Symbols Replaced All Alphabetical Letters!

[Dale]

Hello,

I started my computer running Windows XP this morning and
all of the letters in my desktop icons changed to symbols
(X ?, only 2 symbols I can type to show you)

I also opened Word 2002 and all the documents had symbols
instead of letters.

I tried system restore using all the available restore
points without success.

Basically, I can't use my computer because I can't read
anything.

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Dale

(I posted this message on a friend's computer.)

 

[Malke]

Hello,

I started my computer running Windows XP this morning and
all of the letters in my desktop icons changed to symbols
(X ?, only 2 symbols I can type to show you)

I also opened Word 2002 and all the documents had symbols
instead of letters.

I tried system restore using all the available restore
points without success.

Basically, I can't use my computer because I can't read
anything.

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Dale

(I posted this message on a friend's computer.)

You say you can't do a System Restore, but can you boot into Safe Mode
or boot Last Known Good configuration? This might be caused by a virus,
but it can also be caused by hardware failures. I would first determine
that the hardware is good, because what is the point of doing a
complete reinstallation of Windows on bad hardware. Check the RAM with
something like Memtest86 from www.memtest86.com and the hard drive with
a diagnostic from the drive mftr. You will run neither of these
utilities in Windows - rather you make a bootable floppy and run the
tests.

If the hardware is good, then try a Repair Installation. If the Repair
Installation doesn't work, then you will need to format the drive and
clean install Windows. Obviously, you will lose all programs and data
with the second option, but you can reinstall programs from cd's and
restore data from backups. Here are links to help with the
installations:

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm - Repair Install
http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html - Clean Install

Let us know if you need more help.

Good luck,

Malke

 

[Guest]

i have the same problem today. Please tell me what you
learned to correct the problem. thanks. steve
(e-mail address removed).