Re: WEIRD Dell Windows XP problem... -- PCTECH

Chuck,

I've seen this several times.

First try reinstalling XP without wiping everything out. Try to use a CD with SP2 (Autostreamer and another PC with a burner will let you create one) especially if it already has SP2 on it to avoid other problems. Boot the CD and tell it you want to install XP but not reformat or delete. When it says that Windows is already in a directory (Windows or Winnt depending on who setup the original install) tell it that you want to use it instead of another or new directory. It should lay right over the top of itself and keep all configurations/installed programs in place. While you can step up to SP2 this way I don't think you can use it to step up from Home to Professional without losing the accounts, configurations and installed programs.

I've had this work and been able to download Windows Updates without a reoccurrence. I had one PC that even this didn't work on. Had to tell the install to use another directory and after copying what I needed out of the original directory deleted the rest of it.

My research showed that this can be caused by Malware as well as a bad Windows Update. From the users I have seen this happen to I really think it was some Malware (or a LOT OF MALWARE) they got from a web site rather than a Windows Update.

Roger Vicker, CCP

On 1/12/2005 11:21 AM, Chuck Lewis wrote:

Hi Folks,

Got a strange one. A friend of my sons at college has an out of warranty
Dell pc running Windows XP. You boot the thing up and saying it comes up is
not quite accurate. It comes up with NOTHING on the Desktop. Just a big
empty screen. Does the same thing in Safe mode. I can do Ctl-Alt-Del and get
Task Manager and from there Applications tab shows NOTHING running. I can do
a New Task and run something from a CD. I loaded Ad Aware, Spybot,
Spyblaster, etc. and our antivirus software Sophos that way and then I can
use the same deal (New Task) to run any of them and they come up with
nothing. I have booted from a boot diskette and run a command line scan that
finds nothing. Tried reverting back to previous config, etc.

She said this has happened before and she took it into a local shop and they
reformatted her hard drive to "fix" the problem. She said it was OK to do
that again but that will be the 3rd or 4th time and there has GOT to be
something going on.

Any ideas ?

Thanks !

Chuck


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