Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain (
More info?)
On Sun, 26 Dec 2004 09:31:01 -0800, "chriswebb_balt"
>cquirke,
Hi!
>Thank you for the response too. RAM seems to be ok. It works fine in
>another Mainboard on another PC and I have tried booting with one or the
>other and both and the same thing happens.
OK. IMO the best tester for RAM is MemTest86, which is currently
being maintained by both www.memtest86.com and www.memtest.org with
SIMMtester at www.simmtester.com being good too. I'd use MemTest in
All test mode (C, 2, 3) and expect it to take several hours to loop.
Having said that, I'd expect bad RAM to cause more random errors,
although a fresh install done in the same way each time could cause
RAM that's bad at a particular location to always fail the same way.
>- Bad HD - I ran a Drive Fitness Test on the drive when the problems began
>occurring as I have had to replace (warranty) that drive before. However,
>everything came up rosy.
OK. I'm a bit skeptical about "quick" tests, as they usually don't
test the HD surface at all, but just ask for historical SMART info and
(this is the bad bit) give a glib editorialized reply.
Put it this way: How keen do you expect an HD maker to be, when it
comes to doing warranty replacements? How much importance do you
think they will place on your data's safety?
You'd ideally want both a surface test and full SMART history detail.
If SMART shows that failing sectors have already started to be swapped
out, the surface test may look OK, but you'd know all is not well.
>- file damage - don't know about that...any ideas on this or is
>format/reinstall the route to fix that?
I thought you were doing a wipe and re-install? As formatting
re-initializes the file system, I'd not expect logical file system
errors to persist through that process.
>- active malware - I religously virus/spyware scan the PC and did deep scans
>when problems were happening. Again, I would scratch this off the list
If you are formatting and re-installing, then the relevance of malware
is limited to the following possibilities:
- Master Boot Record infectors (rare today, usu incompat with NT)
- infected boot, installtion, driver etc. disks
- infected material restored after the rebuild
- exposure to the Internet or other infected networks
>- version soup - Could be I guess....format/reinstall the solution here.
A solution, and a brute-force one at that.
>- bad installation disk or, less likely, the drive that reads it - It is an
>original XP (no SP1 or 2) and could be bad, but I have never had to use it so
>it has been stored away safely for 3 years.
OK. Ah; how big is the HD? The original XP CD will be particularly
weak on HDs over 137G in size.
>> I'd have done a formal virus check before trying the install (and I'd
>> have avioded NTFS originally, with this day in mind).
>Virus Check proved clear and the NTFS thing (now you tell me
)
How did you do your virus check, and what was it a check of?
Oh; now I get the context - it's a repair install. Well, if you have
SP'd your PC, that may well invalidate the ability to do a repair
install unless you also slipstream the SP into your installation disk.
MS should offer to create a slipstreamed installation CD to replace
your original, as part of the installation process of any SP that
breaks repair install and/or Recovery Console. But they don't.
You say your CD is XP SP0; what SP level is the installation you are
trying to repair? What size HD, again?
Are you on NTFS? If you aren't, then at least you can formally scan
for viruses using a DOS mode diskette boot and DOS-based av.
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Proverbs Unscrolled #37
"Build it and they will come and break it"
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