Programs not starting and more

[lurch101]

Hey all, I'm having crazy problems with an XP install on my office comp. I can't get certain programs to start, despite uninstall and reinstall. The other user of this computer mentioned this began a while back (he says 6 months), so I don't really know where to go for a system restore, or what I'll lose in the process. Recently, when using Acrobat to scan a document, the printer would run, Acrobat would finish, but not open the doc to do OCR and deskew and all that. I uninstalled the printer drivers and installed basic print drivers and that solved that problem.

Now, I've got more interesting issues. iTunes and Quicktime won't start, nor will GoLive 6 (other user prefers old software) or even the CoffeeCup HTML Editor he installed when GoLive went bad. I checked Event Viewer and it doesn't even show these application starting. It comes up in Task Manager for a blip, then ends. I recently re-installed Sony Vegas and it has an error at startup stating a problem with the Quicktime plug-in. I also couldn't get the Add/Remove Program Manager to populate a list of installed software, so I'm currently using Glary Utilities to do that.

In addition to those, I'm having a problem with the "Browse for Folder" dialog box when saving files. If I type the address in the bar, I can save the files wherever I want. If I scroll down, it locks up.

I have Win 7 installed on a separate partition using a dual-boot method. I used the Windows Memory Diagnostic tool to check my RAM, which turned out clean. I do have a RAID 1 setup running off my ICH10R chipset, so it may be something going bad there.

I've tried doing a repair installation of XP with the backup drive unplugged in case anything went wrong. After the repair, Windows wouldn't start up, so I went back to the old installation. I tried with a different version of XP, and that crashed during setup three times, so I gave up on that. These may be errors due to nLite (I have no floppy drive, so I needed it for the RAID drivers), but the original installation was with nLite which worked fine for the most part. I would use the original nLite installation disk, but it was set to automate the installation and I don't know if it would format the drive.

I've done a CHKDSK /f on the OS drives, but they're 1TB so I'm never around when the check finishes. Any other ideas of how to check what the problem may be before I go for a format/reinstall? Thanks for reading.

 

[hang-the-9]

Sounds like you need to re-install Windows. You have way too many issues here to try to fix without doing that. You may have a virus but with so many issues using even the most basic Windows functions (Add/Remove Programs for example), you are way better off re-installing the OS.

 

[lazyperson17]

Run a malware check. use the following post from aford10:

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/248626-45-simple-free-guide-removing-malware

After running these tests, try opening the task manager, and look at the processes tab. Then click on the CPU tab TWICE to show you whats using up a majority of your CPU when you open or close a program. If you see something that you dont normally see, you might have some kind of virus/trojan that is blocking whatever your trying to do.

 

[lurch101]

Cool, I hadn't run that in Safe Mode yet, so I started that yesterday before I left. I did a full scan and after 17 hours, it still wasn't done. I may need a weekend to get that finished (or move a lot off the drive). I also forgot to mention a few things:

1. I had TWO hard drives die in 6 months. Both were over 2 years old, but I've never had one die on me before, so I was a little worried about my power. One was internal and the other was a USB external. I've since gotten a UPS with power conditioning hoping that clean power would extend the life of the 'puter.

2. I used to use WinDirStat to get a feel for my hard drive usage. It currently won't finish any scan, and gets hung up at about 5% on any drive I try to scan.

I almost get the feeling that it could be some data corruption, so I'll re-check the MoBo connections.

I also forgot to drop my specs, so here they are:

MoBo: Gigabyte Ep45-UD3R
CPU: Core 2 Quad Q9550
RAM: 4GB Mushkin Enhanced Blackline
HDD: 1TB (x2 in RAID 1) WD Caviar Black (don't have model #s on hand)
Vid: XFX GeForce 6600

I'll repost with results.

 

[hang-the-9]

From the number of issues you have, and the fact that nothing is able to read your drives properly, you either should re-install Windows or get a new drive. I'm actually leaning towards a new drive. The more you mess with what you have now, the more chances you have of losing your data.

 

[lazyperson17]

From the number of issues you have, and the fact that nothing is able to read your drives properly, you either should re-install Windows or get a new drive. I'm actually leaning towards a new drive. The more you mess with what you have now, the more chances you have of losing your data.

I would have to side with hang on this one. Getting a new drive will not only allow you to install a fresh copy, but if you make the old drive a "slave" drive, you can still acquire all of your old files without worrying about a reformat deleting all of them.