Windows XP Failure - Hardware, Software or Virus?

[Guest]

Hi

Im currently in the process of bringing my PC back from the brink. St
present I am unable to boot because a system32/hal.dll is not present. Before
this I was unable to boot without seeing a blue screen showing a lack of
memory.

I have been having problems for a few weeks now. At first just a little slow
down and the occassional crash, but it has recently escalated to large scale
slow down and fatal errors causing the pc to reboot. From the performances
menu in Task Manager I can see large large CPU usage peaks with the processor
running at 100% consistantly with no programs running. Simil;arly, on startup
the PF usage is settled around 200MB but gradually increases over a matter of
minutes until it is 2 or 3 GB+. This is usually about when the system
declares a fatal error and reboots itself.

The only process that appears to be taking processor power at these points
is svchost, that will usually run between 0-1%. I have been aprehensive to
end this though as I know it to be a core process. I also had similar
problems with lsass.exe. I researched and figured it could be the Welchia
Worm or MSBLAST.D virus but have found no trace with any anti virus software.
I tried the suggested treatments regardless with no success.

A couple of days ago the problems got to the point where no prgrams would
open and the system rebooted every few minutes. I managed to rectify this by
reinstalling windows, but it appears to have been short lived. Now, after a
fatal error the PC has been unable to reboot.

Ironically I was planning on moving all of my work across a network and
reformatting the hard drive this weekend. A boot disk won't work so I have
been booting from CD. Apparently my hard drive is partitioned, which I didnt
know about. I'm given the option of 8MB unpartitioned, Dartition 2
[unknown] 2494MB (2494 MB free) or Cartition 1 [unknown] 114738MB (114737MB
free).

I cannot reinstal windows without formatting one of them, and I'd rathjer
not loose any of my files.

Can anybody suggest a possible cause or solution?

Thanks in advance. Im running a P4 with around 80GB harddrive and plenty of
SDRAM. Specifics on request

Ps. I apologise for not knowing the specifics of some of the error messages.
I would replicate them if I could.

 

[peterk]

Actually, you may be able to avoid much of the drama by examing the existing
Boot.ini. The problem may be that it is not referring to the correct
location of the windows installation.
Boot to a command prompt and type the following
This can be done with a 98 boot disk or if you made one an XP disk
Copy boot.ini boot.bak - to make a backup
(if you get in trouble type "copy boot.bak boot.ini" to restore)

attrib -h -r -s boot.ini
to make the file editable

then type
edit boot.ini

under the heading [operating systems]
you'll see something like default
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS

might be a little difficult to figure out where the mistake is, but multi 0
means the primary controller, disk (0) is always (0), rdisk is the physical
disk number, and the partition is the partition number.(beginning at 1, not
0)

Basically if windows is on the first partition of your only hard disk, it
should be multi 0, disk0,rdisk0,part1
and if you installed on d, it'll mean the partition value is 2. (Unless
thats a second disk, then the rdisk value is 1, and partition is also 1)

once you have made changes, press alt, f and x to exit
hope this helps
peterk


--
It's so much easier to suggest solutions when you don't know too much about
the problem

Hi

Im currently in the process of bringing my PC back from the brink. St
present I am unable to boot because a system32/hal.dll is not present.
Before
this I was unable to boot without seeing a blue screen showing a lack of
memory.

I have been having problems for a few weeks now. At first just a little
slow
down and the occassional crash, but it has recently escalated to large
scale
slow down and fatal errors causing the pc to reboot. From the performances
menu in Task Manager I can see large large CPU usage peaks with the
processor
running at 100% consistantly with no programs running. Simil;arly, on
startup
the PF usage is settled around 200MB but gradually increases over a matter
of
minutes until it is 2 or 3 GB+. This is usually about when the system
declares a fatal error and reboots itself.

The only process that appears to be taking processor power at these points
is svchost, that will usually run between 0-1%. I have been aprehensive to
end this though as I know it to be a core process. I also had similar
problems with lsass.exe. I researched and figured it could be the Welchia
Worm or MSBLAST.D virus but have found no trace with any anti virus
software.
I tried the suggested treatments regardless with no success.

A couple of days ago the problems got to the point where no prgrams would
open and the system rebooted every few minutes. I managed to rectify this
by
reinstalling windows, but it appears to have been short lived. Now, after
a
fatal error the PC has been unable to reboot.

Ironically I was planning on moving all of my work across a network and
reformatting the hard drive this weekend. A boot disk won't work so I have
been booting from CD. Apparently my hard drive is partitioned, which I
didnt
know about. I'm given the option of 8MB unpartitioned, Dartition 2
[unknown] 2494MB (2494 MB free) or Cartition 1 [unknown] 114738MB
(114737MB
free).

I cannot reinstal windows without formatting one of them, and I'd rathjer
not loose any of my files.

Can anybody suggest a possible cause or solution?

Thanks in advance. Im running a P4 with around 80GB harddrive and plenty
of
SDRAM. Specifics on request

Ps. I apologise for not knowing the specifics of some of the error
messages.
I would replicate them if I could.

 

[QT]

A few things to consider. I think you have a virus. For all the things you
mention to go wrong around the same time is unusual in terms of the usual
problems that you would encounter.
That being said, I would do a repair install of xp, that wont solve the
virus problem if you do have a virus but could help you get your files.
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm
If the files are that important and you are not comfortable with all this
work, I would take the pc to a good local repair shop(NOT a best buy or comp
usa).
The other possibility is if it's not booting due to hardware issues you
could try installing the hard drive in another computer as the slave.

Hi

Im currently in the process of bringing my PC back from the brink. St
present I am unable to boot because a system32/hal.dll is not present.
Before
this I was unable to boot without seeing a blue screen showing a lack of
memory.

I have been having problems for a few weeks now. At first just a little
slow
down and the occassional crash, but it has recently escalated to large
scale
slow down and fatal errors causing the pc to reboot. From the performances
menu in Task Manager I can see large large CPU usage peaks with the
processor
running at 100% consistantly with no programs running. Simil;arly, on
startup
the PF usage is settled around 200MB but gradually increases over a matter
of
minutes until it is 2 or 3 GB+. This is usually about when the system
declares a fatal error and reboots itself.

The only process that appears to be taking processor power at these points
is svchost, that will usually run between 0-1%. I have been aprehensive to
end this though as I know it to be a core process. I also had similar
problems with lsass.exe. I researched and figured it could be the Welchia
Worm or MSBLAST.D virus but have found no trace with any anti virus
software.
I tried the suggested treatments regardless with no success.

A couple of days ago the problems got to the point where no prgrams would
open and the system rebooted every few minutes. I managed to rectify this
by
reinstalling windows, but it appears to have been short lived. Now, after
a
fatal error the PC has been unable to reboot.

Ironically I was planning on moving all of my work across a network and
reformatting the hard drive this weekend. A boot disk won't work so I have
been booting from CD. Apparently my hard drive is partitioned, which I
didnt
know about. I'm given the option of 8MB unpartitioned, Dartition 2
[unknown] 2494MB (2494 MB free) or Cartition 1 [unknown] 114738MB
(114737MB
free).

I cannot reinstal windows without formatting one of them, and I'd rathjer
not loose any of my files.

Can anybody suggest a possible cause or solution?

Thanks in advance. Im running a P4 with around 80GB harddrive and plenty
of
SDRAM. Specifics on request

Ps. I apologise for not knowing the specifics of some of the error
messages.
I would replicate them if I could.