Major problems

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Guest

OK, here is the history of what happened.

My wife recently moved here from Mexico where she had a Spanish version of XP loaded on her laptop. She wanted to change it to English. We bought XP Pro and decided just to reformat and reinstall English XP Pro. Done. No problems. Worked awesome. I was downloading the Service Pack update and we lost power. Problem #1. Upon restart themachine kept recycycling itself. (Turn on, turn off, turn turn off). Problem #2. I tried booting in safe mode, no luck. Decided to reformat again and reinstall again. This time the process went VERY VERY slowly. Problem #3. After what seemed an eternity it loaded and I was on my way. The problem is that after that reformat and reinstall and re-download service pack the machine crawls. Problem #4. I mean really really slow. It takes 10 minutes to boot up and probably 30-60 seconds to open any program. I have tried a complete reformat. A complete new installation. No luck. Same problems. I have run checkdisk, no luck. I have run anti-virus, no luck. I am in despeate need of some help and would be FOREVER indebtted to whomever can help me out of this bind.

Thank you

Jeff
 
Microsoft's Windows XP Professional MSDOS Install step by step
http://www.windowsreinstall.com/winxphome/installxpmsdos/indexfullpage.htm

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User

Be Smart! Protect your PC!
http://www.microsoft.com/security/protect/

------------------------------------------------------------------------


| OK, here is the history of what happened.
|
| My wife recently moved here from Mexico where she had a Spanish version of XP loaded on her laptop. She
wanted to change it to English. We bought XP Pro and decided just to reformat and reinstall English XP Pro.
Done. No problems. Worked awesome. I was downloading the Service Pack update and we lost power. Problem #1.
Upon restart themachine kept recycycling itself. (Turn on, turn off, turn turn off). Problem #2. I tried
booting in safe mode, no luck. Decided to reformat again and reinstall again. This time the process went
VERY VERY slowly. Problem #3. After what seemed an eternity it loaded and I was on my way. The problem is
that after that reformat and reinstall and re-download service pack the machine crawls. Problem #4. I mean
really really slow. It takes 10 minutes to boot up and probably 30-60 seconds to open any program. I have
tried a complete reformat. A complete new installation. No luck. Same problems. I have run checkdisk, no
luck. I have run anti-virus, no luck. I am in despeate need of some help and would be FOREVER indebtted to
whomever can help me out of this bind.
|
| Thank you
|
| Jeff
 
Jeff said:
I am still needing some help. Reformatting multiple times has not improved
the problem. Please, I am getting desperate here.

:

ve run

anti-virus, no luck. I am in despeate need of some help and would be FOREVER indebtted to whomever can help me out of this bind.
Click to expand...

First, double-check your BIOS settings: Ultra DMA mode enabled for all
drives? Processor cache enabled? Caching and shadowing disabled?
Hyper-threading (compatible Pentium 4's running WinXP Pro only) enabled?
Verify that all speed settings are as they should be.

Sounds like your hardware might have been damaged when you lost power.
Test each component of your computer.

<Motherboard> Hmm... I guess if it turns on, then it's working decently.

<Power supply> Wouldn't make your computer run slower, but if it reboots
spontaneously or you get a lot of program errors, this may need to be
replaced. (I recommend one by PC Power and Cooling, but a laptop power
supply probably can only be replaced by the dealer.)

<CPU> Laptops run hot naturally, but is it really hot? Processors,
especially mobile ones, will be less efficient as the heat rises (HALT
commands will be mixed in with yours to cool down the processor). Make
sure that the processor is cooling itself as it should.

<CPU, continued> It may also have been damaged when power was lost. Run
Prime95's torture test. Let it go for as long as you can. If you get a
lot of errors (a few is normal), you may want to consider replacing it.

<Memory> Get a copy of Memtest86 and see if you have any errors. A few
isn't too bad, but a ton means you'd better replace the system's RAM.
While you're at it, make sure it has at least 512 MB of it (personal
recommendation).

<Disk> Run a disk check and make sure you have no bad clusters on your
drive. Also make sure SMART monitoring is enabled if your drive
supports it. That will detect oncoming failures.

If all else fails, backup your data, WIPE the disk clean (don't just
delete or reformat; wipe in case it's a pesky virus) and try installing
again.
 
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