My XP home system randomly hangs after spate of blackouts

[Kevin D. Allflatt]

I -and my PC- have recently been victims of a series of
blackouts. As I have no power supply backup my PC has
been subject to having its plug brutally pulled in mid
whatever. After one of these recent power supply failures
I have discovered a couple of problems:
1.- on bootup I am given the choice of starting up with
XP or "backup line ... XP". Both seem to work equally.
2.- my PC has suddenly started to hang completely at
random moments (no response at all to input from mouse or
keyboard; everything just stops); after a hot reset
(which is the only way out) everything works again - till
the next time.
I first tried to restore the system, but found all my
restore points for June and July had disappeared, too.
Of course it might be a sign of upcoming hardware
failure, or just a result of our present heatwave, I
guess, but the coincidence of the power failures and the
sudden hanging of a system that has not really given me
any hassle since initial installation (when I lost my
previous mail) seems hard to overlook, especially as the
only other "evidence" I have is an occasional red error
message on re-booting, something like "rndal.exe not
found". How can I recopy this file into my OS? Any other
suggestions?
Many thanks to any respondents.

 

[Kevin D. Allflatt]

-----Original Message-----
I -and my PC- have recently been victims of a series of
blackouts. As I have no power supply backup my PC has
been subject to having its plug brutally pulled in mid
whatever. After one of these recent power supply failures
I have discovered a couple of problems:
1.- on bootup I am given the choice of starting up with
XP or "backup line ... XP". Both seem to work equally.
2.- my PC has suddenly started to hang completely at
random moments (no response at all to input from mouse or
keyboard; everything just stops - no blue screens or

error messages - everything just freezes); after a hot
reset

(which is the only way out) everything works again - till
the next time.
I first tried to restore the system, but found all my
restore points for June and July had disappeared, too.
Of course it might be a sign of upcoming hardware
failure, or just a result of our present heatwave, I
guess (system usually hangs after being on a couple of

hours), but the coincidence of the power failures and the

sudden hanging of a system that has not really given me
any hassle since initial installation (when I lost my
previous mail) seems hard to overlook, especially as the
only other "evidence" I have is an occasional red error
message on re-booting, something like "rndal.exe not
found". How can I recopy this file into my OS?

Any other suggestions?
I forgot to mention I have a completely updated anti-
virus with which I run full PC checks at least a couple
of times a week. Permanent protection is always enabled,
too and I also run occasional "second opinions" with free
online anti-virus checks (eg: Trend Micro Housecall). No
virus is ever found. I also run full Ad-Aware and SpyBot
checks once a week, and have a firewall, which reminds
me,why might Windows Explorer request permission to
access the internet? I never let it, but that flag has
come up occasionally over the past couple of months.

Many thanks to any respondents. I would appreciate an

emailed answer to (e-mail address removed).