[Solved] What a day....

[fRACTAL 0]

I'll sum it up...

Get home, turn on computer > its a bit slow, I wonder but then it seems normal so I think nothing of it > I install an antivirus update that requires a restart > I restart > Windows is slow at start of login and then totally and utterly freezes after > I restart twice, same results > I get my XP disk, it doesn't even notice my old copy when I overwrite > Installs fine > login install motherboard > restart, NTLDR is Missing Ctrl + Alt + Delete to restart, I reinstall windows, same result....

I have two ideas at preventing/working out the cause of this, after that I'm stumped...

Wish me luck

~Doom

Edited September 30, 2008 by TimOfDoom

[gogoblender 3,068]

Good lord

 

This a virus Tim?

 

I really hope you get it sorted out soon, dude. A comp down is no fun...specially with Sacred 2 coming out soon.

 

Keep us informed

 

 

gogo

[fRACTAL 0]

No not a virus... well actually you could call it that

It calls itself

"Windows XP Service Pack 3"

Beware!

its the root of all evil (read trouble) on my computer at the moment, it ruined the registry the boot record and so on and so forth... I didn't even get the chance to save anything except what I'd backed up earlier on...

I'm going to try: disconnecting the IDE disks so they don't mess anything up, wiping the whole partition instead of formatting it, then creating a new one, then I'm going to see if its fixed...

and I'll also see if its my motherboard drivers for some weird reason

If it isn't... I'll get a local expert-y person to do it

~Doom

 

Oh its probably because I said Microsoft were good earlier today... thats karma for you

 

and heres to hoping

 

EDIT EDIT : The corruption/damage whatever, was so bad safe mode was the same as normal, and recovery console just.. failed

 

The new edit!: In other news I got a nice USB Key, and while looking for portable applications for it (firefox, GIMP, Winamp, I found that you can put a bootable lite-version of windows XP on memory stick! Tempting I'll admit

Edited September 29, 2008 by TimOfDoom

[Genenut 8]

how do you think ms keeps in buisness? by selling "upgrades" that require more "upgrades" to work correctly....

 

:4lol:

 

I could have told you sp3 was bad news... I was in a never ending reboot loop for a few hours on mine ...*sigh*

[Llama8 8]

You sure it's not a dodgy HD Tim?

[fRACTAL 0]

Well it'd be very strange if it was, I had trouble with windows trying to read windows from the IDE disks before, so last time I installed they were disconnected, this time they weren't so I think it may be related to that. Also a MBR problem can be fixed, plus I manage to boot to windows after install so a HDD problem seems unlikely. But if it is, I have a 12 month warranty or 24 month, one of the two.

Also if it was HDD how come I can install, and as I said above, login fine, I'm going to install again today, and see if it boots fine if I restart without installing motherboard drivers...

(then if that fails I'll disconnect other HDD's and install, then if that still fails I'll install on my older HDD)

~Doom

Edited September 30, 2008 by TimOfDoom

[fRACTAL 0]

Ok that was the most devilishly simple yet devilishly hard to fix problem I've ever encountered.

Basically XP didn't install (all 3 times) for some unknown reason: NTLDR NTDETECT.COM and boot.ini, all 3 of which are needed for booting to windows.

Thats the simple part, the hard part its to fix it you have to be inside windows.

My solution was to work from windows when it opens at the end of the windows install, so from there, I copied the 3 files from the other computer, and then took them by USB to mine

Copy -> Paste -> Restart!

It restarted normally!

Hurray!

~Doom

Edited September 30, 2008 by TimOfDoom