computer continually reboots after attempted XP reinstall

R

rishi

The basic story is that my computer attempts to start up, fails deep
into the process (probably only a few seconds from showing me a
desktop), and then tries again to start up. It will keep doing this.

The long story:

Set my computer to hibernate when I was away. Thought that would save
energy. When the computer would "wake up" it was always recovering
from the following error: "WJVIEW: Cannot execute Main: The system
cannot find the file specified." Norton Windoctor doesn't think
anything's wrong, and I defragmented the drive. Wasn't sure what else
to do.

So what? I would just click "Ok" and move on with life.

A week later, my internet connectivity disappeared. It's just an
Ethernet jack into the wall. The technician on the phone said, "Well,
hmm… we're not having any problems on our end…" He went through some
basic stuff with me and he was really puzzled. My LAN device was
showing a big red "x" through it, and he couldn't enable it. He said
he'd send a tech out in a few days.

Meanwhile, I figured that this WJVIEW error was now snowballing (hence
now I'm losing the internet, which I DO care about) so I thought, "Why
don't I reinstall XP?" Sure, that'll probably roll me back a few
years' worth of updates, but with the internet back, I can just
reinstall them. A hassle, but what can you do? (I now realize that Ad
Aware has probably caused the WJVIEW problem).

During the install process for XP, about 13 minutes from the end, I
got the following error (right on the nice install screen telling you
how wonderful XP is): "The Procedure Entry Point GetIUMS could not be
found in the dynamic link library MSDART.DLL"

Well, now I knew something is seriously wrong. I can't even reinstall
XP? (BTW, during install, I selected "upgrade," not "clean install").

At this point, I'm pretty sure it couldn't be a hard drive physical
failure. I've got a Seagate Barracuda with the 3G shock enclosure. I
also do not move my computer around.

Now when I restarted, I got the desktop, and it still gives me that
WJVIEW error (sometimes it says "Windows has recovered from a serious
error.") I uninstalled some unnecessary software (IPICView? Gone.) I
also turned off the hibernate thing. Finally, on restart, I clicked F8
and went to "Last known good configuration." How could that go wrong?

That's when it went wrong. Little did I know it, but that was the last
time I would see my desktop. The computer accepted my choice of last
known good configuration and then proceeded to "half-boot," (it gets
as far as a black windows splash screen), then goes dark, and then
restarts. After the fourth restart, I suddenly came to the realization
that this (duh) is not normal and F8'd into "SAFE MODE" (no
networking).

Then SAFE MODE didn't even boot up! It cycled boots as well. I turned
off my computer manually (off button) and am typing this to post to a
newsgroup somewhere…
 
R

rishi

The basic story is that my computer attempts to start up, fails deep
into the process (probably only a few seconds from showing me a
desktop), and then tries again to start up. It will keep doing this.

The long story:

Set my computer to hibernate when I was away. Thought that would save
energy. When the computer would "wake up" it was always recovering
from the following error: "WJVIEW: Cannot execute Main: The system
cannot find the file specified." Norton Windoctor doesn't think
anything's wrong, and I defragmented the drive. Wasn't sure what else
to do.

So what? I would just click "Ok" and move on with life.

A week later, my internet connectivity disappeared. It's just an
Ethernet jack into the wall. The technician on the phone said, "Well,
hmm? we're not having any problems on our end?" He went through some
basic stuff with me and he was really puzzled. My LAN device was
showing a big red "x" through it, and he couldn't enable it. He said
he'd send a tech out in a few days.

Meanwhile, I figured that this WJVIEW error was now snowballing (hence
now I'm losing the internet, which I DO care about) so I thought, "Why
don't I reinstall XP?" Sure, that'll probably roll me back a few
years' worth of updates, but with the internet back, I can just
reinstall them. A hassle, but what can you do? (I now realize that Ad
Aware has probably caused the WJVIEW problem).

During the install process for XP, about 13 minutes from the end, I
got the following error (right on the nice install screen telling you
how wonderful XP is): "The Procedure Entry Point GetIUMS could not be
found in the dynamic link library MSDART.DLL"

Well, now I knew something is seriously wrong. I can't even reinstall
XP? (BTW, during install, I selected "upgrade," not "clean install").

At this point, I'm pretty sure it couldn't be a hard drive physical
failure. I've got a Seagate Barracuda with the 3G shock enclosure. I
also do not move my computer around.

Now when I restarted, I got the desktop, and it still gives me that
WJVIEW error (sometimes it says "Windows has recovered from a serious
error.") I uninstalled some unnecessary software (IPICView? Gone.) I
also turned off the hibernate thing. Finally, on restart, I clicked F8
and went to "Last known good configuration." How could that go wrong?

That's when it went wrong. Little did I know it, but that was the last
time I would see my desktop. The computer accepted my choice of last
known good configuration and then proceeded to "half-boot," (it gets
as far as a black windows splash screen), then goes dark, and then
restarts. After the fourth restart, I suddenly came to the realization
that this (duh) is not normal and F8'd into "SAFE MODE" (no
networking).

Then SAFE MODE didn't even boot up! It cycled boots as well. I turned
off my computer manually (off button) and am typing this to post to a
newsgroup somewhere?


Rishi: I now see that the MSDART issue is also ridiculous (apparently
an issue of intalling XP over XP SP 1 ...). Still, not sure why this
should have screwed up my computer.

Current solution is having CompUSA install a new hard drive alongside
the old one. The new drive will have XP (clean install) on it; the old
drive will be a slave. Assumption is that the old drive actually works
(but you can't boot the computer off of it). Will drag old drive's
files to new drive, then reformat old drive.

Still looking for commentary here - thoughts appreciated.
 

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