Hey again Dave,
Well, I'm getting used to being a bringer of bad news now...
Okay, Defragmenting, I've stared at this thing doing over 10 Defrags in a row, basically, the only thing it tries to do is move the 4 files that get the system locked up, these files are now :
'ntdll.dll',
'(a lot of numbers and letters).msi', located under 'windows\installer',
'restore_(a lot of numbers).dll' located under 'System Volume Information'
'restore_(a lot of different numbers).dll located under 'System Volume Information'
Basically, this is what happens when I start my Defragging;
It'll succesfully move a few random files around, it's usually the same ones that it defragged the last time I ran it, it will then get onto the files under System Volume Information and try and move them, they aren't big, one is 2mb and the other is 18mb, but it will get stuck for about 5 minutes trying to defrag these 2 files and will eventually carry on.
It will then carry on with some other random yet 'seen before' files, until it reaches ntdll.dll, and 'a lot of numbers and letters.msi', same behaviour, ntdll.dll is half a mb and the .msi file is about 5 mb, but it'll get stuck on these for ages.
After these have been initially checked, my defragger will be at around 6% complete, but, however, it will keep defragging the same files over and over, it keeps trying to defrag those .dll's, and the .msi and it won't give up, but the % goes up and up all the time. After about 50+ minutes it'll usually be complete and it'll tell me how many fragments it cured, the last report was a decrease of 1% in fragments, which still leaves lots and lots to be done.
As for your guidelines, I thought I'd try and use the sfc/ scannow, even tho I hadn't completely defragged everything, I was succesful in aquireing a home edition SP2 CD and able to do this but with no luck as to it fixing anything, as soon as the bar hit full, I restarted my computer. When I hit the startup screen I already noticed my resolution had gone down the drain, and somehow that System File Checker had uninstalled my Graphics Card, well, altho it was still displaying in the Hardware Overview, it wasn't active with my Profile or something, anyways, so I reinstalled it quickly seeing as I had the latest drivers already unzipped on my C: Drive. But as for the ntdll.dll functioning, well, I browsed towards the i386 folder and then clicked ntdll.dll, no lock up, but then I attempted to open it's Properties via a right-click and the same problem would occur.
I remember having troubles with my ntdll.dll a long time ago, or back when Winamp started acting up and blaming ntdll, I went online to see if my ntdll was authentic and it was fine, the file size, modified dates and file versions were all correct. Could it be possible that the file is just simply broken to bits ?... I mean, this seems to have occured in mostly .dll's in totally random parts on my computer. Mabey I bumped my laptop into something the other day haha...
I'm pretty close to just attacking CMD and manually removing all these files that are causing me these lock-ups, but I'm not quite sure if it's going to be that easy for me to get a new ntdll and that weird .msi installer file back, as I understand they are quite critical, or atleast ntdll...
Defragging was fun and all but I've had my share of it for now, I have 47% volume space free, but every time the sucker ends up scanning/defragging the mentioned files everything just goes wrong.
Well, if there's something else you have in mind Dave now is the time, haha, otherwise I'll just throw on a fresh copy of windows after backing up all my stuff, I have a 400gb external HDD that I bought not long ago, perfect for the occasion
Thanx again and Best Regards,
Senko