AngeliaK said:
Something happened. On startup, it gets to my desktop and the wallpaper
is
there, but nothing else. No icons, no start button. I can't right click
because there is a timer showing that something is happening, but it stays
that way forever. I thought the computer was still loading, so I waited 15
minutes, but it stays that way. I have tried: 1) Trying Cntrl Alt Del to
close any tasks 2) Starting in Safe mode - it gets to a screen that is
blank
except for the words "Safe mode" around the edges. 3) Starting from the
last
known good configuration - it just gets me to the same place, my wallpaper
with the timer showing by my cursor.4) Booting from the Windows XP CD and
doing a Chkdsk - no problems found 5) Booting from the Windows XP CD and
doing a repair - it reinstalled the XP, took half an hour, had me reload a
driver, let me specify users, then started up, looked promising, but got
me
to the same place. Using another user's name, it just got me to a blank
blue
screen which again has the timer
showing. During install, there WAS one error that said "Failed to load
C:\WINDOWS\System32\catsrv.dll" Error code 0x8007007f. I don't know if
that
means anything. 6) Going into the Recovery Console - but not sure what I
was doing. I picked the number 1 and it seemed to be doing something, but
end results were the same 7) logging in as Administrator - same thing....
Windows XP looks like it is starting up, but doesn't.
Basically, my wallpaper is a picture of my son and that's all that this
computer will do - show me that picture. Any other suggestions?
First things first... consider carefully the answers to these two questions:
1) when was the last time you backed up your system?
2) How important is the data on it?
If you haven't backed up recently and the data is of value, how much is its
value? If it's could be expressed as around $100, there's a good way to
get a system running quickly, reliably, while ensuring that the data is
*safe*.
The idea is to regard the current drive as the data backup, setting it aside
for dreding and restoring and possible re-use later.
The alternative is to figure out a way to back up the drive as is, then try
to fix the drive as is... these can take some time and a lot of thought and
reasearch and experiment. Or you can just fix the thing.
Go to a computer store and buy a new, bare hard disk of the same type (IDE
or SATA) as your old one. Where I am , new 250 gig drives are around $75.
Also, get a USB2 drive case for the old drive - these start around $20 in
"adapter" form, where there is no case. Really, really handy things to
have.
Back home, remove the old drive, and set the jumpers on the new drive the
same as the old one, Put the new droive in and *do not* attach the old
drive to the system. Reinstall XP, then install the basic motherboard and
system drivers, and verify that you can make and get into accounts.
NOTE that some systems have other types of drives, like SD Card readers,
that can insert themselves as the C and D and E drives. Pay very close
attention at the *start* of setup, and if you see the XP partition being
offered as anything other than C, cancel.
Either go into the BIOS and disable these drives, or find the cables and
unplug them untill after the basic install is complete. When it is,
re-attach and enable them. The problem they can present cannot now
manifest.
Now, install XP SP2, preferably as part of your original install, or from
the *downloaded* SP2 file. Google "XP SP2 IT" to find this. It's around
260 meg. Save it to CD for later use, too.
Once SP2 is installed, get the rest of the updates, then install your basic
apps like Office. Finally, install your A/V and secuity apps, run updates
and scans, and then finish the installs.
Yes, this *will* take a few hours, but if you arrange things carefully,
you'll be able to watch several of the movies on DVD you wanted to see while
doing the installs and upgrades, occasionally glancing the the PC to see if
it's waiting for you to do something. You'll have to lean forward
periodically to click "yes". It's not a big stressful deal, and you should
have *no* problem winding up with a fully operational *and reliable* base
system in a few hours.
And the few hours you spend from this approach will be fairly relaxing, not
the rending-your-garments kind of frustration available from trying to fix
the obscure registry corruption issues you likely have now.
And the fact that your data is safe on another drive further reduces stress;
it's not at risk unless you knock the drive to the floor. So put it in a
drawer, so you can't! Store it in the antistatic bag you got with the new
drive. You don't need it till the system is done.
At this point, consider using an imaging program. This will create a
restorable snapshot of the system as it is, and this can save you all of
the time you've just spent setting up the system. In fact, it's not a
bad idea to make several of these as you proceed, so you can go back a few
steps. I use Acronis TrueImage (
www.acronis.com). There's a free demo,
but it's around 100 meg.
Once all this is done, attach the new drive with the USB 2 cable or case.
If the jumpers are correct (I find either none or Master) the drive will be
promptly recognised and you will have one more task, called Taking
Ownership.
When you try to access various folders on the old system, you may see an
"access denied" permissions message, and the link below tells you how to fix
it for XP Home and Pro - the process differs.
How to take ownership of a file or folder in Windows XP
support.microsoft.com/kb/308421
You should be able to use apps like Explorer and FileSync to simply copy
the files from the old user folders to the new drive's folder structures.
Here's the MS KB article on migrating data:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/811151
"How to copy data from a corrupted user profile to a new profile"
There's another really important reason for using this process with the new
drive. Many people are simply not aware of where all the data is on their
system and don't know where the mail and address book is stored... so they
don't get backed up. If you're restoring from the old drive, you have
whatever was on that drive (and isn't corrupt). There is no question of
what you remembered and what you didn't.
You can take a list of installed apps from the c:\Program Files folder.
You'll have to reinstall them, but it's easy to tell what they were.
HTH
-pk
