Do Need To Reinstall OS / Possibly A Corrupt Registry?
May 22, 2008
I have very minimal knowledge of computers, so please bear with me. I'd appreciate any help or advice. I'm not really sure what is relevant and what is not, so I may be including information that is completely useless. Until this weekend, I had xp home on my home computer. I use a program at work that I need to be able to use at home. I was using it without any problems until about 2 months ago, when the program did an upgrade. Since then, I have not been able to run this program at home. I have spent numerous hours in an open meeting with them, trying to fix the problem, and it seems to have baffled a lot of their tech support people. Finally, one of the tech support people noticed that I had xp home as my OS, and then told me that the program did not support xp home, only xp professional, so she couldn't help me any more, and said she suspected that was the problem.
I didn't think this was really the problem, but given that they would not help me any further, I purchased an upgrade to windows xp pro this weekend and installed it without any difficulty. Not surprisingly, the program from work still doesn't work. I spent another several hours earlier this week in an open meeting with the tech support people. The head guy told me that he thinks that there is a problem with my registry, and that is why the program is not working. I am not quite sure how he came to that conclusion, but it seems to be related to the fact that this weekend, after I installed xp pro, that one of my automatic updates (for windows installer 3.1 ) did not install with the error message 0x80070005. I have never had a problem with other updates not installing before, at least not that I'm aware of. Apparently, this update is crucial to running the program from work - or just updates in general are crucial?
I was recently in the middle of doing a chkdsk /f when it froze at 2% for almost an hour.... So I did a hard reset and now I get a BSoD with "Stop error: 0x00000024" which I'm assuming has something to do with the ntfs.sys file? I do not have my original XP installation disc and I cannot boot into safe mode (BSoD also.) The only thing I have is an Ubuntu live CD.. Anything I can do to fix it?
I was recently in the middle of doing a chkdsk /f when it froze at 2% for almost an hour.So I did a hard reset and now I get a BSoD with "Stop error: 0x00000024" which I'm assuming has something to do with the ntfs.sys file? I do not have my original XP installation disc and I cannot boot into safe mode (BSoD also.) The only thing I have is an Ubuntu live CD
My box runs Windows XP Service Pack 2 32-bit home edition with AMD Athlon, Maxtor (ribbon cable'd, not SATA) with 3 sticks of 512MB DDR2 RAM. I haven't touched the hardware in about a month and a half.
Symptoms: Shows the windows XP pro login randomally; once logged in, background shows, explorer.exe doesn't run, and no windows hot keys respond. (every 1/8 boots) Services and programs randomally quit out and will not run. Restarting them results in another crash
I'm running XP Pro SP3 and have recently encountered a problem whereby both the mouse and the keyboard freeze the first time that the keyboard is used. (The system still seems to be running because it performs a normal shutdown when I hit the power button.) Googling suggested uninstalling the keyboard from device manager and then letting it reinstall; however, the add new hardware wizard fails saying that the device driver is corrupt or missing.How do I reinstall the keyboard drivers from the XP Pro CD? I've tried letting the hardware wizard search the cd drive, but it doesn't find anything.I think I had the same problem on my notebook, but I only solved it by reverting to an old Ghost image, because having to press Ctrl-Alt-Del to log on meant I couldn't even access the system with the mouse.
When I started up my computer yesterday it said I had a missing or corrupt file and I needed to reinstall windows. So I put my disk in and it said loading files then it said setup is starting windows and then it said loading files. It kept doing this over and over and over. So I took the CD out and tried starting the computer. I got a disk read error. This is where I am now.
Initially the computer had a spyware infection. While cleaning it up I got a message telling me some windows files had been changed and i needed to insert the Windows XP CD to restore them. Didn't have CD handy at the time, so I installed SP2 hoping it would replace the corrupt files. Soon afterwards I got a message on reboot saying Windows had recovered from a corrupt registry. I was going to do a SFC /scannow, but at some point I was no longer able to boot into Windows.
This machine has been unstable for a while now. It has gotten to the point where after every reboot, something has changed -- sometimes the sound device driver could not be loaded, reboot, it's ok, but firefox won't load, next reboot, my nvidia control panel won't load, reboot, something is funny with microsoft .net framework.Now after a reboot, I have the registry error: "one of the files containing the system's registry data had to be recovered by use of log or alternate copy". Bummer.This error, along with all of the inconsistent program and system errors, leads me to believe the registry is hosed.My questions are: If the registry is corrupt, a clean install is the only answer?I don't know at what point it became corrupt, but are there telltale signs to look for as I am installing new software?
I was trying to backup the registry of my Windows XP Home edition desktop, and I was going to use the program ERDNT. Mistakenly, I copied the folder over from my Vista laptop, forgetting that it carried backups of my Vista registry. So I launched the program, and mistakenly, restored my Vista registry backup onto my XP computer. I panicked, and tried doing a system restore right after. Now, everytime the computer starts up I get an error saying that msisadrv.sys is missing or corrupt. What can I do?
blue srceen tried safemode reinstall a fix on pc that worked but not this time keeps booting back to registry- error a problem has been detected windows has to shut down but freezes their hold button a lot of times to shut down. laptop is dell insprion 8200. I can get into bios to run xp cd repair but keeps going back to blue nightmare. error reads If problems continue, disable or remove any newly Installed hardware software disable BIOS memery options such as caching or shadowing. use safemode stop: DX0000005 (OX00000001, OXE15D9008 ,OX005CE000,Ox000001D6)
From time to time, I visit my registry. The following odd entries are new since I last looked. They appear to be empty and maybe even corrupt.Are they safe to remove? Is there any program that would identify these and mark them as removable? this is XP Sp2, if that matters. Only keys like this are in this hive.
Windows ME then my daughter downloaded windows XP,so she could use her IPOD as she couldn't use it with Windows ME, now nothing seems to work and I keep getting messenger service messages saying my registry is corrupt and other similar messages. I had downloaded mozilla firefox to enable me to play mahjong but I am unable to log onto mozilla since downloading the XP. Is there something I have to do to get this right.
I just updated my XP and when it rebooted, I got an error message saying 0x80004005, Also, I have seem to lost my Windows XP CD. I updated with the Genuine Advantage tool and errors started popping up. I'm not sure what to do now. I googled and It said something about a corrupt registry.
When I turn on my computer running windows XP, I recieve the following message: STOP: c0000218 {Registry File Failure The registry cannot load the hive (file): SystemRootSystem32ConfigSOFTWARE or its log or alternate. It is corrupt, absent, or not writable. how to get it normal and my data too?
I was running CyberScrub the other day, which is a program that cleans out internet cache and deletes files beyond recovery. After it was done with the procedure, the computer restarted and chdisk began to run before my Windows XP booted up. After Windows was done doing chdisk, it started doing some wierd stuff I've never seen before.It was scrolling down with the same line but with the number increasing into the thousands. I thought maybe it was just doing a routine check but when I when my desktop came up I started to notice all kinds of wierd errors now. Here are just some examples: My taskbar disappeared and there's no way to conventionally fix it (Start doesn't come up when I press the windows key on my keyboard). My soundcard is undetectable. I can't copy and paste from and to my browsers. Can't find my RPC server. I can't move my desktop icons, etc.
I use acronis as a restore tool and have never had a problem restoring the entire operating system. I had this individual program that was corrupted and I reinstalled it from the image I made using acronis. However, the program failed to appear in the add/remove section of windows. I beleive that I have to manually reinstall the registry entry of the program in order for it to appear in the add/remove section. My question is: is there a registry backup utility that'll let me reinstall individual entries? Something that's a no-brainer also as I'm not completely comfortable fooling around with the registry.
I was not able to install a new version of an engineering software package because something was left behind in the registry from the older version that I had removed. So I stupidly deleted a couple of registry keys that looked related to the software without documenting them (not just the tags, but the folders with the long alphanumeric strings). Now when I try to install the software it gives me an error. I ran system restore but the problem is still there (I don't think it restored the registry keys I deleted). Is there a way to install all of the default Windows SP2 registry keys or to download and reinstall SP2 in general?
I had to reformat and reinstall Win XP and then restore from backups, some didn't work as advertised.I can't reinstall Acronis True Image because it didn't fully uninstall. There is an entry "[13:51:18 - Error]: Failed to remove "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareAcronis"! Windows core returned the following error: "Invalid key"" which my registry cleaner can't remove. Using regedit I tried but I got the same msg.
Everytime i boot my comp i get the same things happening. I let windows load and get a BSOD just b4 i get to my account logon. The BSOD states: STOP: c0000218 (Registry File Failure) Registry cannot load hive (file): SystemRootSystem32ConfigSoftware or its log or alternate. Corrupt, absent, or not writable. Ive tried to work around it by using my Windows XP Home SP2 disk and booting from that but then i get stuck in the loading process of the disk saying that: aic78xx.sys is corrupt press any key to continue
I restarted my computer in safe mode to see if it would get a program to work. Not only did it not work, it seems to have severely crippled my system.The first thing I noticed (after restoring to normal boot mode) was that my GUI was very simplified not what it usually is for Windows XP. A simple example is that the minimize maximize close buttons look like the Windows 98 version rather than Windows XP. Also, more advertisements were popping up than I was used to which quickly led me to discover that my Norton Personal Firewall and System Works were disabled. When I tried to open them manually, I was greeted instead with an error message which instructed me to reinstall Norton. Though I knew it wouldn't help, I tried to uninstall Norton System Works but the uninstall program didn't execute properly. I then used Symantec's website instructions for uninstalling Norton manually. When I tried to reinstall it, another error message popped up and I have since been unable to install it.Various system utilites are disabled. Device manager displays no devices. None. I attempted to use system restore to restore it to an earlier date. It instructed me to click on a date in bold but the only date in bold was from two minutes after I had destroyed my computer. I restored to that point just for the heck of it with predictable (no) results. Also, my computer doesn't detect a sound card so I can't even listen to music while I fix my computer. I'm still not sure of the full extent of the problem.The internet is working decently (how else would I be posting this?) but certain sites aren't working. The obvious notable one is the Windows Update site. Also, when I tried to update HijackThis to post my log (I'll post it on request) I got the now familiar, "Cannot connect to server," error. Even programs like AIM don't connect properly and I'm currently using an old version-- not even the newest one-- of AIM Express to chat.
I try to sync my thumb drive in Sync-Toy. There is an error in J:Guitar MusicTracksGeoff AchisonGettin evil.I begin to investigate.they used to be MP3s, and they weren't like this when my guitar teacher gave them to me. When I try to delete them I get - "Could not Delete file. Cannot read from source file or disk".Luckily, this THING didn't copy across to the copy on my hard drive (C:Guitar MusicTracksGeoff AchisonGettin' Evil)
I've been having probems with my sound recently. I think that the problems are driver related, but Ive tried reinstalling them, and getting new ones (the new ones had major problems). Its SoundMAX digital audio
I really need your help to fix my computer. I have my company laptop with me, it's Dell Latitude D820 with Windows XP Pro installed on it. Recently my computer got some worm, but i ignored it, because i didn't think it was really a thread, however it actually opened the backdoor and downloaded some trojan (low risk - i don't remember the name of the virus), i noticed it when i connected my computer yesterday morning and the virus has been deleted by symantec anti virus. However i need to edit some registry on my computer, so i did that, i changed some of them, by the end of the day there was no problem at all
I've got a bit of a problem with my computer and was hoping some advice. Basically all the USB 2.0 ports on my computer have recently stopped working - I can still use them to charge my iPod, but not to communicate with it (I no longer get the little icon in the bottom right hand side of the screen when it's connected), and I can't use my printer because the computer insists it's off-line (I've tried two different cables so it can't be a problem with that).I've got two USB 2.0 ports on the back of my computer (built into my motherboard - can't remember the exact model offhand but the processor is one of those 2800+ Athlon 64bit ones, if that?s relevant) and I've also recently upgraded my monitor to a dell FPW2005, so I've now got another couple (not working) on the side of that too. I even tried taking the USB 2.0 card from my old computer (that has 4 USB 2.0 sockets in it and plugs directly into the motherboard) - but this didn't work either
what ocat yellow pages is? this programs seems to take over my friends computer here at home. Can anyone Please tell me what this is and how he can get rid of it ASAP?
I reinstall Windows XP Home because My computer was messed up. It deleted all my files.. so on my desktop screen I don't have any Program Files Icons. BUT it still save my Files. I have my orginial files in my Documents folders and In my Program Files It has all the Programs and files that go with that program? How do I zap everything back on my desktop screen so I don't have to go Download each files as new again??? And I how do i get my Internet Favorite Links and my Notepad with my saved information in it? Yes I did try the "Start" and then program files and none of the programs are there.. BUT yet it is in my Program Hard drive C: Program files. with the Program and all it's content?
I reformatted my hard drive due to OS issues, I was running a trial version of Server 2003 along with XP Pro, and I had to get rid of Server 2003 because it was conflicting with XP Pro, and so the only way to do that was by reformatting both hard drives including XP Pro because Server 2003 was acting as the dominant OS, so I backed up all my ****, and reinstalled XP Pro, but now I get this hard drive problem that it says only 51 Gigs are remaining on a 250GB Hard drive, when the only thing installed on that hard drive is XP pro and maybe 15 applications, I tried using every program I can think of to find hidden files that equal a huge size but nothing shows up
My Help and Support stopped working about the same time I installed the free utility GhostScript / Gsview so that I could view postscript files. I tried posting a question on another usenet newsgroup, but the answer of: click on install on the C:windowsinfpchealth.inf file - resulted in a search for the file dataspec.xml in the C:windowsinfi386 directory - Unfortunately, such directory does not exist on my C: drive. Furthermore, the "K:I386" directory of my Original Win XP Home CD does not contain any file named "dataspec.xm_ or .xml".And beyond that, I ordered a new Win XP SP2 CD, which just now arrived by mail - and there is no "K:I386" directory on that CD, nor does the CD apparently contain any file called "dataspec" (including dataspec.*).Another effort toward resolution occurred via another usenet post I read, which suggested opening the XP command line feature and executing a system status command, that displayed enabled services - I used that method, and switched the Help and Support service off and then on again. Such action did not in-fact enable the Help feature (including, of course restart), despite the indication that the Help and Support service was enabled. I am, and have been, running a purchased-CD version of Win XP Home, with a downloaded SP2 revision (I have not installed the new Win XP SP2 CD). Basically, I want to find out the means and methods for enabling my Win XP SP2 Help and Support feature, that apparently has been disabled or otherwise rendered inoperative.Is a reinstall of Win XP possible and the best choice? What are the other options?
Because of massive system porblems I have had t reinstall XP Pr with SP2. Before reinstalling XP I formmated the hard drives t give me a blank canvas to work. The reinstall worked fine but I cannot reinstall my Virgin Media Bradband service. Before the reinstall the bradband service was wrking fine..When I originall took out the bradband service it was through NTL. My cable modem states 'NTL' and the broadband disk has NTL' on it and I registered it tthough NTL. Now Virgin Media has bought up NTl annd I don't know if there is a compatibility prblem. Des somebdy else know?
I've been having some internet connectivity problems lately, and I believe it's due to some nasty spyware. I've already gone through all the steps to correct this (checking my DSL speed, anti-spyware scans, anti-virus scans, doing it all in safe mode, even reset my winsock.dll, etc.) but I'm still having problems with slow browsers. So now I think I'm faced with reinstalling Windows XP. My question is, should I do a format & reinstall, or is it better to reinstall Windows over my existing version? I have a Compaq Presario, and it comes with a Recovery CD.
I want to backup my Autocomplete User Names and Passwords, Web Addresses, and Forms entries in the registry. What are the registry addresses for these items?