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Having Some issues with Windows XP following an Update

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  • Windows XP
  • Computers
Last response: in Windows XP
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September 3, 2014 7:40:53 PM

Hello everyone,

I happen to be in need of some advice. I recently was given an old custom built pc by a friend whose parents no longer wanted it. As far as the system's specs go, here's what I know off the top of my head that i think would be relevant to the problem but if anyone would like more specs i can try to get them:

OS: Windows XP
HDD: 2x 75gb IDE drives in RAID 1
RAM: 4 sticks with 2gb total
CPU: Pentium 4 2.8GHz

The computer was functioning perfectly when i received it, so my plan was to clean it up and replace my parents' desktop which is even older than this particular pc. When I first turned on the computer I began attempting to remove as many unnecessary programs as possible (My friend's parents were not good at uninstalling things they didn't use anymore). I did not knowingly uninstall anything that would have harmed the functionality of the computer. I also ran a disk cleanup and defragment. I then installed a few programs myself (Quicktime, Adobe Reader, and Avira anti-virus). Once those were completed, i started the update of the Winows Xp OS. There were 132 updates that needed to be done. This is where my problems began.

The Windows update process froze around update 72 of 132. To be sure it was frozen I let it sit for quite a while before attempting anything. It was at update 72 for at least 6 hours before I decided to hold the power button to shut down the system. I restarted the system and it seemed fine so I shut it down properly because it again showed that there were updates to install. This time, the updates started right where they left off at 72 and continued until it hit update 122 of 132. At this point it froze, and again, I held the power button to shut down the system. Now when I start the computer, windows will boot 98% of the time and every so often it will only boot to the bios and the OS does not start (I get no error messages, Windows just simply does not start). I then have to restart the computer.

When the OS actually boots (which is most of the time), and I get to the start screen, functionality does not last long. If i click anything other than the start button on the taskbar, the computer will freeze (I still have use of the mouse pointer but it will not allow me to click anything). I have tried to enter cmd to run the chkdsk utility however the system freezes shortly after i run the command. It seems like I have a few seconds of functionality until everything except the ability to move the mouse pointer stops working. Im hesitant to turn it on again because i dont want to have it freeze again. Every time I'm forced to turn it off using the power button so I would like to avoid that.

If anyone has any ideas of what the problem could be or how I might go about finding a solution, please let me know. I was thinking I may have messed up something in the registry by uninstalling/installing so many things or that maybe somehow the operating system is damaged because of the shutdowns during the update process but I do not know for sure.

I realize It might have been stupid to do so much installing/uninstalling without cleaning the registry and I know using the power button was a bad idea but I did not know what else to do at the time.

If anyone could provide some assistance it would be greatly appreciated, and if you need anymore information let me know.Thanks

More about : issues windows update

September 4, 2014 2:52:34 AM

You should try booting into safe mode (press F8 during boot) to see if you can fix it from there.
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