Computer question...

[Morningstar908]

My wife's computer has been becoming more and more unstable. It was progressively crashing and freezing. Recently it consitantly freezes when at the windows login screen, and must be rebooted only to freeze again. When I run windows setup, to repair/reinstall windows, the computer givens me a blue screen error indicating that windows must be shut down.

All this indicates to me that the hard drive is toast. However, when I hook her hard drive to my computer I was able access it to move her files to mine to salvage them. Does this mean the hard drive is o.k...or is it still the culprit. Help me unf#@* this thing! :fm:

Morningstar908

 

[RDJ]

there are a number of things that can cause this ... but it is unlikely to be your hard drive. Since you have some skills .. I would suggest that you copy the files you want to keep over to your hard drive (which you have apparently done) then reload her computer from scratch. make sure you do a full format rather than a quick format. Then load up a virus program on it and run that, load up office and what ever programs you are going to put on and run the virus checker again .. then copy her files back over and run the virus program again ... that should fix her up for awhile.

I always reload my stuff once a year .. just our of GP

 

[NyteByte]

Did you run a disk check to see if there are any soft errors?

Sometimes logical damage on the disk can cause crazy stuff to happen, like freezing and crashing.

Go to a command prompt and type "CHKDSK x: /F" and replace "x" with the drive letter.

 

[Morningstar908]

I forget how to get a DOS prompt so I can run the chkdsk...and can I format from the prompt also? What is the command for format...its not letting me format from the windows CD without crashing.

 

[Morningstar908]

its an XP system FYI

 

[Shaneo0oMac]

trying googling your dos prompt commands

it seems that ur HD is fubared since it refuses to let you format from the cd

 

[RDJ]

trying googling your dos prompt commands

it seems that ur HD is fubared since it refuses to let you format from the cd

Not necessarily true ... it could be his CD is fubar, he has a virus, or several other reasons .. no need to get into them here however.

TO THE OP: Since you have put the drive in your computer and recovered the files you need that way ... simply put it back in your computer and use your computer to format it ...

you should be able to use your disk managment tool to do it. (start - right click on my computer - manage - disk management ) once it is formatted try loading windows again after putting it back in her computer. if it still doesn't work get someone to loan you a new xp cd that you KNOW is good.

 

[Morningstar908]

thanks for the info, gonna try it tonight

 

[wally9404]

ram is bad! plus viruses.

 

[DravenGSX]

To reach a command prompt - boot into safemode with command prompt only. When the computer starts to boot and displays the BIOS information, start pressing the F8 key. Eventually a menu will appear with Windows boot options.

Most likely, there is some adware/spyware that is causing havoc. If you can get it to boot, run adaware and spybot and a virus scanner and see what happens. Might save you from having to rebuild the entire thing.

 

[BlueOvalAvenger]

My wife's computer has been becoming more and more unstable. It was progressively crashing and freezing. Recently it consitantly freezes when at the windows login screen, and must be rebooted only to freeze again. When I run windows setup, to repair/reinstall windows, the computer givens me a blue screen error indicating that windows must be shut down.

All this indicates to me that the hard drive is toast. However, when I hook her hard drive to my computer I was able access it to move her files to mine to salvage them. Does this mean the hard drive is o.k...or is it still the culprit. Help me unf#@* this thing! :fm:

Morningstar908

Most likely you have something installed that is causing an error to occur. Boot up in safe mode (press F8 like stated above during the boot up process). Run your anti virus and what not. Also, check and see if there are any programs installed that you might think could cause the problem and remove them.

 

[RDJ]

To reach a command prompt - boot into safemode with command prompt only. When the computer starts to boot and displays the BIOS information, start pressing the F8 key. Eventually a menu will appear with Windows boot options.

Most likely, there is some adware/spyware that is causing havoc. If you can get it to boot, run adaware and spybot and a virus scanner and see what happens. Might save you from having to rebuild the entire thing.

Ih ave never seen adware or spyware cause the kind of blue screen he is talking about ... virus? yes there are boot sector viruses that will do it, but adware or spyware? highly unlikely. I have not seen everything .. but I have been in this business since before a lot of you were born ... so I have seen a hell of a lot ... LOL!

Which is why my recommendation is a total long reformat of the hard drive and a reinstall. Windows has come a long way since the days of 3.0 but it is still a good idea to ocassionally do a complete and total reinstall of the OS.

 

[harry gilbert]

Instead of a reformat (which would lose all the files), buy a new hard drive, make it the master, and install XP SP2. Make the old hard drive the slave. Hard drives are now quite cheap, and for $89 you can can get 250mb and resolve the problem. Before attaching the old HD to the system, download and install at least the freeware version of AVG virus protection (I have the full registtered version, and it is great!). I also recommend Lavasoft's AdAware, and Hijack to keep your system virus free.

Bad memory can cause blue screens as well.

 

[RDJ]

Instead of a reformat (which would lose all the files), buy a new hard drive, make it the master, and install XP SP2. Make the old hard drive the slave. Hard drives are now quite cheap, and for $89 you can can get 250mb and resolve the problem. Before attaching the old HD to the system, download and install at least the freeware version of AVG virus protection (I have the full registtered version, and it is great!). I also recommend Lavasoft's AdAware, and Hijack to keep your system virus free.

Bad memory can cause blue screens as well.

yes it can .. but generally not in the circumstances as described. As I said before we don't have enough information to definitively say it is bad memory as was stated by another poster.

Your idea will work as well but again it is a more expensive option. What I suggested costs nothing but time and not a lot of that. YOur way is not going to save any useful files that he has not already backed up. he will have to do a reinstall of his programs anyway because everything on the old drive will point to the programs being on the C drive not the D drive where they are currently located. to change where the pointers to drivers/dlls and other files critical to running the program you have to either reinstall or hack the registry .. so you really gain nothing by what you suggest other than more drive space

 

[JasonSnake]

Before your PC crashes again, go to My Computer icon, right click, Properties, > Advanced > Startup and Recovery settings > uncheck the "Automatically restart". Click OK.

Now the next time you get the blue screen, it will stay on the screen so you can write down the post-crash information. Usually it's hard drive problems, IRQ device conflicts that are at the top of the list.

Good luck

 

[RDJ]

(SNIP) Now the next time you get the blue screen, it will stay on the screen so you can write down the post-crash information. Usually it's hard drive problems, IRQ device conflicts that are at the top of the list.
Good luck

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

How long has it been since you have been involved in tech support? I would bet it has been 10 years since I have seen an IRQ conflict.

writing down the post crash information is a great idea ... "USUALLY" hard drive problems ... not so sure about ... getting some of the info off the blue screen would help ... but to this point I am betting the top three are, virus, driver issue, there are a hundred questions that would need to be answered to be able to get a meaningful assessment over the interweb.

No his best bet to resolve the problem the quickest and cheapest is what I suggested in the first place. Short of a house call or an expensive service call it is the best option for getting her machine up and running.

Some of you guys know just enough about computers to be dangerous and waste a ton of a guys money.

 

[JasonSnake]

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

How long has it been since you have been involved in tech support? I would bet it has been 10 years since I have seen an IRQ conflict.

writing down the post crash information is a great idea ... "USUALLY" hard drive problems ... not so sure about ... getting some of the info off the blue screen would help ... but to this point I am betting the top three are, virus, driver issue, there are a hundred questions that would need to be answered to be able to get a meaningful assessment over the interweb.

No his best bet to resolve the problem the quickest and cheapest is what I suggested in the first place. Short of a house call or an expensive service call it is the best option for getting her machine up and running.

Some of you guys know just enough about computers to be dangerous and waste a ton of a guys money.

IRQ conflicts still exist, my friend. He/she may have added a PCI card of some sort. For example, some cards come with USB and Firewire together and can use two IRQ's, leaning out the PC's resources. We don't even know if it's a custom built PC or a Dell/HP/etc. So writing down some of that blue screen info would help us diagnose the PC. You may be a new gen. pc tech, but some of the old common problems are still around.

 

[RDJ]

IRQ conflicts still exist, my friend. He/she may have added a PCI card of some sort. For example, some cards come with USB and Firewire together and can use two IRQ's, leaning out the PC's resources. We don't even know if it's a custom built PC or a Dell/HP/etc. So writing down some of that blue screen info would help us diagnose the PC. You may be a new gen. pc tech, but some of the old common problems are still around.

how do you figure I am a "new gen. pc tech"? You really should check your facts. I have been doing PC tech work since 1984. that is the days of DOS 2.0 and windows 3.1 have been doing it either on the side and as a full time consultant ever since. 84-89 it was more of a hobby/side job kind of thing after 1989 it was full time computer consulting with hardware setup being the main focus. IRQ conflicts, if they exist at all, are so freaking rare that as I said I haven't seen one in 10 years. Most hardware you get now is very adptive and lets windows assign IRQ and memory resources. In order to have an IRQ conflict that windows couldn't handle it would mean that the manufacturer hard coded it in and left no room for movement ... those, to the best of my knowledge do no exist anymore. If you know of one that does ... point me to it .. I would be interested in reading up on why the hell they did that.

What do you do for a living ?

 

[BlueOvalAvenger]

how do you figure I am a "new gen. pc tech"? You really should check your facts. I have been doing PC tech work since 1984. that is the days of DOS 2.0 and windows 3.1 have been doing it either on the side and as a full time consultant ever since. 84-89 it was more of a hobby/side job kind of thing after 1989 it was full time computer consulting with hardware setup being the main focus. IRQ conflicts, if they exist at all, are so freaking rare that as I said I haven't seen one in 10 years. Most hardware you get now is very adptive and lets windows assign IRQ and memory resources. In order to have an IRQ conflict that windows couldn't handle it would mean that the manufacturer hard coded it in and left no room for movement ... those, to the best of my knowledge do no exist anymore. If you know of one that does ... point me to it .. I would be interested in reading up on why the hell they did that.

What do you do for a living ?

X2 what he said. I did computer tech support for a while a couple years back and when I would get some asshat customer on the phone that acted like I was retarded I told them they had an IRQ conflict and they had to call Microsoft. :banana: At any rate, I haven't seen an IRQ conflict since Windows 95..personal experience that is. RDJ is right on the money on this subject.

I have seen a few friends that would get a blue error screen while using XP on bootup and about 75% of the time it was some program that was actually suppose to remove spyware. The easiest way to deal with it is to boot up in safe mode to keep the program from running and to remove it from the system.

 

[SNCBOOM]

Just reformat. I did it this past week and you can do it "fairly quickly"..I had to look around for a few drivers to get everything back the way it was. Everything that I wanted to keep...not a lot I saved on an external HD and I just started from scratch on here again.