disppearing disk drives, faultly programs and slow performance

[Guest]

Here's some background:
About a month ago my computer started having some weird problems. The
keyboard would lock up and stop working (fixed on restart) and then one day,
I could no longer load musicmatch jukebox. If I clicked the link, I would
get an hourglass and then that was it. It would show up in Task Manager
under processes as using 0 memory and would not show up under the
applications tab.

I sent my computer in for repairs. The diagnostic was I had some nasty
viruses and such that had castrated Norton Antivirus. All viruses and spyware
were removed. AVG 7.1 professional was added to replace Norton Anti-virus as
well as ewido antispyware (I had already been using Spybot and Ad-aware).

When I got my computer back, things seemed to be much better. I could open
musicmatch jukebox again. There were a couple of weird things I immediately
noticed, like my computer had reverted back to SP1 and I had to update to get
to SP2.

Also, almost immediately, Internet Explorer stopped working, the link turned
into a generic internet properties tab. Despite the program still existing
on my hard drive, it failed to launch. I was able to reinstall it using the
web browser in outlook.

After that, despite daily clean system checks things have gotten
progressively worse.

My sound drivers stopped loading. Andrew E. was nice enough to suggest I
change around the PC1 slot my card was in. That seems to have solved the
problem.

Then, Musicmatch jukebox stopped working again. I deleted it completely
from the system this time. I don't want to take chances that it is part of
the problem.

I switched to itunes to play music, which said it wouldn't work without an
update. The computer virtually stopped when I tried to update itunes from the
itunes menu (I was able to update from the web). When itunes tries to do
anything, it seems to take up so much memory that the internet stops working
completely and everything else is slow. I can't even shut down itunes and
actually have to restart the computer to be able to do anything to do with
the internet. What I'm trying to get at is that I seem to have memory issues
when certain programs are running, but not always (even when I use a memory
intensive program like photoshop I don't have problems).

Soon (but not immediately) after changing the PC1 slot my soundcard sits in
my Cd-rom/DVD-rom drives disappeared. Two are internal drives and one is
external and connects via USB cable (other USB connected devices like my
digital camera still work). They display in device manager with an
exclamation point stating that the drivers exist on the computer but the
hardware can't be found (the opposite of what happened with the soundcard).
I should mention the floppy drive is gone too. I never use it, so I tend to
forget about it.

Also, when I tried to run Windows Defender last night, I got an error
message posted by another user (Chris W.) "Application failed to
initialize - 0X800106ba". I reinstalled the program and ran a quick scan
(with a clean bill of health) and now am running a complete scan.

Even though everything keeps telling me I have a clean system, problems keep
occurring.

I know that was a long list to read through, but I wanted to be thorough. I
guess my biggest concern right now is getting my rom drives back.

I know it's a long post, but I've already shelled out well over $100 for
computer repairs that solved the problem for .2 seconds and now I'm at my
wit's end suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

-Tara

 

[DatabaseBen]

have you tried to revert to a functional restore point

have you tried to do a windows repair with your setup cd

do you have these issues in safe mode?

there is a memory diagnostic tool for free
via microsoft.com

 

[DL]

Test your memory
memtest86+
Test your hd, a free utility available from your hd many site
But then it could be a mobo problem

 

[Rock]

Here's some background:
About a month ago my computer started having some weird problems. The
keyboard would lock up and stop working (fixed on restart) and then one
day,
I could no longer load musicmatch jukebox. If I clicked the link, I would
get an hourglass and then that was it. It would show up in Task Manager
under processes as using 0 memory and would not show up under the
applications tab.

I sent my computer in for repairs. The diagnostic was I had some nasty
viruses and such that had castrated Norton Antivirus. All viruses and
spyware
were removed. AVG 7.1 professional was added to replace Norton Anti-virus
as
well as ewido antispyware (I had already been using Spybot and Ad-aware).

When I got my computer back, things seemed to be much better. I could
open
musicmatch jukebox again. There were a couple of weird things I
immediately
noticed, like my computer had reverted back to SP1 and I had to update to
get
to SP2.

Also, almost immediately, Internet Explorer stopped working, the link
turned
into a generic internet properties tab. Despite the program still
existing
on my hard drive, it failed to launch. I was able to reinstall it using
the
web browser in outlook.

After that, despite daily clean system checks things have gotten
progressively worse.

My sound drivers stopped loading. Andrew E. was nice enough to suggest I
change around the PC1 slot my card was in. That seems to have solved the
problem.

Then, Musicmatch jukebox stopped working again. I deleted it completely
from the system this time. I don't want to take chances that it is part
of
the problem.

I switched to itunes to play music, which said it wouldn't work without an
update. The computer virtually stopped when I tried to update itunes from
the
itunes menu (I was able to update from the web). When itunes tries to do
anything, it seems to take up so much memory that the internet stops
working
completely and everything else is slow. I can't even shut down itunes and
actually have to restart the computer to be able to do anything to do with
the internet. What I'm trying to get at is that I seem to have memory
issues
when certain programs are running, but not always (even when I use a
memory
intensive program like photoshop I don't have problems).

Soon (but not immediately) after changing the PC1 slot my soundcard sits
in
my Cd-rom/DVD-rom drives disappeared. Two are internal drives and one is
external and connects via USB cable (other USB connected devices like my
digital camera still work). They display in device manager with an
exclamation point stating that the drivers exist on the computer but the
hardware can't be found (the opposite of what happened with the
soundcard).
I should mention the floppy drive is gone too. I never use it, so I tend
to
forget about it.

Also, when I tried to run Windows Defender last night, I got an error
message posted by another user (Chris W.) "Application failed to
initialize - 0X800106ba". I reinstalled the program and ran a quick scan
(with a clean bill of health) and now am running a complete scan.

Even though everything keeps telling me I have a clean system, problems
keep
occurring.

I know that was a long list to read through, but I wanted to be thorough.
I
guess my biggest concern right now is getting my rom drives back.

I know it's a long post, but I've already shelled out well over $100 for
computer repairs that solved the problem for .2 seconds and now I'm at my
wit's end suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

I would suggest you start over with a clean install of XP.
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

You also need to take a close look and why the system got so infected in the
first place. No number of security programs are going to help if you don't
practice safe hex.

http://www.cert.org/tech_tips/before_you_plug_in.html#III

http://www.claymania.com/safe-hex.html

Protect Your PC
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/protect/

 

[Guest]

Thanks to everyone who took the time to reply. I'm still stuck I'm afraid.

I tried system restore. Even though there were several events in the
calendar, it said that it could not complete the restore because no changes
had been made.

I also tried to check out my memory. It was trickier than I thought as I
don't have any disk drives to boot from. I can say both memory cards are
there and I can at least do a test that detects their capacity.

Most of the solutions offered involved having working CD drives - which I
don't have.

Here's the part that really baffles me... my USB ports are working. I can
connect to a portable harddrive and it shows up in my computer. However, my
portable DVD burner does not show up. I deleted the driver and restarted.
The computer detected the "new" hardware and reinstalled the driver but the
device is still not showing up in my computer!

If I could at least get the portable dvd drive to be recognized I'd have
some more options.

I'm more computer literate than many, but not totally savvy, so please
excuse me if someone posted a solution that I didn't try already but should
have.

I really appreciate all the comments! Please keep them coming!
-Tara

 

[Guest]

Yippee! Progess has been made. I downloaded a registry patch that gets rid
of third party conflicts CDROM. Turns out when I reinstalled my sound
drivers, one of Creative's disk detect features was also installed. By
turning that feature off, all my disk drives reappeared. What a mess, and I
totally appreciate all the feedback. Now I can test the memory properly and
procede with everyone else's feedback.

-Tara

 

[Alan Pengelly]

Yippee! Progess has been made. I downloaded a registry patch that

gets rid of third party conflicts CDROM.

That's great.

Can you tell me what it was you downloaded, so I can try it as well?

For some reason I too have "lost my CD drives". I have the exclamation
point, and when I try uninstall/reinstall I get "Windows cannot load
device drivers for this hardware - may be corrupted or missing (code 39)"
or "windows cannot find a better match for the drivers you have installed"

I have established (I think) that the drivers are:

system32\storprop.dll
system32\drivers\cdrom.sys, cdaudio.sys, imapi.sys, redbook.sys

but I don't seem to be able to find "new" ones on the MS websites

I have downloaded a floppy boot system of six discs, which are purported
to load the drivers required to use CD Roms. But I would like to see if
there were anything less drastic I could do before trying this.

Any help welcome.

(Windows XP Professional Version 2002 SP2 automatic updates installed)

regards
Alan

 

[Guest]

Here's the direct link. http://aumha.org/downloads/cdgone.zip When you unzip
the file, there are instructions on what to do.

If you don't want to download a file that will alter your registry with
without first investigating the site you're downloading it from (and who
could blame you?), the webpage is here http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpcd.htm .
Scroll down to section 8 and you'll see a header “My CD drives have vanished
(from Explorer, Device Manager, etc.).†There is a link to the file in the
middle of the paragraph.

This seems to have been the perfect fix for me, but I definitely backed up
my registry before hand just in case. I would recommend you do the same.

Hope it works!
-Tara