Using set up disks from Micorsoft download centre for XP Pro

[Guest]

I am propodsing to use the setu disks from:

Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2 Utility: Setup Disks for Floppy
Boot Install WindowsXP-KB310994-SP2-Pro-BootDisk-ENU.exe

and want to know if they will wipe the data from my hard disks?

This is due to loosing my monitor drive and also my monitor from the device
manager view, resulting in my not being able to now get to my desktop when
turning on my PC.

Ideas/thoughts much appreciated.

 

[Gordon]

I am propodsing to use the setu disks from:

Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2 Utility: Setup Disks for Floppy
Boot Install WindowsXP-KB310994-SP2-Pro-BootDisk-ENU.exe

and want to know if they will wipe the data from my hard disks?

No. All they do is to enable you to start the Install process from a
machine that has a BIOS that won't allow booting from the CDROM drive...

This is due to loosing my monitor drive and also my monitor from the device
manager view, resulting in my not being able to now get to my desktop when
turning on my PC.

Ideas/thoughts much appreciated.

And how will using these boot-up floppies re-create your Monitor?

 

[Guest]

Thanks for your reply, re the monitor, not sure it will, but at the moment I
cannot get to my desktop (actually see it) as the PC goes through the set up
process upto the Microsoft XP pro logo window with the little pipe and
running blue jobbies going through it and then it goes blank.

Ideas or pointers as always appreciated

 

[Malke]

Thanks for your reply, re the monitor, not sure it will, but at the moment I
cannot get to my desktop (actually see it) as the PC goes through the set up
process upto the Microsoft XP pro logo window with the little pipe and
running blue jobbies going through it and then it goes blank.

Ideas or pointers as always appreciated

Since you haven't provided any information about the exact error, the
recent history of this machine (i.e., the answer to The First Question
Of Troubleshooting: what changed between the time things worked and the
time they didn't?), or what you've already tried, it's impossible to
give you much focused help.

Some general things to try:

1. Try Safe Mode.
2. Try using the /BASEVIDEO switch from msconfig if you can get into
Safe Mode.
3. If you can't get into Safe Mode, try Last Known Good Configuration.
4. Hardware issue? Attach the computer to a different monitor. If the
problem still exists, swap out the video card for a known-working one.

Help us help you by reading this before your next post:
http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm


Malke

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the previous response and links which were most useful. Having
read them please see below the sequence of events as I recall them.

The overarching issue I am faced with is:
• Is this PC worth having time and money spent on it to get it to work or
should I accept that it is and has been a bit of a nightmare and invest in a
new one!!

The PC was purchased in Jan 04 and is a:
MESH MATRIX64 3200BPC made up of

• Athlon 64MB (ATX) – GB LAN/1394/SATA/RAID/AUDIO(KBV-D)
• Athlon 64 3200+
• 612MB PC3200 DDR-MEMORY (400MHZ)
• 2 x 120gb SERIAL ATA(150mb/s) ultra fast hard drive

OS Windows XP Pro SP2

Since I have purchased the PC, I have had a number of OS and other problems
resulting in the PC being returned to the manufacturer 3 times and having the
OS rebuilt.

So here goes on the latest trial and tribulations of the wee beast!!

1. Downloaded a number of updates from Windows, which included a video
controller update

2. Following restarting the PC, was prompted to the found new hardware,
relating to the video controller, which went into a circular loop as no
software/drivers on the PC as this had been generated following update.

3. Went to system restore to rollback updates – tried 2 previous system
restore points – earliest was 2 days previous – response was to “unable to
complete restoreâ€

4. Went to device manager and found video controller indicated as yellow
question mark – could not find monitor on device manager.

5. Tried to reboot through computer manufacturers own restore process loaded
onto PC accesses through start up process – did not work and then no longer
able to see desktop, could see start up process to windows XP logo and
processing pipe (see previous question)

6. Replaced graphics card – no difference – now get blue screen (image
available) with technical information on bottom which reads:
***STOP: OX 0000000A (OX 44005 c00, OX00000002, OX 00000002, OX00000001, OX
804E785E)

Currently I cannot access my desktop as the monitor goes blank after the
Windows XP logo and processing pipe

That’s the story as far as I remember it; add some frustrations, a small
rant and general combobulation and the saga of the PC is complete.

The question is “Is this PC worth having time and money spent on it to get
it to work or should I accept that it is and has been a bit of a nightmare
and invest in a new one!!â€

 

[RalfG]

You omitted to report what video card is in it..a key component to your
problem.

Step 1 was probably the mistake. Get your video drivers from the video
manufacturer unless that isn't possible. Video drivers are complex and MS
drivers are often stripped down to basic functionality for the chipset.

Step 2-3 are pretty common when a driver has been mangled beyond
recognition.

Step 4 is a predicatable result.. no working video adapter means monitor
also can't be detected properly.

Step 5.. seems like somewhere along the way you have damaged your OEM
recovery partition, or at least the boot access to it. If the computer were
an HP you could still access the system recovery from an icon in the PC help
and Tools folder. Acquiring recovery discs from the manufacturer might be an
option for you too. System Recovery still may not be neccessary at this
point.

Step 6 might have worked if you could have removed the existing corrupted
video driver first. Booting into Safe Mode should bypass the corrupted video
drivers and allow you to run a driver uninstallation. Do it from Add or
Remove programs first if the driver is listed there.

Alternatively, with the original video card in the machine, starting Safe
Mode and booting as far as the boot options list allows you to choose the
"Last Known Good Configuration" to boot into. That often corrects a nasty
situation, though you can be left with some non-functioning software. After
the system boots successfully you can try a normal System Restore to a point
before your current problems began.

 

[Malke]

Thanks for the previous response and links which were most useful. Having
read them please see below the sequence of events as I recall them.

The overarching issue I am faced with is:
• Is this PC worth having time and money spent on it to get it to work or
should I accept that it is and has been a bit of a nightmare and invest in a
new one!!

The PC was purchased in Jan 04 and is a:
MESH MATRIX64 3200BPC made up of

• Athlon 64MB (ATX) – GB LAN/1394/SATA/RAID/AUDIO(KBV-D)
• Athlon 64 3200+
• 612MB PC3200 DDR-MEMORY (400MHZ)
• 2 x 120gb SERIAL ATA(150mb/s) ultra fast hard drive

OS Windows XP Pro SP2

Since I have purchased the PC, I have had a number of OS and other problems
resulting in the PC being returned to the manufacturer 3 times and having the
OS rebuilt.

So here goes on the latest trial and tribulations of the wee beast!!

1. Downloaded a number of updates from Windows, which included a video
controller update

2. Following restarting the PC, was prompted to the found new hardware,
relating to the video controller, which went into a circular loop as no
software/drivers on the PC as this had been generated following update.

3. Went to system restore to rollback updates – tried 2 previous system
restore points – earliest was 2 days previous – response was to “unable to
complete restoreâ€

4. Went to device manager and found video controller indicated as yellow
question mark – could not find monitor on device manager.

5. Tried to reboot through computer manufacturers own restore process loaded
onto PC accesses through start up process – did not work and then no longer
able to see desktop, could see start up process to windows XP logo and
processing pipe (see previous question)

6. Replaced graphics card – no difference – now get blue screen (image
available) with technical information on bottom which reads:
***STOP: OX 0000000A (OX 44005 c00, OX00000002, OX 00000002, OX00000001, OX
804E785E)

Currently I cannot access my desktop as the monitor goes blank after the
Windows XP logo and processing pipe

That’s the story as far as I remember it; add some frustrations, a small
rant and general combobulation and the saga of the PC is complete.

The question is “Is this PC worth having time and money spent on it to get
it to work or should I accept that it is and has been a bit of a nightmare
and invest in a new one!!â€

Well, I think the machine is worth keeping but of course I can't see it.
It sounds like you installed the wrong drivers and then further messed
it up with your Step 5. I'm not sure what "computer manufactures own
restore process loaded onto PC accesses..." means.

If you haven't backed up your data, you can probably get it by booting
with Knoppix. Knoppix is a Linux distro that runs from CD. This has the
additional advantage of letting you know if your issues are caused by
hardware or software. If the machine behaves perfectly under a different
operating system, then you know Windows is the cause. If you still have
video problems with Knoppix, then you know hardware is to blame. If you
want more details about using Knoppix, let me know. I don't want to
waste your time with it if you don't want it.

Once you have your data backed up and you're pretty sure the hardware is
good (and I would suggest doing some hardware troubleshooting just to be
sure - see link below), then do a clean install of Windows. If you only
have an OEM Recovery Disk, put your original video card back in the
machine first. Recovery Disks consist of an image of the machine as it
was just before leaving the factory and that image was built based on
the original hardware.

http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Hardware_Tshoot


Malke

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the informative replies, Malke please can you send me further
information about Knoppix and how to use it to reboot my PC.

Many thanks for your help - if I was near Fresno, I would bring the beast
over to you, being the other side of the pond makes ths a little difficult

 

[Guest]

FYI Video card is a 128MB ATI Radeon 9800 PRO - TV Out and DVI

 

[Patrick Keenan]

FYI Video card is a 128MB ATI Radeon 9800 PRO - TV Out and DVI

If you press F8 when starting, do you get the list of startup modes? If
so, try selecting Safe or VGA mode.

If the problem is related to wrong video drivers, either of these should
bypass it. In Safe Mode, many services can't run, so there will be limits
as to what you can install or uninstall.

In addition to Knoppix, the Ubuntu CD is bootable and will help you
determine if the problem is hardware or software. www.ubuntu.org

Finally, you appear to have another system available to you. You can take
the hard disk out of the malfunctioning system and edit the boot.ini file
from the running system to force it into VGA or Safe Mode.

Here's a lst of the options:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/information/bootini.mspx

HTH
-pk

 

[Malke]

Thanks for the informative replies, Malke please can you send me further
information about Knoppix and how to use it to reboot my PC.

Many thanks for your help - if I was near Fresno, I would bring the beast
over to you, being the other side of the pond makes ths a little difficult

Well, it's hot and horrible here and I'd much rather be on your side of
the pond. ;-) Here's information on using Knoppix:

You will need a computer with two cd drives, one of which is a cd/dvd-rw
OR a usb thumb drive with enough capacity to hold your data OR an
external usb/firewire hard drive formatted FAT32 (not NTFS). To get
Knoppix, you need a computer with a fast Internet connection and
third-party burning software. Download the Knoppix .iso and create your
bootable cd. Then boot with it and it will be able to see the Windows
files. If you are using the usb thumb drive or the external hard drive,
right-click on its icon (on the Desktop) to get its properties and
uncheck the box that says "Read Only". Then click on it to open it. Note
that the default mouse action in the window manager used by Knoppix
(KDE) is a single click to open instead of the traditional MS Windows'
double-click. Otherwise, use the K3b burning program to burn the files
to cd/dvd-r's.

http://www.knoppix.net


Malke

 

[Gordon]

Well, it's hot and horrible here and I'd much rather be on your side of
the pond. ;-)

Oh no you wouldn't - we are thinking of starting up a new Ark-building
industry.....

 

[Guest]

Oh no you wouldn't - we are thinking of starting up a new Ark-building
industry.....

Isn't there somebody thinking about this ark stuff already

http://www.evanalmighty.com/

 

[Joan Archer]

I don't think so, we haven't got the hot but we certainly have the
horrible <g>
Joan