Re: Fixing broken XP install on XPS machine

i find that you hit the point of diminishing returns after about an hour or
two of trying to solve a problem like this and are better off at reloading
the entire system. with that in mind, you may consider these two thoughts.
1) if you do choose to reload the system you may want to purchase a new hard
disk to put in the system for the fresh install. this has the benefit of
providing additional space as well as allows you to avoid spending time on
backing up the contents of the current drive (and potentially missing
something like your 'favorites' or the outlook express windows address book
which are not exactly stored in the most obvious places). once the
operating system is rebuilt on the new drive you can once again attach the
old drive and copy your data from the old drive to the new. 2) you could try
restarting the system in 'safe mode with networking' and then pointing your
browser to housecall.trendmicro.com and run the slow but thorough free
online scan and repair tool. if it works then great, if it doesn't, then
you don't have much of a choice but rebuild.
let us know how it works out.

"Mike S." <retsuhcs@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:gookic$ofe$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


My nephew asked me to look at his XP-MCE XPS machine after a "friend of a
friend who's an IT tech" messed with it after an apparent virus attack.

As he describes, the problems started when he tried to play an downloaded
video and WMP (apparently) requested permission to download a new codec;
followed by his Trend Micro virus alarm going off. His "friend of a
friend" apparently removed said virus (he doesn't remember which) but the
machine (which DOES boot and run) has been very unstable since.

He has a ton of music and video files on it, and I suggested that he back
them all up on an external HD (which he did, after I booted the system
from a Live CD for safety).

So then we were faced with either a wipe and full reinstall, or something
more conservative.

Some symptoms are as follows (besides general crashes and instability):

1. The NTFS file system on the C: drive seems to be messed up. When the
system boots, the pre-desktop screen displays a text message saying that
AUTOCHK is not available for disk type RAW. Running Norton Disk Doctor
from a Live CD, it complains that neither NTFS boot sector is readable
(how, then can the system boot and run?)

2. The system freezes if you try to open a command window or any console
application (for instance, chkdsk). So I ran chkdsk from the Live CD.
Astonishingly if finds very little wrong, exexpt for some unallocated
space which it fixes. Also ran the quick test with the Western Digital
diagnostic, and it found nothing wrong.

3. His antivirus cannot connect to the Internet to do a signature file
update, although web browsers, his torrent client, etc still hum merrily
along transferring stuff back and forth.

We decided to first try a conservative strategy, doing a repair install
using his Dell XP-MCE install DVD. The install proceeded to completion,
but only clicking through some errors I've never seen before:

1. Prompt to locate the Intel storage driver (dialog box was pointing to a
non-existent folder). I manually navigated to the Dell drivers folder on
the C: drive and it carried on.

2. Error while calling mscoree.dll (isn't this a .NET component?)

3. A huge string of errors related to some "get version" function of a
system DLL.


On first reboot, the AUTOCHK error is still there. DOS prompt and chkdsk
now run, and finds lots of errors in the volume map which are supposedly
fixed. Antivirus still cannot connect, but other programs have access.

It was getting late so I told him to reinstall his antivirus and see if it
updates, run another virus scan, and check for general stability before
deciding whether to wipe the machine clean.

Does this scenario suggest anything in particular?




.

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