Aaaaarrrrrrrggggh F*cking XP!!!!

[Mofo8]

My brother phoned a couple of nights ago to say his PC had went tits up. I was a bit vague about how and when it happened, but I reckoned it would be fairly easy to get up and running again.

His problem was with the System file. I faffed about for a bit using the recovery console thingie, trying to get a good copy of this file to replace the duff one, but to no avail.

I then asked him if he had anything important he HAD to keep, as in my mind a nice clean fresh install is the best way to sort these problems out for good.

All his important documents and files where backed up onto his other drive, so we went for the nice clean install (including quick NTFS format).

This is where the problems began (and the fun). I kept getting "couldn't copy file" errors while the comp was copying setup files from CD to HDD. After 4 hours of swearing and shouting, I called it a night. I took his other HDD home, copied his important stuff and scrubbed that too.

From 4pm this afternoon until nearly 1am the following morning, I've been trying everything. I've tried DOS boot disks, Windows 98 boot disks, installing XP onto 2 different HDDs, installing Windows 98 first then attempting to upgrade................. aaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggghhhhh!!!! I WANT TO SMASH SOMETHING!!

I put this PC together in the first place. There is no new hardware in it. Windows XP Pro installed without probs the last time. I even tried popping one of his HDDs in my PC, and managed to easily install XP there. The fun came when I tried moving it back over to his PC. It isn't having any of it. It shows BIOS info, and POST stuff OK, then the screen goes dark. I'm now attempting to do a repair type installation to see if it redetects hardware (in case my own PCs video/monitor stuff is messing it up), but I'm just stuck in an endless cycle. Reboot>Repair continues>problem crops up>machine reboots......

Can ANYONE shed some light on this matter. I've heard mismatched memory can be a problem... but he's only got a single 512mb.

 

[Mofo8]

Pah... It's 2.45am, and I finally think I've found the problem... Bad RAM! I had discounted that possibility, despite seeing repeated mentions of it in conjunction with failed XP installs, 'cause the references were usually about mismatched memory and suchlike. I dowloaded a memory checker that can be booted from floppy, and the memory failed most of the tests... all around the area between 240mb and 255mb.

So, looks like my brother will have to splash out on some new RAM.

I'll let you know if that solves the problem. I'm off to bed (It's my day off tomorrow, but I have a driving lesson at 9.50am)

 

[TdC]

jeebus, good luck mate!! I had a similar prob once, where a dodgy ram stick worked fine in pcA but utterly refused to do it's thing in pcB. I was totally stumped for days :/

 

[Shovel]

If you get any more doubts about faulty bits, try giving the hard disk a thorough testing. We had a problem with corrupted files and file copies with Jo's machine. Run a diagnositic check on the HD first from your friends computer, and if it fails, then run it on the same hard disk from your computer. That way you can establish if it's hard disk or IDE controller that's wrong

 

[sibanac]

jeebus, good luck mate!! I had a similar prob once, where a dodgy ram stick worked fine in pcA but utterly refused to do it's thing in pcB. I was totally stumped for days :/

Same here, to make it even wurse memtest didnt find a thing wrong with it, It wasnt till i got my hands on some profesional HW diag tools that we found it

 

[TdC]

aye, I had a mate xray my dimm, and he told me there were cracks in the micro-thingygummy and that was why it didn't work properly. it seems that it would fail if current wasn't "driven" hard enough or something I don't understand any of that, but I binned it and got a new one.

 

[xane]

This is why you always get two sticks of RAM, that way you can run on 1/2 RAM size and determine if the other stick is the problem.

 

[TdC]

that's very true, but at the time I was a poor student

 

[Mofo8]

Well guys... a fresh brand new piece of DDR RAM solved the problem. Windows installed without any problems after that. The real problems came after I shifted the PC back over to his place....

Installed his BT ADSL shit, plugged the modem in and headed to the Windows Update Site, forgetting of course to install Norton AV and Internet Security. The computer was connected to the interweb for less than 5 minutes before being infected by at least 5 trojan virii, including the E variant of Blaster, some kind of password stealer and a few other nasty bits and pieces.

My fault... I've just never actually experienced any of these new types of virus. I'd heard you could get them without downloading or running anything, but I guess I had to see it to believe it. Nasty stuff. All sorted now thankfully.