HELP - Major Computer Crash due to faulty software!

[Danny]

Please forgive this letter from being generalized, as I
have posted and emailed this to many places in hopes of
getting some help from SOMEONE.

THIS IS LONG, again I apologize.

I have a major problem with my wife's computer I can't
figure out. Here's low down on the computer itself -

Make and Model - Compaq 6300
Processor - Intel Pentium 4 - 2.4G
Ram - 256M
Harddrive - Quantum Fireball 40G
Removable - DVD/CDRW Combo
Operating System - WinXP Home w/SP1 and all updates to
11/28/03
File System - NTFS


The skinny -

I cannot boot up the computer at all. It goes to the
logon screen, then shows the wallpaper ONLY, then goes
back to the logon screen, with no name, as I only have
one user on the computer, but have it toggled in the
control panel to show it on startup, then BACK to the
desktop, again showing ONLY the wallpaper. It seems to
be an infinite loop. I've tried everything imaginable,
from booting in safe mode only to get a black screen that
says safe mode, nothing else, no task bar, nothing to
safe mode command prompt only to get the same results as
with safe mode. Last known good configuration done
nothing. I've contacted Comcast, and more than half the
tech support people didn't even know what the software
was! I have a TON of data on the computer that I was in
the process of backing up, but this happened and now
ultimately it sits awaiting. I need help so I do not
have to do a system recovery and lose everything on
there, which totals about 300 dollars worth of business
documents, and 3 gigs of downloaded files, plus about
twenty personal documents I can't really afford to
loose.


Can someone help me???? I figure if I could find someway
to boot in dos via floppy and access the NTFS drive, I
can find the problem. I've been unsuccessful in doing so
thus far. I'm an advanced user, and sure I can find the
problem if I can access the drive, but apparently I'm not
advanced enough to make a boot disk to go to DOS and
access the NTFS drive so I can either look at the
boot.ini file, some other files I've read that may hold
the problem, or do a system restore from dos. Again -

H E L P ! ! !

Here's more detailed information about the cause and
effect.




Now the Problem.

We have Comcast High Speed Internet service
(http://www.comcast.net) and they have a utility which
helps protect children from accessing unsuitable
material. Since I have a 16 year old step-daughter who
likes to do everything she's told NOT to do (grin) I
decided that this would be a wonderful idea to install
and use (later, I found it was NOT) This program is
called Comcast Security Manager (http://beta.comcast.net)
On that page it describes it as "you will have access to
parental controls and pop-up blocking software. You will
be able to screen out objectionable Internet content and
to block unwanted advertisements from opening new windows
during Internet browsing." However, when downloading and
installing, it took control over EVERYTHING pertaining to
the computer and blocked a child's access from even the
computer itself. From what I can gather, it took
Administrative Rights away, and allowed those rights only
when switching to the person who set up the program and
made different user accounts (ultimately myself). Being
beta software, and knowing there may be minor bugs in it,
I downloaded and installed it. However, there were no
legal disclaimers of any such as with most beta
software. Even installing the program presents no
disclaimer or EULA.

Again, being in beta form, I expected some minor quirks,
and took the few I did have in stride. However, after
constantly when the program started to constantly crash
on booting up, and some other quirks that got very
tiresome in nature, I decided to uninstall the Security
Manager (via Add/Remove Programs of course). That's were
the problems began. After uninstalling it, I rebooted.
Everything seemed fine. I went to get on the Internet 2
days later, and it wouldn't connect. I thought it may
have been the service or the lines, but when I hooked my
computer up to the cable modem, it worked, and still
works fine. So, I decided to uninstall and reinstall the
modem. I done just that, and still, I couldn't get on
the net. When using the Security Manager, I couldn't get
on the net until I 'logged in' to the Security Manager,
so I assumed when I uninstalled it, it didn't give my
Administrative Rights back, or didn't change back an
Internet setting. That being the case, I decided to do a
system restore. THAT was a bad idea, and that's when it
all happened.

After doing the system restore and rebooting, all I was
greeted with was a Windows Installer window, and then a
pop up error box saying "to uninstall Security Manager,
please use Add/Remove Programs" and then an OK button.
When clicking OK, it went back to the Windows Installer
windows, and again, the error message above popped up and
began in infinite loop. I tried ctrl-alt-del to try to
end the task, but a window popped up and said that the
Task Manager has been disabled by the Administrator (I'm
assuming the poorly made and never to be used again
Comcast Security Manager changed this as I surely did
not). Being a patient person, I decided to play it's
game and clicked ok on the error window, and then try
canceling out of the Windows Installer window. I done
this for about 15 minutes, with 100 plus clicking 'No"
and 'Cancel". I was surprised my patience paid off as I
finally was presented with the desktop complete with all
my icons and the taskbar. However, everything I clicked
or opened ran the Windows Installer and tried to Install
the very disliked now Security Manager. I decided to
restore BACK to when the security manager was
uninstalled. Again, a very bad idea. Now all I get is
the infinite wallpaper/logon screen loop and can do
nothing what so ever.

Again, if there is anyone out there that can help me, I'd
be indebted for life to that person. Reading the forums
pertaining the this 'should be illegal to have available'
software (http://forums.comcast.net/forum.jspa?
forumID=28) there are more that 5 or 6 people having the
same problem and tech support is doing NOTHING about it.
Once I get my wife's computer in order, I am going to get
with this people in a class action suit against Comcast.

For the record I have tried going through Compaq support
and they have no idea how to fix it except a full system
recovery. That is not an option now.

Thanks in advance for your time in just reading this.
Eternal Gratitude if you can help me fix it!

Danny

(e-mail address removed)

 

[bill]

There are ways to fix things booting into the recovery console from
the install CD but I have never had any luck with this - mostly
because I am not familiar with it I would guess.

this is what I would do.

install another hard drive at least 5G
disconnect the current drive.
install winxp on the new drive.
you may have to change your boot.ini file-try it without mod first
reconnect your sick drive and boot up on the new system.

then copy the files you need.

for the future, you might want to consider partitioning your drive
into a 5G system partition and the rest for SW and data.
that way if the system gets blown away, as it appears to be now,
simply reinstalling it will give you access to the data on the other
partition. You will still have to reinstall your SW to link it into
the new reg, but that is a lot less troublesome.

In fact if you aquire the 5G drive instead of borrowing it, just leave
it. after the data files are removed from the other just do a reformat
and start installing everything that isn't system related to the D:
drive.

 

[Jeffrey]

Danny,

A couple of things. First, you can goto:
www.bootdisk.com to download a bootdisk for your specific
operating system, providing of course that you have
another computer you can goto to download this software.

Secondly, I know that you have tried a restore, went
into safe mode, and chose last known good config; but have
you tried reinstalling your operating from cd on top of
your current (bad) operating system. I know that in the
past when I had some problems that I have troubleshooted
to no avail, I would just pop the operating cd in and
reinstall over top of the current operating system, which
would leave all files/folders in tact, and it would run
like magic.

If all else fails, you could resort to removing the
harddrive with your critical files on it, go to another
known good computer, install your harddrive in that
computer, and you should be able to browse your files and
copy them to a safe location.

Now, if THAT fails, then it is time to perform
an "Office Space" and take that computer out back and beat
the living $hit out of it until a childlike grin appears
on your face.

Hope that helps, if not, then you still are "indebted
for life" to me and will do my bidding until I say
otherwise. You can start by giving me your personal
credit card number, and the keys to your car!

- Jeff

....pc load letter? What the hell does pc load letter mean?