In desparate need of a techie guru

[CornField]

My desktop machine went hay-wire tonight. Now it won't boot up -- not even in safe mode or with an emergency disk. It gets to the WinXP window and the 'working' bar starts to run... goes across the screen a few times... then the screen goes blank and there is no noise (no sound of the computer turning the disk).

I was running software (playing Sims 2) when everything froze up. I had to do a hard reboot.

I got up and left the machine and one of the kids had logged on while I was gone. I shrugged it off and went to watch a television program with Mr. CornField.

Around 9, I shooed the kid from the computer and logged off as the kids and in as myself. It immediately began acting odd. There was a new icon in the TSR area -- wanting me to download a new Macromedia Flash player. I closed it without doing anything. Lots of errors began -- one from Norton telling me to uninstall/reinstall. I ran the various spy/malware programs and they found nothing more than a few tracking cookies.

SVHOST started popping up errors. I was trying to get Norton to open so I could copy down the reg/product key -- not happening. Finally, I decided on the tried-and-true route of rebooting to see if things might just straighten themselves out.

I was able to restart normally for the most part (another SVHOST error popped up during the process)... and now: nothing.

I can't get past the boot-up options screen (safe mode, safe with command prompt, last configuration which worked -- it doesn't anymore -- and start normally).

Any ideas? (other than a tombstone and grieving process?)

[Crazy Guggenheim]

1. Does the system *try* to start off the boot disk?

[CornField]

2. Yes

It gets to that same point and then everything stops.

[Crazy Guggenheim]

3. Ok. I'll get back to you.

You can PM me also.

[CornField]

4. Thank you

I'm going to log off for the moment and try to install another hard drive to see if it will boot and let me into the current drive. (I've got tons of client projects on that damn disk!!)

I'll check back later.

[Crazy Guggenheim]

5. That's the best thing to do! Try to boot off the other drive.

[Deja Q]

6. Dang, I was hoping you found my lot to be attractive and appealing!

[CornField]

7. I wish that was the only problem

It appears that I've been struck by the ultimate Hallowe'en pranksters: Microsoft.

Service Pack 2 is not my friend.

[miss_kitty]

8. I never did SP 2

my system is so 'sensitive' I did not want to upset its ecology with that monsterous trash. I don't use IE, have a firewall and anti Virus, scan and defrag clean up and search for spyware on a fairly regular basis, and I have had few troubles-most are solvable by rebooting.

Sorry you are having trouble-I'd go across the lake and egg and TP the M$ campus, but I'd probably get caught-so I'll do it mentally for you.

[CornField]

11. I never planned to do it.

LOL! As for the mental egg toss: Hey, all take all I can get. :)

[miss_kitty]

12. Also I have been thinking about mowing the grounds with a reel mower

Billy HATES lines in the lawn, and I have been told that after the lawn is mowed (with a rotary mower-less striping) they rake or sweep the lines out. It would frost Billy's buns if someone used a stadium reel mower (notice the stripes and designs in baseball parks?) and cut an apple or a penguin into the M$ lawn outside his window-surrounded by STRIPES of course!

[Xithras]

9. Check the hard drive

I know this isn't what you want to hear, but this sounds like a classic hard drive failure. It COULD be other things, but I've seen this scenario enough times so that it would be the first thing I'd check.

First, take the cover off your computer and check your cable and power connections. While you're in there, write down the manufacturer and model of your hard drive. If your connections are tight, reboot your computer and go into your BIOS/CMOS Setup. There should be an IDE configuration screen that autodetects your hard drives. Check and see if the drives are detecting.

If they are, go to the website of your hard drives manufacturer and download whatever disk diagnostic utilities they may have for your model. There's usually a non-destructive scanner that you can use to check the physical operation of the drive.

[CornField]

10. Ran all the diagnostics I could find on the drive

That was my first thought as well -- corruption or some other access problem.

I installed a new drive and booted from that to access the old drive. SP2 was installed over there (something I had been avoiding like the plague because I knew it had issues with my video card). I'm guessing one of the kids installed it by accident.

So, I had to reinstall XP. This provided me a new username, I'm not sure why.

I just finished up taking my old personality back, but I'm still missing lots of information from my start menu... not to mention that I can't get Norton straightened out nor can I even get to the MS update site. Due to the reinstall, I've wiped out all my old system restore points. To make a long story shorter, I'm screwed.

The only good news to come out of all this mess is that I think I've gotten all my client files moved over to the network or onto CD. Now I'm trying to resist the urge to toss the son of bitch right out the window.

[TrogL]

13. Do a scan disk

several times.