Hello, Lexlap, please try that disk you burned on a good system... when that "setup is starting Windows" label first appears you should see the Welcome to Setup screen with the option to enter the RC almost immediately, but it may take several minutes - it does depend upon machines. Windows is examining hardware at that stage, searching your disk for Windows installations. Once you get the cursor, enter...
exit
No harm will be done. Assuming the disk works, then retry in your bad laptop. If successful, the command you enter is...
chkdsk /r
About the examining hardware stage - it could be that your non-working cd drive is hanging your computer? Can you disconnect it [you get to rip the laptop apart, and there will be guides for doing just that on the web]?
If the RC disk is good as checked above but won't load the RC in the laptop, then you need to see if another bootable software can recognise your hdd. There are plenty of examples to use, but a good one would be here: http://www.partitionwizard.com/partition-wizard-bootable-cd.html
-either the bootable cd or bootable flashdrive version.
If this software boots your sys and displays your hdd then it is likely in good shape; the problem is elsewhere.

"I was told not to use the consol and use the install instead and xp will give me another chance to do the repair..."
Where were you told [or who told you] not to use the Recovery Console? That website you link to? At this stage, a Windows Repair is NOT the option you want, it is almost the last option to use. You want to simply check your hard drive for errors, and repair them if possible - that is available through the Recovery Console.
"I do have a copy of the XP disk"... fine, either XP Home or Pro disks will load the console for you. I understand some OEM or slipstreamed disks will not have the option. You can download and burn to a cd a Recovery Console from any of these sites:
http://www.thecomputerparamedic.com/files/rc.iso
http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/tools/bootdiscs/xp_rec_con.zip
-obtain the .iso file, then burn it to a cd.. ie burn the image [an iso file is a disk image].
Load that cd, it will run just like a normal Setup as it starts up.
A bit more...
"It worked as prescribed until after .... Instead of allowing me to begin a repair my options are:" Okay... if Setup determines that your installation is badly damaged [ie. unrecognisable] it won't give the Repair option at this stage. But you are past the RC option at this point, this is a Repair Installation, rather like a windows replacement. You got here and …

If it happens when using your browser, then some code on a webpage the browser is viewing is demanding too much memory, paged and unpaged. Try closing some tabs. Or some of your programs the browser uses could be corrupt... Java, flash players, other plugins. Renew them.

Hi, lexlap. First thing is to check your hard disk for correctable errors. Grab that XP CD disk, insert it into your spanking CD drive and restart your computer. If you are prompted, select any options required to start (boot) from the CD.
When the text-based part of Setup begins, follow the prompts. Select the repair or recover option by pressing R. When you are prompted, type the Administrator password.
At the command prompt, type...
chkdsk /r
When it completes it will list the results. Restart without the XP CD, see if Windows loads. Say how you get on. The options are rather limited, here.
By the way, any recovery process could have been done with a USB flash drive [with a bit more bother], but a cd drive may come in handy one other day.

Hi, Your Hosts file is locked so that no malware can simply modify it [okay, without removing the "protection" first, a simple thing to achieve...]- it's entries are fine.
If you had McAfee Virus Plus, you certainly do not now.
You have McAfee Security Scan, but that only informs you as to the state of your protection services.
You could run the McAfee Consumer Products Removal tool (MCPR.exe) to clean your computer of remnants and then attempt a reinstallation of the service you purchsed, but first read this page [a guide to removal]:
http://service.mcafee.com/FAQDocument.aspx?id=TS100507
Good luck.

TM: Try Ctrl-Shift-Esc.

A quick search with that error number shows that you likely have a memory problem. With power off first try reseating the sticks, and then restarting. If that has no effect then if you have multiple sticks try removing one or the other.
A lot of good memory brands carry lifetime guarantees - off to the shop.
Remember, power off... and ground your hands to the chassis before touching the sticks.

Took me a while to realise that bats may not have meant to be crude.. :)
Quite funny...

Well, if you were moderatley happy with that sys except for the video display then I would say that you are looking at low/lower mid-range motherboards. It's a fact that not everbody needs a smokin' $500 board with a pair of $800 graphics cards bending it outa shape.... you should get a decently performing new replacement well under $100, and consider young secondhand. Not knowing what you have, I could guess that your PSU is sufficient, keep the CPU, DVD drive and case. As regards hard drives... they still make Mbs that accept IDE drives [usually only one interface on boards now], but if yours is old [8,9 years is oooolllddd, and risky] then get a new one, and if you do then a SATA drive is just plain better. So to still use your old IDE get a board with one IDE interface and a bunch of Sata ports. $60 - $80. Don't get legacy serial/parallel port offerings if you don't have an ancient printer, USB suits most home gear. HDMI. When I say low end, modern low end is far better than old high end. If it does what you want, when it's in the box you'll forget all about it in a week. Just be aware of the creeping specification trap - future-proofing is wise, but will you be doing demanding engineering/architecture rotations etc? Onboard graphics are cheaper than adding a videocard, and the latest Intel chipsets do pretty decent graphics for the general home user.. certainly …

Ah... Intel 82845G/GL/GE/PE/GV Graphic Controller on an Intel 845G mb. You know, that mb came out years before I bought my first computer. Intel are CPU people and for functioning chipsets; I don't think video controllers is a strong point with them.. they go for adequacy in that regard, good enough for accounting, stills, business offices, but not fast video from games or other high end graphics processes.
Checking specs, that chipset has PC133 bus speed [really slow], the integrated graphics has a 200MHz [slow] clock with 64MB of memory. It's just not going to process stuff very quickly. That mb was aimed at offices and homes circa 2002... no streaming video, slowish games.... Heck, the first internet browsers only appeared in the mid-nineties.
Solution? New sys.

Addressing the streaming issue only, there are free softwares that will download the selected video for you [from utube etc] and allow you to save the file to watch without breaks. I think Firefox has a plugin to do just that?
Me? I just note the time the dl ends and use that and approximate file size to hook the video file from my Opera temp internet cache, save it somewhere as a .flv file [they are flv files generally, but given a temp type extension by the browser... so just change the extension to .flv, and the name to something notable if you wish] and play it on my free VLC media player.
If you have a player which does not accept .flv files then use a free flv to avi converter. eg. Freez from www.smallvideosoft.com. Voila! No freezes, no need to dl again.
Well, there ya go, I just checked, and Opera has a widget which does all that for you. But a WARNING!! Use ONLY the OFFICIAL plugins/extensions/widgets for those browsers. Anyone can publish such an add-on, and it will do what they wish [and you agree to, perhaps] such as store personal information for any purposes. You may get advertisements, sales emails...
My way is safe, and pretty quick.

I am not sure a good cable should have that effect.
Some motherboards assign different properties to their different SATA ports.... but network drive?? You don't have to leave it as a logical drive.... a primary drive or two on a disk can be a handy thing.

It will be a value that has been added under these two keys that is blocking the Folder Options listing:
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

The value is NoFolderOptions; rclick on that value and choose delete in both keys.
It may have been introduced by malware... an MBAM [gurgle it] scan will solve that.

I think a sector is first picked as being bad when it is shown as containing data, but that data is unreadable or in disagreement with the file table. The data may be recoverable [an advantage of NTFS], it may not.... but if writing zeroes to that sector is possible then it will have its defect status revoked by the drive electronics.
If again it fails [weak magnetics, say] then once more it will be marked and perhaps mapped to a reserved sector on the drive.
You can use something like siw.exe to see how many spare sectors have been reallocated on your drives if they support SMART. There may also be a count of uncorrectable sectors.

If you saw chkdsk run without any action from you then it likely means the session manager [via autochk] detected a disk had not been shut down correctly.
Because you have not logged on yet [or seen the Welcome screen] the registry has not been updated yet to reflect a good logon, so you should try using your F8 key during startup to gain access to the Advanced Options screen -choose Last Known Good Configuration.

Oh dear. All that for just $60... bargain. Quoting from the HDDRegenerator site:
"Bad sectors are a part of the disk surface which contains not readable.. information. As a result .. you may have difficulties to read and copy data from your disk, your operating system becomes unstable and finally your computer may unable to boot altogether. When a hard drive is damaged with bad sectors.... you risk losing information stored on it. The HDD Regenerator can repair damaged hard disks without affecting or changing existing data. As a result, previously unreadable and inaccessible information is restored."
I like that. If data is recoverable from bad sectors then Windows chkdsk program will restore it for no cost.
If bad sectors are not recoverable then HDD manufacturers have free utilities which evaluate sectors on a disk, recognize those which are bad and with truly irrecoverable data, and then give you the option of writing zeroes to those sectors - the drive firmware is then forced to return those sectors to usable status. These utilities will also recover readable data as per chkdsk. All free.
j2130, may I suggest that you try running chkdsk from a Windows Setup disk? Use Setup to start the Recovery Console; "chkdsk" is a command in there. Running "chkdsk /?" will give you a list of available parameters.

Bayan, did you try the second fix I suggested?

If it was a real one instead of {9DBEDA52-BB0A-DA11-07E5-3B2BEE030000} you would just gurgle it. But because CLSIDs are basically [registered] tags the kit probably set a matching one in your \software\classes\CLSID from which to hook some data that it wanted.

Well, wireshark is a packet capture tool, and that's what it does. If you are trying to learn the gist of captures then one suggestion is to turn off all but one traffic source application. Next is to construct useful display filters so you see only the traffic you are interested in; once you have that set then to reduce the capture file size you can set a capture filter that accords with what you wish to display. eg... you could ignore a running bit torrent download and concentrate on email packets, say. Take note, too, of the colouring rules - they identify the type of packet.
Packets are not very human-friendly, in general.... you are seeing computer chit-chat.

Wireshark. Every byte. Every connection. Every IP.

One other thing, I don't kow how common it is for malware to use this key in registry, but I know some do... when a process is started the OS checks this key for additional information re flags etc, but it is very possible to use the key to start another process.
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options
A valid subkey would be similar to this one:
\udtapi.dll Name:CheckAppHelp Value:REG_DWORD 0x1
But you can put in an entry thus:
\msconfig.exe Name:Debugger Value:grogon.exe .... and trying to run msconfig will actually start grogon.exe, which may or may not exist in your sys, be malware, etc. Or you can use a Value:notepad.exe ...
\msconfig.exe Name:Debugger Value:notepad.exe .... which will open a text file with msconfig as content.
Check that key for such Debugger = notepad.exe entries under the subkeys for exes that will not run in your sys, and delete those Debugger entries.
Or do this, and we will check the results with you [post them.. :)]:
==Please copy the text in the box to a Notepad [format/wordwrap unchecked] and save as showkey.bat to your desktop; dclick it to run, then post the file showkey.txt

reg query "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options" /s >>c:\showkey.txt
start c:\showkey.txt
pause

Okay, Graham... I'm going to guess that the drive electronics cannot handle their potential full speed when inside the box, compared with the data rate achievable with USB when inside the caddy. How does it perform when it is Master on one controller [cable] and the the C: drive is Master on the other? Your optical drive can be slave on either.

Try googling "i386\asms". You are not robinson crusoe... :)
Anyway, just hit Ok and see if Setup runs on.

Because you don't say what wire-count your cables are, i have to ask - are they 40- or 80-wire? CS does not work with 40-wire cables, unless you modify them yourself. Even though CS was available i used M and S jumpers, placing the Master drive at the end of the cable. But placing of the drives does not matter if you have two on the cable - putting the Master on the end was only important if the Master was all that was connected [removes reflections from an otherwise hanging end].
If you go with M and S jumping then no, no other disk work is necessary, it simply allows the controller to identify the Master drive. CS does it via wire 28 on the 80-wire cable - it is only connected to the mb and end connectors. So with an 80 wire cable and two drives you tend to put the Master on the end, for CS to work.
It has occurred to me that once i experienced a failure on a mb in which the South Bridge [which chip on an Intel chipset board handles disk communications] would overheat or likewise fail when tasked with a read/write job of more than a few MB ... the system would just crash. It was not actually a heatsink problem, at least nothing which could be solved by normal chip cooling [supplied heatsink with adequate paste, well seated and unobstructed], but one which a replacement mb solved. Sneaked …

Okay... considering that you are loath to waste the time spent already loading the new PATA drive then perhaps you might run a quick check to see if Windows is fully recognising it and its data. Well, the actual check is quick, but you should spend time reading the help file.. :)
In that regard, might I suggest Grenier's Testdisk from http://www.cgsecurity.org/
Running it through its steps should confirm that the disk structure is as it should be.

Aw, heck... see the thread about pagefile.sys just down the page.
Full and slow? Well, it would be.

A PCI sound card? You cannot reassign IRQs to resolve 'conflicts' in XP... it dynamically assigns them; sharing should not be a problem. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314068
You might attempt forcing XP to use resources that BIOS assigns to PCI... do this by editing boot.ini to include the parameter /pcilock in the OS specification line. I think some BIOSs have a switch for that, also.

Cannot open cmd window [shell], or exes in the explorer shell.... you blokes need to check my earlier post. You can use Task Manager [yes, yet another shell] to open the cmd shell. How? Open TM with Ctrl-Shift-Esc, then press Ctrl-New Task ... a cmd instance will open.
Monitors, can we do Jude for trespass...? Tsk.. the very nerve....

:)
Nope. You might notice that there are a heck of a lot of \??\Volume entries - they are the devices you have once had connected, like any and all USB flashdrives, cameras etc. Windows remembers all. You can actually delete the whole MounteDevices key if you so wish; Windows at next restart will regenerate entries for the drives [volumes] that are then connected, and assign them all new letters. The problem with that is that you might have a particular order that you have used which is reflected in registry or other pgms, such as a backup referencing a certain drive. So then you have to change them. And it may get tricky if the system is not on C:
But simplest is to just go with the two related entries that I gave above. You're not walking through the valley of the shadow here....

:)
Sorry... but that's the best I can come up with.

500GB is certainly not too large. There are no drivers as such, the ATA interface handles all comms. Now... er... it's a while since i actually held a PATA drive in my hands, so i may be a little off-beam here...
When you inserted the new PATA, and started the sys for the first time did it recognize new hardware? [this is the bit I'm not sure about; I know a new SATA is recognized thus, I just don't recall about adding PATAs.. :( ]
Anyway, this is what I'm thinking: the sys knows your PATA from the USB, knows its signature and has associated it with a drive letter; perhaps now that it is seeing the disk from a different angle [the ATA interface] it is a little confused. So [and this will do no harm at all] try using regedit to open the HKLM\system\mounteddevices key. Find your PATA via its drive letter in the DosDevices section, note the value of its Data entry. Now go up the list and find the corresponding \??\Volume entry with matching Data value- delete it, then delete the DosDevices entry also. Restart your sys [a new entry will then be generated, and the USB origin will be forgotten].

That is correct, blogger. Upon reinstallation [without any type of format], or with a Repair a lot of software apps get broken like that.
As i said before, NO format of Windows drive [partition] => no data loss; apps with reg entries die.

Sorry, i beg to differ. If reinstalling XP, Setup will not overwrite files other than those in the Windows directory and certain other XP system files in Program Files, Documents and Settings and the root directory. Data files and files in My Documents remain.

If you choose to reinstall Windows WITHOUT ANY SORT OF FORMAT of the selected drive/partition then theoretically you should not lose any personal files, data.
Or you could do this [and it is easy]: get Easeus Partition Manager [free], use it to make room by shoving the inside edge of your Windows directory to the left if it is not full, make a new partition in the newly-created free space, and place any must-keep files in there. Reinstalling Windows to C: just won't touch that new drive. If you don't fool about with the way Windows operates, where it places files etc then you might give it 25GB [minimum, or more- say, half your drive total space] to live inside. Use the remainder for your other drive.

I'd let Windows have a 50MB pagefile, fix it at that via the task.
A 6GB hdd? Windows, fully updated and with drivers loaded, is going to want roughly 5.5GB of that. Another browser and things start to get tight.
IS the sys running well? No idiosyncracies? Then open the Windows folder; go Tools tab, Folder Options, View tab - chhose to Show Hidden files and Folders. Right, now inside the Windows folder you see all those blue folders? Delete them all. LEAVE the $hf_mig$ folder UNTOUCHED. [those folders in blue are there in case you wished to reverse a KB article package, such as an update or security fix; if your sys is running finely then you don't need them.]
There are a couple of great guides on the web which ask you searching questions about your use of just about every Windows file/folder/service with a view to deleting them. Believe me, there are literally hundreds of such things for the average user to delete with no ill-effects. eg. do you really wish to keep all those desktop backgrounds/screen savers or bits of sys music or that helper dog or the guide to using windows or arcane services or....

Anti malware programs often remove the malware itself but do not repair all the damage. Your file associations have been damaged : get the exe fix from here: http://www.dougknox.com/xp/file_assoc.htm

MBAM will remove them both, completely. It's the best way, they both spread themselves widely thru your sys/registry; forget manual removal.
You loaded some doubtful app which had them as an accompaniment - you did not read the license conditions, if any.

These two keys are read before winlogon starts. To learn how to use them you can read up on M$ support or technet about service order loading and control, and the Session Mgr.
1. BootExecute HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager
2. Services HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services
It's a pretty sensitive time in the order of things; if you load too early you'll get some error because of the loading, starting of services.

Mmm... as you discovered, if the thing wouldn't boot in Normal mode, but did just fine in Safe mode, then very likely it was going to be a driver issue. In Safe mode the ATI graphics driver would not be loaded. Big finger-point.
Nice work.

Interesting. So you swapped cd players? If so, I guess I'd go with bad. Who knows what Dell meant by line mapping?
No more bluescreens?

Depending on timings of your actions, using SR would have rolled back your drivers to what partially worked before, but did not again. Hmmm. What happens with Safe Mode?
A bit of info would be handy, your mb model and vid card model [ATI GFX doesn't really cut it].

Totally unfamiliar with the Dell Diagnostic CD... I thought it would be a standalone, bootable thing, but it sounds as if it uses core parts of the OS on the machine it wishes to test? So it might be your HAL playing up? Here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff554406(v=vs.85).aspx

You could almost say that the System User(Local System User ) is the kernel, the heart of the OS itself. You can see the subsystems it runs via TM. It has most access/control. If you REALLY KNOW WHY you need access to the System User account then you use the well-known trick to start a System-privileged cmd console, stop explorer via TM and then use that System-privileged cmd console to start explorer as a System user. You are then fully dangerous. If you blow it all up, I don't want to know about it.
To completely revert to normal you likely will need to use a Restore point.